S13.04 | Surrender vs. Self-Abandonment: What God Actually Asks of You
Carla saw a phrase circulating online: "obedience begins at the end of self." Something about it didn't sit right - so in this episode, she unpacks why that statement, however well-intentioned, can be deeply misleading, especially for anyone who's spent years people-pleasing, fawning, or learning to distrust their own needs and emotions.
Drawing on Scripture and her own experience as a recovering people-pleaser and a mom, Carla makes the case that surrender is not the same as self-abandonment. God isn't asking you to disappear so He can take over - sanctification is Him restoring who you were created to be, not erasing it.
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3 key takeaways
In this episode, Carla covers:
Why "obedience begins at the end of self" is spiritually dangerous for people-pleasers, over-functioners, and anyone taught to distrust their own needs and emotions
The difference between self-denial (denying the sin nature) and self-abandonment (denying who God made you to be)
How gifts like compassion, leadership, discernment, generosity, and drive can be twisted by fear and control — and what it looks like for God to redeem them instead of erase them
A parenting reflection on what Carla wants for her son Caleb when she asks him to obey her, and how that mirrors God's heart for us
Why trust, not fear, is what's underneath biblical obedience
3 Key Takeaways:
Surrender is not the same as self-abandonment. God isn't asking you to disappear, disconnect from your needs, or erase your personality — that's a distortion of sanctification, not the real thing.
Your gifts don't need to be eliminated — they need to be freed. Compassion, leadership, discernment, generosity: sin and fear can twist any of them, but God's goal is redemption, not elimination.
Obedience grows out of trust, not fear. Biblical obedience isn't behavior modification driven by fear of punishment — it's a relational response to a Father who's already proven His love.
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If this episode named something you've been carrying - the exhaustion of disappearing to keep everyone comfortable, the fear that your needs are too much — Foundations of Healing is where we go deeper. It's a self-paced course to help you understand your story, your nervous system, and how God actually designed you to heal, not to disappear. Start anytime, work through it at your own pace.
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Resources:
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5 Tips for Overcoming a Negative Body Image
Who You Say I Am Biblical Affirmation Cards
Transcript
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Carla Arges: Hello, hello.
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Carla Arges: Hello, friends. Welcome to this episode of Affirming Truth.
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Carla Arges: I was on Threads the other day, and I saw a statement that said, obedience begins at the end of self.
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Carla Arges: And…
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Carla Arges: Kind of, sent my spidey senses off. Like, I understand what I think the person was trying to say. There's absolutely a biblical call to surrender. You know, there's a biblical call to obedience and to die to ourselves.
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Carla Arges: You know, Jesus himself says in Luke 9, 23, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
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Carla Arges: So, I'm not… I'm not trying to deny that. I'm not trying to make Christianity comfortable. I'm not suggesting that following Jesus means doing whatever feels authentic to us, what's right for us.
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Carla Arges: There are things in us that need to die. There are desires we cannot follow. And there are ways we want to live that are contrary to the ways of Jesus that we have to.
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Carla Arges: Deny. There are moments when obedience will cost us something. Absolutely.
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Carla Arges: But I think the statement obedience starts at the end of self can be deeply misleading.
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Carla Arges: Because, depending on what you mean by self, that actually isn't what God is asking for from us.
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Carla Arges: And for some of us, especially those of you who, like me, have maybe spent years people-pleasing.
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Carla Arges: forming, fawning, ignoring our needs with this sort of thinking that sacrifice means our needs don't get met.
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Carla Arges: We've learned to distrust our emotions and, you know, the idea that the heart is deceitful. We don't trust ourselves. We morph ourselves to become what other people need us to be.
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Carla Arges: For those of us who have struggled with that, and the anxiety, and the depression, and the dysregulation that happens when we do that, that message can be dangerous.
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Carla Arges: Because what we hear is, God wants less of you. Your needs don't matter. Your emotions don't matter. Your personality doesn't matter. Your desires are inherently suspicious. Your boundaries are selfish.
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Carla Arges: Your body is something you need to overcome.
