Yielding to God: How Grace Empowers True Surrender
Yielding to God is one of the most vital aspects of the Christian Walk, yet it is often misunderstood. To yield means to give way, to surrender, and to let God take the lead rather than pushing forward in our own strength. It is not weakness, but rather an act of trust that acknowledges God’s wisdom, authority, and timing as greater than our own.
When we yield, we are not giving up control to fate—we are placing our lives in the hands of the One who knows the end from the beginning. This surrender becomes the pathway to peace, the posture for receiving grace, and the key to walking in the fullness of God’s will.
Submission and yielding often go hand in hand, but they are not the same. Submission is about the posture of the heart—willingly placing yourself under God’s authority and acknowledging His Lordship over your life. Yielding, on the other hand, is the continual act of surrendering your will, strength, and rights in order to align with His will.
To make it simple, imagine joining a sports team. Submitting is like agreeing that the coach is in charge and that you will play under their authority. Yielding happens during the game itself—when the coach calls, “Pass the ball!” you stop what you wanted to do and follow their plan.
This difference is crucial in our walk with Christ. You can have authority and power through Him, but unless you yield to God’s direction, you risk misusing them or failing to exercise them at all. Yielding ensures that authority and power are channeled rightly, accomplishing what God intends rather than what we might attempt in our own strength.
Dependent on God’s Grace
The sports analogy helps us see the difference between submission and yielding, but when it comes to God, the picture goes even deeper. On a team, you yield to the coach through your own will. With God, however, yielding cannot be accomplished by sheer willpower. Human will is inconsistent—pulled by sin, weakened by selfish desires, and prone to failure.
The apostle Paul admitted this tension in Romans 7:18–19: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” On our own, surrendering is impossible.
This is why true yielding comes only through God’s grace. It is His empowering presence that enables us to surrender our will, to crucify the desires of the flesh, and to live in alignment with Christ. Yielding, then, is not a triumph of human discipline but a testimony of divine grace working in us.
The Paradox of Yielding: Our Weakness and God’s Strength
At first glance, yielding to God seems like a paradox. On one hand, Scripture calls us to surrender our lives fully to Christ. On the other hand, it also reveals that we are too weak in ourselves to accomplish such surrender. How can God ask us to do something we cannot do on our own?
The answer lies in grace. God is not demanding that we rely on sheer willpower—He knows our human limitations. Instead, He invites us to yield by depending on His empowering grace. This is the beauty of the gospel: what we cannot achieve in our strength, God accomplishes through His Spirit within us. Yielding, then, is not about straining harder but about recognizing our weakness and leaning into His strength. Grace does not remove the call to surrender; it makes surrender possible.
Grace: The Foundation of Yielding
At the center of yielding to God is grace. Grace is God’s unconditional love and unearned favor toward humanity. It is not something we can achieve, earn, or buy—it is the free gift of God through Jesus Christ. Through grace, our sins are forgiven and we are welcomed into fellowship with the Father. But grace does more than save us; it also sustains us. It provides the strength and divine empowerment needed to live in alignment with God’s will.
Without grace, surrender would be impossible, for our human weakness would constantly pull us off course. With grace, however, we are not only pardoned but also equipped. Grace becomes the very foundation upon which yielding stands, because it makes possible what human effort alone could never accomplish.
The Starting Point: Faith in Christ
At the very foundation of yielding is faith. Grace is not some abstract force floating through the universe—it is found in the person of Jesus Christ. To have Him is to have grace, and to receive Him begins with faith. Without faith in Christ, there is no way to receive His grace.
Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Faith is the doorway that opens us to salvation, forgiveness, and the empowering work of God’s Spirit. From there, grace continues to flow as we walk in humility and grow in our personal relationship with God. To receive grace is to believe in Jesus, humble yourself before Him, and continually abide in His presence. Yielding, then, always begins with faith—it is trusting Christ enough to surrender and allowing His grace to do what our willpower never could.
Grace in Action
Grace is far more than unmerited favor—it is also God’s active power working within us to accomplish what we cannot do in our own strength. The key to experiencing this power is yielding. When we refuse to yield, we end up relying on our own willpower, plans, and strength, which are always limited and flawed.
