Sometimes, when I do a word study in Scripture, I like to look it up in the dictionary as well. I looked up yield and yielding and found the synonyms
surrender, relinquish, give way, comply.
The first area of yielding precedes discussion of all other areas. In order to obtain Heaven, a person must come to a time in their life when they can understand the Word of God, and yield to Christ as their Saviour. It is an act of yielding when we come to God and say, “Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I know I have done sinful things and I am sorry I have sinned against you. Please forgive me of my sins. Cleanse me of my sins thru the blood of Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, come into my heart and save me. I believe You paid the penalty for my sins, and made possible my entrance into Heaven, thru you only - nothing of my works. Thank you for dying to save me.” When we get saved, it is the greatest moment of our yielding – we are relinquishing our own good works to try and earn heaven in exchange for the perfect shed blood of Jesus. This yielding moment in our lives guarantees us of having a home in Heaven one day. Nothing else can.
After yielding to Christ in salvation, there are many areas in our lives that also require yielding. Once saved, the Lord works in our hearts and causes us to want to yield, or give over, our bad habits and worldly ways. Each person is different and the Lord works in each heart individually. Perhaps after you got saved, you yielded up bad language, or immodest attire, or drugs, or alcohol, or cigarettes, or lustful thoughts, or anything else that the Lord laid on your heart as wrong and sinful. Giving up sins is an act of yielding to the Holy Spirit of God in obedience.
Yielding over the outward sins are often easy, in comparison to yielding over the hidden, inward sins of the heart. But we need to yield, or hand over and release control of, these inner sins.
Sometimes women struggle more with sins of the tongue. I know there are a lot of times I can’t seem to keep my mouth shut; then I get myself in trouble. But I can’t blame the Holy Spirit - He’s there, telling me to be quiet, but I am unwilling to yield control of my tongue to Him. Psalms 39:1 offers wise counsel: “I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.”
Two areas related to tongue trouble are gossip and bragging.
Do you struggle with gossip? I know how easy it is to fall into that trap. We need to yield our conversations to the Holy Spirit. He will keep us from gossip if we allow Him. If we feel a conversation is headed toward gossip, we can either change the subject or simply say we have to go. Job 6:24 says, “Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred.” Job 27:4 says, “My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit.”
Do you struggle with bragging? Sometimes we like to be patted on the back and recognized for our great deeds. But what if no one notices we cleaned the church bathroom 15 weeks in a row? Worse yet…what if someone else gets the credit? Horrors! We want to scream from the pulpit, “I did it!” That’s pride, folks. Simple, ugly pride. We need to yield, to give over control of those emotions. Just let it go. It’s really not so important in the big picture who sees us work and who doesn’t. The One we serve, Jesus Christ the Righteous, sees all we do. If we are not rewarded here, we will be in heaven. And really – whose reward should we be working for anyway? Man’s or God’s? Psalms 12:3, “The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things: (vs 4) Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?” The Lord will not honor pride.
Sometimes we struggle with yielding control of our minds to Christ.
Does your mind replay songs from your past that Satan uses to bring up old habits and sins? As soon as your brain pushes the replay button, ask Christ to fill your mind with hymns and Scripture verses. He will! Don’t depend on your hymnal always being available. It may be taken away from you someday along with your Bible. Commit hymns and Scripture verses to memory, where no one can ever remove them. They are there to lift you up and encourage you whenever you need them. Ephesians 5:19, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Yield yourself to Christ-honoring and spiritually uplifting music.
What do you do about impure thoughts? Yield your mind to Christ and to His holy Word. You can find help in the Scriptures. The Bible teaches us that what we fill our heads and hearts with is what will pour out of our mouths and what we dwell on mentally. So, follow the instruction of Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
Do you struggle with anger? The Bible says to be angry and sin not, but this verse is usually ripped out of context by an angry person who is trying to justify having a temper tantrum. Being angry with sin and the destruction it leaves in it’s wake is fine. Having a fit because we can’t have our way or because someone is annoying us is not justified anger. We need to acknowledge that we will not always get our own way. We also need to realize there are lots of annoying people in this world. Standing in line at Wal-Mart will confirm that in about 5 minutes. Teach your children that when they get to be adults, there are going to be irritating people they will have to work with or see often or deal with. You cannot avoid them. Psalms 37:8, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil. Ecclesiastes 7:9, “Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools. God gives high marks to those that can control their temper, or rather, yield control of their temper to the Holy Spirit. Proverbs 16:32, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”
Do you have difficulty in yielding to God’s Will? Sometimes we don’t yield our lives because we don’t know God’s will. How can you know what God’s will is for your life? Sometimes it is not crystal clear and requires much patience and prayer. I admit, it can be frustrating when you run across folks who say they have always known exactly what God’s will for them has been. I have found that is not the vast majority of Christians, though. Most of us either stumble around and hope we have it right, or sincerely seek God through prayer and Bible reading. Sometimes, discovering God’s will is as simple as avoiding those things that are clearly NOT God’s will. Here are several examples:
Johnny comes home and says, “Mom - I found the girl I’m going to marry.” Mom says, “Oh - that’s wonderful - what church does she attend?” Johnny says, “Oh. She’s not a Christian, Mom. She’s not into church stuff.” Mom can rightly say, “Johnny, I don’t know who God has for you to marry, but I know it can’t be her because she’s not saved. Now, if she gets saved down the road and then you start dating, that may be another matter. But as of right now, that can’t be God’s will, because you’re not to be yoked with an unbeliever.
