Learning To Let Go

Monday, November 30th, 2020

Let God build your life. Let God build your day. Let God build your relationships. Let God build your future. And in order to let God, of course we have to let go.
Jennifer Mallan

TRANSCRIPTION

Hello, I am Jennifer Mallan from Reliant Family Church in Tampa, Florida. Welcome to God Today. Listen, I am a boy mom. I have 5 sons, 3 birthed from my womb, 2 from my heart that were adopted, I have 11 foster sons, I have 4 grandsons. And so, I never really watched the movie Frozen, but I know the signature song is Let It Go. Today I want to talk to you about letting go.

 

Two simple words, but not easy to follow. Now, Jesus spoke about letting go. He said in Mark 8:35, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But, if you give up your life for my sake, and for the same of the Gospel, the Good News, then you will save it.” So, He was talking about letting go. 

 

Now, what do we need to let go of? What do we as believers, and those that are following God with all of our hearts, needing to let go of? Well, for me, a lot of the things I have to let go of our good ideas versus God ideas. Well, how do we know the difference between good ideas and God ideas? One time, we had a board member that said, “You know, I don’t want the good idea fairy to come in here anymore. We only want God ideas.” What is the difference?

 

The difference has a lot to do with surrender. If I want a God idea, then I have got to surrender my will, my expectations, my preferences, my habits, my predisposed position on certain things. I have got to draw close to God, according to James 4:7-8. And let Him draw close to me. Another version says, “I have to come near first.” In other words, I do the coming near, the drawing near, the submitting, the drawing nigh first. Then He comes near to me. Then I can resist the devil, then he will flee. All part of the letting go process.

 

We know several people in the Word that had to wrestle with letting go of certain things. Jonah, for example. He had to let go of his plan in order to do God’s plan. Now, it wasn’t without a fight, it wasn’t without a struggle. Jonah had to go to a whale university, not Yale, whale university. I am sure in whale university, he did a lot of “wailing”, a fish motel whatever you want to call it. There, he learned to let go. He learned to let go of not liking what God had asked him to do. And he did it anyway. He let go of all of his expectations. He let go of his prejudices against Nineveh and the Ninevites. He had to let go so that God could come in and have His perfect way. See, when we let go, and we lay down things for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of the good news, then we can walk in the goodness of God. Then we can expect signs, miracles, and wonders. Then we can know it is a God idea.

 

Years ago, a book came out called, From Good To Great, and in that book, it talked about the enemy of great was good. Well, I believed that, but I also believe that one of the greatest enemies of the word great is “comfortable”. See, when we are comfortable, we are not tuning in to God’s will, God’s best, His big story that He wants to do in our lives. So, today I am encouraging you. Let go. Part of letting go is surrender. Part of letting go is trusting Him with all of your heart. Part of letting go is laying down those things that no longer serve you in this season. And grabbing onto the things that are bigger and better. Let God build your life. Let God build your day. Let God build your relationships. Let God build your future. And in order to let God, of course, we have to let go. 

 

Father, would you bless my brother, would you bless my sister. Would you bless that person that is sitting there right now, thinking of all the different things that God has challenged them to let go of? Holy Spirit, would you just overshadow them. Would you help them? I thank you, God, that you will help them pry their fingers off those things, and trust you more fully. God, thank you for surrender. God, thank you that there is beauty in yielding and submitting. And that’s what we want to do today. We want to decree and declare, not our will, but yours be done. Let your Kingdom come into my friends’ lives today in a new, and a fresh, and a powerful way. In Jesus’ name.