But when we yield, we willingly surrender control, admit our weakness, and create space for God to move. That is when grace flows freely, because we are no longer resisting or blocking it. Think of it like a pipe with a valve: grace is the water, and yielding is opening the valve. God has given us the incredible gift of free will, and He never forces us to use it against our choice. This means His grace and power will not work in us unless we are willing to yield. Yielding is the posture that allows grace to flow unhindered, empowering us to live in ways we never could on our own.
Strength in Weakness
In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul recounts visions and revelations where he was caught up into the “third heaven” and heard inexpressible things that no one is permitted to tell. To keep him from becoming conceited because of such extraordinary experiences, God allowed “a thorn in the flesh” to remain with him.
Paul pleaded three times for the Lord to remove it, but God’s answer was not deliverance—it was grace. The Lord declared, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Instead of resenting this answer, Paul embraced it. He went so far as to say, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (vv. 9–10).
Paul’s response teaches us a key truth: human weakness is the stage where God’s grace and power are most clearly displayed. God did not remove the thorn, but He assured Paul that His grace would always be enough—fully adequate, never lacking—for every trial he faced.
The lesson is not to complain about weakness but to yield to God in the midst of it, trusting that His strength will sustain us. True apostleship and true discipleship are not proven by boasting or self-promotion but by service, love, integrity, and dependence on God’s power. In our own lives, yielding to God often means accepting that struggles may remain, yet knowing His grace is sufficient to carry us through.
Grace Multiplied Through God’s Word and Prayer
Yielding to God is not a one-time event but a continual journey that grows deeper as we walk with Him. Scripture shows us that grace is not static—it can be multiplied in our lives. Peter writes, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2).
The more we know Christ, the more His grace and peace abound within us. This knowledge comes through His Word and prayer, as we spend time in fellowship with God and allow His truth to renew our minds. As our relationship with the Father and the Son grows, so too does the flow of grace in our lives. It increases abundantly, giving us strength to yield daily, peace to face trials, and confidence to walk in His will. Yielding, then, is nourished by intimacy with God, where grace becomes not just sufficient but multiplied.
The Posture of Humility: Receiving God’s Grace
If grace is the power that makes yielding possible, then humility is the posture that attracts that grace. James 4:6 declares, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Pride resists God, insisting on self-sufficiency, but humility acknowledges dependence: “I can’t do this on my own, I need You, Lord.”
When we humble ourselves before Him, we open the door for His grace to flood into our lives. Yielding cannot happen from a place of pride, because pride clings to control. But humility lays down control and trusts God fully. This posture allows grace to flow freely, transforming weakness into strength and surrender into victory. In this way, humility and yielding work hand in hand, both pointing us back to God as the true source of power and life.
Yielding Made Possible by Grace: A Divine Partnership
With grace, yielding becomes possible. Grace is not only unmerited favor—it is also God’s active power enabling us to do what we could never accomplish on our own. At first, it may feel like a paradox: on the surface we are yielding, but in reality, it is God’s grace that makes that very surrender possible. Yielding is both our choice and God’s gift, forming a divine partnership.
An analogy helps make this clear: imagine rowing a boat. Your strokes matter, but it is the river’s current that truly carries you forward. In the same way, yielding to Christ is like aligning your boat with the current of His grace. When you do, even your small efforts are magnified by His power, moving you further than you could ever row on your own. Yielding, then, is not about straining harder but about trusting the flow of God’s grace to carry you where He wills.
Yielding Through the Power of Grace
Yielding to God is not about gritting our teeth and forcing surrender—it is about opening our hearts to the flow of His grace. We’ve seen that grace is God’s unearned favor, His unconditional love, His active power working in us, His strength revealed in our weakness, His gift multiplied through His Word and prayer, and the supply He gives to the humble who depend on Him.
Grace begins with faith in Christ and continues to sustain us as we grow in our relationship with Him. Without grace, yielding would be impossible; with grace, yielding becomes the posture that allows us to walk in God’s will, empowered beyond our own strength. As we choose to trust Him, admit our weakness, and surrender daily, His grace carries us forward—enough, sufficient, and ever-flowing. To yield, then, is to live in partnership with the One whose grace never fails.