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Carla Arges: Your job is to disappear so God can take over. And then we call that surrender. We call that denying ourselves. We call that a healthy sacrifice.
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Carla Arges: But that is not what surrender is.
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Carla Arges: everything that I've described there is actually self-abandonment.
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Carla Arges: And I don't believe God is asking us to abandon the person He created us to be.
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Carla Arges: Like, God made us this whole complete person. He didn't make us a problem.
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Carla Arges: that we have to overcome.
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Carla Arges: I mean, we read in the Psalms, for you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb.
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Carla Arges: I love that language there. My inmost being. My inmost being, where my desires lie, where my character develops, where my skills and my giftings are seeded.
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Carla Arges: God isn't only interested in some spiritualized version of us that exists separately from our personality and our body and our mind and everything else that makes us.
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Carla Arges: That makes you, you.
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Carla Arges: He made you.
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Carla Arges: In Ephesians 2.10, we're called God's workmanship.
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Carla Arges: Created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared for us.
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Carla Arges: We know from Paul's letters that God has distributed spiritual giftings to us.
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Carla Arges: Scripture doesn't paint a picture of God creating millions of unique people, and then saving them so they can all become the exact same person.
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Carla Arges: Like, Christianity isn't about becoming a monolith. There isn't just one Christian personality. There isn't just one Christian temperament. There isn't just one acceptable set of interests.
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Carla Arges: There isn't just one way a godly woman talks and dresses and works and mothers and leads and creates or occupies space.
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Carla Arges: And I think sometimes in Christian culture, we accidentally confuse sanctification.
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Carla Arges: with sameness.
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Carla Arges: We confuse becoming more like Jesus that we all have to look the same in doing it.
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Carla Arges: And we create this image of the good Christian girl. She's agreeable. She's endlessly available. She doesn't get angry. She doesn't disappoint anybody. She serves whenever she's asked because she's sacrificed.
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Carla Arges: Sacrificial.
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Carla Arges: She doesn't inconvenience people with her needs, because she knows she needs to put other people first.
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Carla Arges: She's nice, she's pleasant.
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Carla Arges: And for some people, maybe that is their genuine personality. Wonderful. Although…
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Carla Arges: I would want to dig a little deeper there.
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Carla Arges: But becoming more like Jesus does not mean becoming less like the person God actually created you to be.
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Carla Arges: It means the person that God created you to be is increasingly freed from the corruption of sin that wants to…
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Carla Arges: Mar who you've been created to be, there's a difference.
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Carla Arges: Sin distorts what God designed.
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Carla Arges: And I think we just need a better understanding of self-denial.
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Carla Arges: Because Jesus really doesn't tell us to deny ourselves in terms of who God created us to be.
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Carla Arges: Like, when we're called to deny the desires of the flesh that are contrary to the Spirit, we're talking about the sin nature.
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Carla Arges: Right? Roman 12 tells us not to conform to this pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
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Carla Arges: So, yes, something is being transformed. Something is being denied. Something has to go. That old sin nature, that sinfulness that came into the world and wanted to corrupt God's good thing has to go.
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Carla Arges: Like, Adam and Eve were created good, and what happened? Sin came and corrupted that good design.
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Carla Arges: So, yeah, denying the thing that wants to corrupt us is good.
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Carla Arges: But sanctification isn't God slowly erasing who He made you to be.
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Carla Arges: Sanctification, if anything, is actually God restoring you to who you were created to be.
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Carla Arges: And think about how Sting can take something God created and distort it.
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Carla Arges: Maybe God created you with this incredible ability to notice what other people are feeling.
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Carla Arges: I'm like that. I mean, he created me that way, it's also a product of trauma, I'm highly attuned to what people are feeling.
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Carla Arges: That's beautiful.
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Carla Arges: But sin and woundedness can twist that into people-pleasing.
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Carla Arges: Now you're not simply compassionate, you're responsible for everyone else's emotional state. You have to manage people's reactions. You have to abandon yourself to keep everyone happy.
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Carla Arges: That's not.
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Carla Arges: how God created us to be.