How about this one: Your best friend calls you up and says, “I’m thinking of getting a divorce. John and I can’t get along anymore. We both have peace that this must be of God.” You can say with all confidence that you don’t know what all God has in store for them, but divorce is not part of the picture because God has never said divorce was a good idea or the way to solve marital problems.
There are many things like that in Scripture. Sometimes it is easier to see what is NOT God’s will than what is, but at least you will then have parameters within which to look for God’s will. Yield to the Scripture, and make your life decisions in submission to God’s Word. He will reveal His will for your life if you are willing to yield.
One definition of yielding is submitting. We can submit, or yield to, those in authority over us. For children, they can choose to submit, or yield to, their parents. For wives, they can choose to submit, or yield to, their husbands. For husbands, they can choose to submit, or yield to, the leading of the Holy Spirit. Why do I say “choose to”? Because of all God’s creations, humans are the only ones who can choose to obey or disobey God’s instructions. If we submit to someone else’s authority, it is a willing desire to cede our rights to that other person. It is a choice. A wife should never be forced to obey her husband. If a wife is in right relationship with God, and if her husband is loving her the way Scripture says he is to do, she will be willing to submit to her husband’s authority. Not as a slavemaster, or because she isn’t smart enough to make her own decisions. Quite the contrary – a woman is often intellectually smarter and may have better business sense than her husband. Submitting to his authority is merely a matter of the chain of command – she is willingly recognizing that God has a natural order to the family. God should be first, the husband in submission to God (rightly, justly, kindly, lovingly – NOT as a dictator), and the wife in submission to her husband (sweetly, kindly, lovingly, respectfully), and the children in submission to their parents.
We can show yielding as citizens of our country. We demonstrate our willingness to follow Christ by being willing to yield to those in authority over us. Even though we have a government that is not wholly righteous, it is our government, and Christ said we are to obey, as long as we do not disobey Scripture. 1 Peter 2:13, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake:” On a practical side, you are refusing to yield to authority if you ignore the speed limit, pass illegally, run a red light, etc. Every ticket you add to your collection shows an unwillingness to yield to your authority. After you collect enough of them, the state decides that you will yield - or give over - your license. You are refusing to yield if you do not pay your taxes, regardless of whether the government spends the money the way they should. How far should you carry this idea? You are refusing to yield if you eat grapes in the grocery store or pop a few Brach’s candies into your mouth without paying for them since that’s called stealing. Peter didn’t say, “Submit yourselves to the ordinances you like,” he said, “Every ordinance for the Lord’s sake.”
Yielding to authority is a good witness to a lost and sinful country. It would be great if our country would believe 2 Chronicles 30:8, “Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever: and serve the LORD your God, that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.”
We can yield as family members. Children and teenagers can yield their wills by obeying their parents. I Peter 5:5, “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Colossians 3:20, “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” 1 John 3:7, “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”
Watching children run to please Mommy and Daddy is something that pleases the Lord, and it is a blessing to those around them. Few things are more becoming to a teenager than a right attitude toward father and mother. If he/she obeys with a happy heart, it is a delight to all around. If a teen girls serves her father, as unto the Lord, she makes known to all that she will be a help meet for a godly husband. Young ladies who have been an example of yielding to godliness are a precious commodity in today’s society. Young men who respect their fathers and discuss things with them in a kind and respectful manner are going to go far in many areas of life, including business and their own families one day. Those who have honored their parents and have remained pure until marriage deserve to be showered with praise and gifts when the wedding bells finally ring. All too often these days, Christian young men and women who have waited and done things right sit back and watch their impure counterparts receive huge weddings, gifts, money, houses, cars – so much. And of course they wonder where the good was in waiting. But, if they are wise, they will know that God is watching and there will be an eternal reward for them even if they do not “strike it big” here on earth. We need to make our young people see there is a much bigger picture than simply the here and now. That said, I think Christians would do well to reward the young people who HAVE followed God’s will and plan. If you want to be generous to someone getting married, be extra generous to the ones who are doing right.
