I Surrender All… by Pastor Michael Podhaczky

We were singing a song in the service the other day, and the chorus of the song went,

“All to Jesus I surrender
All to Him I freely give            
I will ever love and trust Him
And in His presence I will live
I surrender all, I surrender all.”

What a lovely time I had, just enjoying the moment and singing away. Later on that day I read the following excerpt taken from a site called “8thirty8, Killing Christians,” by Tom Doyle. Doyle tells us one true story of the hundreds of stories about the heroes of faith in the country of Syria,

“Muslim militants entered a region near Damascus and they started killing all non-Muslim youth. There was a Christian family that had a young man named George, just 18 years old. The family realised he would be killed. During this time, their Muslim neighbor came to them, she was a good woman, and said to George’s mother, ‘Let your son be between my children and I will say that he is my son and we will call him Khalid and when the Muslims ask him he must answer, “I am a Muslim, I am not a Christian”. That will keep his life from death.’

George’s mother told George what the woman said, and he replied, ‘We have learned from our Lord Jesus Christ that, “he who denies Me before men shall be denied before My Father in heaven and the angels”. My mom, I would rather die as a Christian and my name is George, then I would be living a lie. I cannot hide my faith and fear of his announcement.’ George refused to change his name to the name of a Muslim to protect his life.  He preferred to die with Christ, than live by denying his faith and his Master. When 

George’s mother told us this story, she was crying. She said, ‘Al-Nusra (a branch of al Qaeda in Syria) entered our home and took my son from my hands and killed him in the street. I could not even hug his dead body to my chest because of the strong fighting. After this, they expelled us out of the area. On this day, George went to his Jesus.’

George’s mother spoke about her son with pain, but also spoke proudly that her son died a hero for his faith. Please, in Jesus’ name, I ask you to pray for George’s mother and his family and for all who have heard and witnessed his death for Jesus. May the Lord send a private condolence to their hearts!”- Amir (Syria)

“All to Jesus George did surrender
All to Him he freely gave
He ever loved and trusted Him
And in His presence he will live
He surrendered all, he surrender all” 

What about you and me? We may sing “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give,” but is this how we are willing to live? Pray for the Georges and Georginas who are our brothers and sisters in Christ who may need to surrender all.  

Pause in His presence for a moment and think this over.