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Carla Arges: That's sin twisting the compassion or the empathy God has given us.
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Carla Arges: So the answer isn't to become less compassionate.
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Carla Arges: The answer is for compassion to be freed from the fear of letting people down, the fear of having to sit with someone in a tough emotion.
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Carla Arges: Right? Maybe you're a strong leader. Maybe God has created you to be a leader of influence.
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Carla Arges: Yeah, control can corrupt leadership.
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Carla Arges: The answer isn't then to become passive and not lead. It's about learning to lead without needing to control the outcomes, leading where God has called you to lead.
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Carla Arges: but leaving the results to God.
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Carla Arges: Maybe you're discerning.
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Carla Arges: Fear can turn discernment into hypervigilance.
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Carla Arges: Right? Where you're checking everything, making sure everything's okay.
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Carla Arges: That's not the way God wants that gift to be used, because that is actually.
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Carla Arges: Fear and control-based.
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Carla Arges: Maybe you're generous. Maybe God's giving you this heart for generosity.
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Carla Arges: That can be corrupted.
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Carla Arges: To have a need of approval, into over-giving, to get people to like you.
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Carla Arges: Maybe you're driven and creative.
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Carla Arges: The kingdom needs that.
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Carla Arges: But then sin comes in and turns that into striving.
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Carla Arges: Right? Do you see the difference?
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Carla Arges: God wants to teach you how to steward.
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Carla Arges: Who he's created you to be, not deny who you he's created you to be.
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Carla Arges: He wants you to deny the way sin wants to impact.
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Carla Arges: how you've been created to be.
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Carla Arges: Do you see the difference?
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Carla Arges: God isn't saying, get rid of yourself. He's saying, let me free you from everything that has distorted who I created you to be.
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Carla Arges: That's sanctification.
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Carla Arges: And with that lens, suddenly obedience looks very different.
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Carla Arges: Obedience doesn't begin at the end of self.
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Carla Arges: But it begins at the end of control.
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Carla Arges: Right? Because that is so often what surrender actually confronts.
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Carla Arges: Surrender confronts our need for control.
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Carla Arges: I want to know where this is going. I want to know how this will turn out. I want God to explain Himself before I obey. I want assurances and guarantees. I want to see the 5-year plan, Lord.
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Carla Arges: I want to know that if I do what God asks me, no one will misunderstand me, I won't lose anything important, I won't be disappointed, and everything will eventually work out the way I think it should.
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Carla Arges: And God doesn't give us that.
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Carla Arges: God doesn't give us that. He gives us Himself.
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Carla Arges: His peace.
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Carla Arges: His joy.
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Carla Arges: His faithfulness.
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Carla Arges: And in return, he's asking us to give him our need for control.
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Carla Arges: Trust.
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Carla Arges: That's what's underneath surrender. That's what's underneath submission. And I would say that's what's underneath obedience.
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Carla Arges: Trust, that's important. Because biblical obedience isn't supposed to grow out of terror that God will punish me if I don't perform correctly.
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Carla Arges: Right? It's not about behavior modification.
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Carla Arges: It's relational. I trust the one leading me.
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Carla Arges: And trust allows me to release my demand for control.
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Carla Arges: And as I was thinking about this, I was really thinking about how it relates to me as a mom.
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Carla Arges: When I want Caleb to obey me, I never want him to stop being himself. I don't want him to lose his personality. I don't want him to lose his sense of humor. I don't want him to lose his uniqueness.
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Carla Arges: In order to obey me?
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Carla Arges: love who he is. I love his personality. I love his interests. I love watching him become his own person.
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Carla Arges: My goal as his mother is never, how can I make this child easier for me to control by getting rid of everything that makes him him?
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Carla Arges: Because, again, I don't want behavior modification.
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Carla Arges: That's not what I want.
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Carla Arges: When I want Caleb to obey me.
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Carla Arges: I want him to see it.
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Carla Arges: As an act of accepting my love.
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Carla Arges: Right?
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Carla Arges: Because the guardrails I have created for him.
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Carla Arges: They come from love.