On the flip side, it can be hard to joyfully attend a wedding, let alone buy a gift, for a young man or woman who has forsaken all their parents’ advice and marched a rebellious path to the altar. Beauty tip for ladies: Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft according to the Scriptures, and it certainly won’t give you a beautiful appearance. Years of wanton living take a huge toll on a pretty face.
Once a woman ropes in a husband, she quickly discovers the next hurdle in yielding: the realm of the husband and wife relationship. We can quote all the verses: Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” Colossians 3:18, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.” But sometimes, we just don’t want to turn our wills over to our husbands. We are unwilling to yield. Maybe it’s because we’ve always been independent. Maybe it’s because we don’t trust our husbands to make the right decisions. But that’s really for God to decide, and not us. There are, I think, extenuating circumstances. But generally, in day to day living, a woman can submit her will to her husband and be blessed for it.
If you are merging on a highway, and you refuse to yield right of way, you are likely going to experience a lesson in physics: Two cars cannot use the exact same position on the highway at the same time. So it is in marriage. The wife cannot hold the same position as the husband without causing an accident. If the wife refuses to yield long enough, she can create irreparable damage to the relationship.
God knew what He was doing when He put the husband in charge of the home. I realize that in our “completely humble and unasked for opinion,” we may not always think this is the best solution, but truly it is. Only one person can occupy the lead position, and God has chosen the husband. Why are we arguing with God? We have to be willing to yield, and God promises He will take care of us for obeying. Hebrews 13:17, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.”
Our husbands love us. Remember when they were dating us? They’d do anything for us. They’d still behave that way if we showed them the same respect and admiration we did when we were dating. They are our head according to the Bible - they must give account to God for how they lead us and our children. Let the husbands lead with joy and not with grief. It is unprofitable to us to not yield authority to our husbands.
Here’s how some of us get around the leadership thing. Do you try and persuade your husband to yield to your control? Your husband often knows better than you do. Let’s say Delilah wants a new minivan. The old SUV works, but it looks awful and she wants a new one. Proverbs 7:21, “With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.” Now I realize I’m pulling that verse out of context, but it just seems to fit so well here. End result: Samson has to take on a second job to pay for Delilah’s new minivan. Now he spends less time with Delilah and the kids, and more time at the office with the secretary. Is Delilah really enjoying her minivan now?
Do you defer (yield) to your husband (or anyone else for that matter) in a disagreement? Here’s an example. My husband and I were driving down the road and the topic of XY University came up. We began discussing the rules of the college, to be specific. We’d been married just a short time. My husband was very pro-XYU. I was not opposed in general to the college, but I did not attend there because I disagreed with some of their rules. I said, “Well, I think yada yada yada was a dumb rule.” Little did I realize that I had just flung the door open for a full discourse on the rules of XYU, why the rules were instituted, why the rules are not dumb, etc.
At some point in this overly lengthy discourse, I was able to latch on to some common ground. It was this: if I could agree to abide by the rules, then I could go there as a student. I could have let the conversation drop right there and we’d have both been happy and talked about something else. But I wasn’t into yielding yet, so I continued that I thought not only was that one rule dumb, but there were several others that I thought equally dumb. After listing them, I said that was why I didn’t go to XYU, I went to a college I could attend without getting kicked out.
This pointless conversation went on for quite a long time and ended with both of us being disappointed in the other. I could have avoided the whole thing if I had just deferred - or yielded - in the first two minutes of the conversation, when that little lifeline of common ground had been thrown to me. It was a pointless argument that I pursued. It had no bearing on anything and was not relevant to us at the time. Why was I so interested in arguing about it? Because I thought XYU had dumb rules and I wanted my husband to think they were dumb as well. I was so full of pride, I felt he HAD to see things my way. I wasn’t willing to let him have his own opinion. In the long and short of it, so what if I don’t agree with the rules at XYU? Or any other college for that matter. Until it is going to directly affect me, it is not worthy of a discussion that is going to cause division between me and my husband or any other fellow Christian.
It’s okay to defer - to yield - to another in a conversation. There are lots of things now I have learned people feel very strongly about and I defer to them without argument. I don’t lie and say I agree with them, but I can kindly say something like, “Well, I guess you have a point. I hadn’t seen it that way.” Or, “Well, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.” If you want to avoid an argument, say something disarming. Why do we have to be right, anyway? In my case, it’s because I’m struggling with my pride and I’m refusing to yield. Arguments over non-important items are not worth the grief they cause.
How are you at yielding your time? Yielding can mean “not stiff or rigid, able to bend.” I used to get very upset when my schedule got messed up. Now I’m used to it. I had a great conversation with my mother-in-law one day. She said she was getting very frustrated because she would lay out the daily schedule of events, and almost daily a student with a problem would come in and cause her to have to rearrange everything.
