I Give Up Online Bible Study Week One — What Is Surrender Anyway?

God is not interested in signing off on even our best-made plans. God is much more interested in our surrender, our surrender to Him. ~ Laura Story

So, here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life — your sleeping, eating, going-to-word, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. — Romans 12:1-2 MSG

Welcome to the I Give Up Online Bible Study with our friend and one of our favorite worship leaders and teachers, Laura Story!

Hi there, friends! In case this is your first rodeo with FaithGateway Online Bible Studies, let me be the first to say we’re so glad you’re here! I’m Laurie McClure, your OBS leader and the editor at FaithGateway. Let’s pretend I could invite you all into my living room. I’d pour iced tea with lemon and lay out a big board of charcuterie to share. At some point one or more of my kids would race through the house. I have five (three grown, two out of the house, and two early teens) — Margot, Ricker, Jack, Evangeline, and Raysie. Three of my kids came by birth and two by adoption. After a long, hard-fought-for marriage, I have been free for 4 ½ years and am finally enjoying all the goodness and joys of singleness. (High five to all my single mama friends! You are beautiful!) I grew up with a family full of Jesus lovers and preachers and I’m so happy to be surrounded by you all who love Him, too, and are ready to begin this journey to a surrendered life to Him.

Do you know Laura Story? If so, you know how tender her heart is for our King Jesus. She has a radical story of challenges and upendings that we’ll hear about in the first video. I know you will love her like I do.

Let’s get going!

Our prayer for these weeks and ongoing is “I give up, Jesus.”

Jesus said that the only way to truly live is to fully surrender your life to Him, and over the next several weeks we’ll be studying these key Scriptures and learning from His example:

Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. – Matthew 10:39 (NIV)

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. — Philippians 3:7-8

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? – Matthew 16:24-26

Surrender yourself to the Lord and wait patiently for Him. – Psalm 37:7

The more we take our lives and place them before God, the more we will be changed from the inside out. ~ Laura

That’s the goal, friends. Worshipful, trusting, wholehearted surrender to the Almighty One who loves us more than we can imagine and has great plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11). He can be trusted with our lives, even when they don’t go as we expected.

So, let’s surrender to Him. “I give up, Jesus, to Your will and Your way.”

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.

This week in your study:

1. Watch the video for session one on our study home page or live with other participants … Take notes in your study guide on pages 13-16.
2. Go through the study questions with your group or on your own on pages 17-21.
3. Read I Give Up, Chapters 1-2.
4. Grab your Bible and enjoy your personal study this week on pages 22-27.
5. Join us for five facilitated discussion questions at the end of the video teaching.
6. Join the conversations about the study and get to know fellow participants in the private Facebook group!

Scriptures this Week

Romans 12:1-2
Ephesians 2:8-9
Philippians 4:6-7

Prayer for the Week

Jesus, we surrender to You. Take control of our lives. We don’t want to wrestle You for the reigns anymore. We want to walk in the paths You have laid out for us in advance because You can see the whole picture when we cannot. Help us to lift our arms in worshipful surrender. We love You, God. Amen.

Do you have prayer requests? How can we pray for you? There’s a place each week where you can submit post your requests in the private Facebook group, and you can also add your requests to the end of the video teaching. Let’s be a group that prays for one another as we’re going through the study together!