“Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.” (1 Peter 1:21, NLT).

     Several years ago, a study was conducted by psychologist Roy Baumeister. His purpose was to study the limits of human willpower. Baumeister had one group of people exert their willpower by resisting the temptation to eat delicious, fresh, warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies by eating radishes. The other group did not have to resist eating the cookies at all. Then, all of the subjects were assigned complex math problems to solve in order to measure how long people will exercise willpower to persevere through frustration. The people who had to resist eating chocolate chip cookies gave up on the math assignment much more quickly than the others. In conclusion, Roy Baumeister determined that the human power of will is easily fatigued. We can use our will to overcome a habit for a few moments. But, over the long haul, our habits will always beat our willpower.

     Now, if our human story ended here, it would be a very unhappy story indeed. That’s because it is not just human lives Jesus came to ransom, it was also the human will to which Jesus came to rescue.  In the passaged cited above, Peter suggests just how this rescue works.

     Peter claimed, “Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because he raised Christ from the dead and gave him great glory.” Peter reminded the church that Jesus surrendered, not just his life, but his will to God on the night before he went to the cross. Recall Jesus’ own words that night from Luke 22:42, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

     As result of Jesus’ surrender to the Father, Peter reminds the church that Jesus was raised in glory. Glory is another word for victory. Herein lies the point. As ironic as it may sound, surrender of one’s will is the pathway to victory over the will. As you surrender your will to God, you will also be granted victory over your will. As astonishing as it may sound, the most powerful weapon you and I have against an addiction, an obsession, a habit, or a hang-up isn’t to try and rally our will, but instead to relinquish our will.

     Oh, by the way, the kind of surrender I’m talking about doesn’t mean that you throw up your hands in defeat. This kind of surrender doesn’t mean that you are a doormat or that you stop asking questions or quit thinking for yourself. The kind of surrender I’m talking about is a voluntary acknowledgement that God is God and I am not. Surrender is about leaving the job of being God to God.

     So, give it a test. Surrender your will to God. There may even be a chocolate chip cookie in it for you to sweeten your day.