She was praying about this and the Lord revealed to her that His divine appointments took precedence over her appointments. Once she understood that, she didn’t get so frustrated anymore. That really helped me a lot.
I homeschool year around because I never know from week to week what’s going to happen. One of my children may get sick or my husband may get sick, throwing off the daily schedule. A friend might suggest going berry picking or playing in the creek. That’s a memory for my children and I’m willing to make those memories and catch school up later. My schedule can yield; it can bend a little.
I can yield my plans for those who need help. I receive phone calls frequently from friends or relatives who need counsel on something. I always feel inadequate, but I am willing to listen and pray with them, and sometimes that is all they really need. That’s a divine appointment. I can yield my plans for God’s plans. There is a caution here - it is easy to get too busy and neglect your own family, and you need to be wise and not let that happen. Try to find God’s perfect balance so that you are willing to yield to God’s appointments and serve others while still meeting the daily needs of those the Lord has given you.
Yielding (or submitting) can be a part of the church family relationship. We are commanded to “not forsake the gathering together of the saints” for many reasons. We can share burdens, encourage others, and be encouraged ourselves. Ephesians 5:21, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” Yielding can have the definition of being maleable - moldable - shapeable. Romans 6:13, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” Yield yourselves - allow yourselves to be molded into instruments of God.
It is important to understand that you choose everyday - every hour - every minute - whether or not you will yield or whether you will strive for control. Who are you choosing to serve? Romans 6:16, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”
Before we were saved, we didn’t know any better, and we were yielding ourselves to be servants of death. But, once we accept Christ into our lives, we can choose to yield to a loving Saviour, and be used by Him to further His kingdom. Romans 6:19, “I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”
Sometimes we need to yield to Godly counsel. Have you ever been in a dilemma and needed counsel? How do you go about it? Do you pick out one or two godly friends and ask their opinion and then pray about it and try to follow their wisdom, or do you run around from one person to another, hoping to find someone to tell you what you want to hear?
Sometimes, godly counsel is offered to us when we aren’t looking for it. My mother-in-law is a good one for that. She has, upon occasion, offered advice without our asking for it. Most of the time, she has been right on the money. Because she is a sweet, godly lady, it is easy to listen to her, and I am thankful for that. It would be harder if she were overbearing; however, if the message were the same, the truth would be the same, and my yielded response should be the same. Being told what we are doing wrong is never pleasant, but it can be very helpful in our walk with the Lord. But we have to be humble and willing to listen - we have to be yielded.
We need to yield to the Holy Spirit in witnessing. If we are standing in line somewhere, and the person next to us strikes up a conversation, the Holy Spirit may start immediately impressing on us to say something. We never know when someone – including ourselves – will take our final breath. If we have an opportunity to share something of Christ, we need to do so.
One thing I noticed in studying verses on the word yield or yielding, Scripture refers to those terms most often when talking about harvest. This tree yielded up this fruit, and that land yielded up so much, etc. The dictionary does offer a definition of yield as a return, a profit, a harvest.
We can have a yield of diffusing strife: Proverbs 15:1, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” Proverbs 15:18, “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.” Proverbs 19:11, “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” We don’t have to take offense every time someone says or does something we don’t like or don’t agree with. “Great peace have they which love thy law and nothing shall offend them.” Yield - give it up - let it go.
We can have a yield of winning battles: James 4:7, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” In submitting to God, you are putting yourself under the protection of the Almighty.
We can and should have routine yields of Galatians 5:22,23: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” We should also be bearing fruit in seeing souls saved. Mark 4:8, “And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.” If you are not seeing any of these fruits being yielded in your life, you are sowing the wrong seeds. Perhaps you are not walking in the truth of the Bible as you may think you are.
In contrast to reaping good things, choosing to do things our own way will yield us disaster: Hosea 8:7, “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.”
If we do not yield our lives to God and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we ruin our testimonies before the lost. You’ve heard the saying that one bad apple ruins the whole barrel. The same is true for your life. Lost people watch you, and if they see sins springing from your life, they won’t want the fountain. James 3:12, “Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.”
Lastly, yielding means maleable - moldable. Like clay in the potter’s hand. If you think about it, being a human being and not just a lump of clay, having a potter press down and force changes in our lives is sometimes going to be uncomfortable. How about when he uses one of the little tools and etches a pattern in us? That’s going to hurt once in a while.
But the idea is that we are willing - we have a choice. Real clay has no ability to get up off the potter’s wheel. But we can decide whether, like Isaac, we will lie down and be used of God, or whether we will walk away and say, “I can do fine on my own.” On our own, we will create out of ourselves dirty, broken, useless vessels, unsuitable for use. But in the hands of the Master Potter, we can yield our lives to be molded into the image of Christ and be used by the Potter to be a blessing to others and to further Christ’s Kingdom.
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