Fundamental to being born again is to surrender ones will to Him.
The reality is that none of us fully surrender our will to Him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jesus did. Jesus explained that He did and said only what the Father told Him!!! That is why He is the Word of God - because His will is so fully surrender to the Father that He won't even say anything to you except that He was given it to say to you by the Father. And the Holy Spirit is similar! Of the Holy Spirit it is written: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for
He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
So God is One, because even every word you hear from God comes from the Father!
Yet people are not fully surrender to God - so your statement lacks real understanding!! It is just not how things work. It is some Theological non-sense that does not reflect reality.
In reality people who know the Lord sometimes do what He tells them and sometimes they don't - but mostly they don't. And indeed if they really knew Him that would be quickly apparent to them!!
Now the real believer is a person who believes in Jesus Christ, and His name is called the Word of God because we hear His voice - just like it is explained that His sheep hear His voice! But that obviously does not mean all the time. Frankly very few Christian actually spend much time at all actually listening to Him, and none of them are surrendered to the will of God like the Son or the Holy Spirit. Perhaps someone can be like the angels in heaven, which are much better at keeping to what they are told. You've had them minister to you, right? You know that about them, right?
Yet even the least of the heavenly host is far better at keeping to what the Lord tells them than you and I are!! So what bothers me is that
"Chrisitan" tell me they are "surrendered" to the Lord and they don't even show they have a clue about how they are not!! Maybe they have some desire to be, but that desire doesn't produce much of what could be call "surrender". The desire might show up in saying they are surrendered to God, but actual talking to Him reveals how far we are from actually being surrendered to Him.
Now while talking to me this morning; He pointed out the following verse to me this morning and specifically wanted it posted, which caused me to come to the forum and this post:
Ps 72:8 May he also rule from sea to sea and from river to the ends of the earth.
Now He talked to me about the verse. Note that it shows a desire, but also a fact that we know that He does not yet rule from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth. Christians reflect that desire, but also should reflect and understanding the He does not yet have the rule we want Him to have. So we should pray the Lord's prayer, which I had done just prior to this conversation with Him, that His will be done on earth as in heaven. Yet it is our prayer because it is our desire, not our reality!!! So if a "Christian" has been talking with Him and being taught of God, how is it they do not understand this and instead say a Christian is 'surrendered' to God when we know we fall short of that by far?? Are they indeed listening to and being taught of God? Maybe they just are not surrendered like they should be, and don't realize it? Maybe they are not paying enough attention to Him?
So many "Christians" come to this forum proclaiming how devoted they are to Him - yet I listen to Him every day and discover how lacking in devotion in Him I really am!
So to me; a real Christian is someone who believes in Him. That belief that the Lord is there results in seeking what He has to say to them at least sometimes. That hearing from Him winds up revealing how far away we are from being Him, and so how much we desprately need Him. Yet that only gets us to turn back to Him sometimes, because that human or sinful nature of ours leads us to leaning on our own understanding most all the time. Yet lucky for us, where sin abounds so does His mercy and grace abound all the more. So Paul expressed how "surrendered" a Christian really is in the following verse.
Rom 7:15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I
would like to
do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
That is how "surrendered to God Paul was. Enough that Paul realized that he was doing the very thing he hated! Which is to say Paul was surrendered enough to the Lord that he knew the sad state he was in. That meant He knew how badly he needed Jesus Christ - and the mercy and grace given to him because he was not surrendered to the Lord like he wanted to be.
Rom 7: 24,25 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
So when we talk about being surrendered to the Lord we are talking about our desire not a reality!!!