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Carla Arges: I want the best for him. I want to see him flourish. I want to see him live to his potential.
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Carla Arges: I don't want to keep good things from him, that's not what my rules are about.
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Carla Arges: But, I have an advantage, a vantage point that he doesn't have.
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Carla Arges: I've lived longer. I've had experience he doesn't have. My brain is fully formed and developed. I have wisdom that comes with years of experiences.
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Carla Arges: So I can see consequences further down the road that he can't see.
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Carla Arges: And so sometimes he doesn't understand the guardrail because he doesn't have the same sight line I have.
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Carla Arges: But ultimately, I want him to trust my heart.
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Carla Arges: That I'm for Him, and that I love Him.
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Carla Arges: And I do that as not a perfect parent.
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Carla Arges: But God is the perfect father.
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Carla Arges: God sees things we can't see. He puts guardrails in so that we can flourish, so that not that we diminish who he created us to be, but that we have the freedom to be who we are created to be without the.
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Carla Arges: The hindrance of sin and corruption.
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Carla Arges: You know, Jesus says something beautiful in Matthew 7. He says, you know, who… whether a father is asked… who asks their father for…
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Carla Arges: I'm not saying this right. Matthew 7. It says, a father who gets asked for bread from his son would not give him a stone.
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Carla Arges: Right?
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Carla Arges: And that's human. In our imperfect human parents, we know how to give good gifts to our kids.
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Carla Arges: So how much more does our Father in Heaven give good things to us?
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Carla Arges: So what if obedience is less about God demanding compliance?
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Carla Arges: And more about us becoming convinced of the goodness of the Father.
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Carla Arges: 1 John 5.3 says, in fact, this is love for God.
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Carla Arges: to keep His commands, and His commands are not burdensome.
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Carla Arges: Jesus says something similar in John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commands.
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Carla Arges: And yes, we can hear those verses very transactionally, if you love God, prove it, but that's not what God is saying. What He's saying is that when you love me.
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Carla Arges: The evidence, the outpouring of that, is wanting to keep.
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Carla Arges: My, my commands.
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Carla Arges: Right? That's the order. It's the love first.
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Carla Arges: We receive his love. We learn his character.
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Carla Arges: We trust his faithfulness.
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Carla Arges: And obedience begins to grow from that relationship.
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Carla Arges: And that's why I think obedience is actually a radical acceptance of love of the Father. It's saying, God, I believe you that you love me enough that your boundaries aren't designed to diminish me.
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Carla Arges: I believe you love me enough that your no isn't rejection.
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Carla Arges: I believe you love me enough that when your way conflicts with mine, you aren't trying to rob me.
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Carla Arges: I believe you see what I cannot see. I believe you know me better than I know myself.
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Carla Arges: And I believe the one who created me knows what will ultimately lead me toward life.
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Carla Arges: That's different from self-abandonment. That's trust.
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Carla Arges: And I keep coming back to Jesus' words about denying ourselves, because I don't want us to skip over them.
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Carla Arges: If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself.
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Carla Arges: But Jesus is not asking us.
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Carla Arges: to deny who He created us to be. I keep coming back to that.
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Carla Arges: It's about denying the flesh, the sin, the control.
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Carla Arges: It's about recognizing that following Jesus.
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Carla Arges: Absolutely means he gets the final word.
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Carla Arges: And when what I want and what Jesus asks of me seems to be at odds.
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Carla Arges: It's in those moments.
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Carla Arges: They lay down what I want.
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Carla Arges: And trust what Jesus' will is.
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Carla Arges: By surrendering.
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Carla Arges: I'm surrendering self-rule.
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Carla Arges: Which is not the same as surrendering personhood.
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Carla Arges: Jesus can't become Lord and Savior of a Carla that ceases to exist.
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Carla Arges: Jesus becomes my Lord and Savior when Carla no longer needs to be her own Lord.
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Carla Arges: That's the difference.
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Carla Arges: I don't have control over everything.
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Carla Arges: I don't have to engineer every outcome.
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Carla Arges: I don't have to make everybody approve of me.
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Carla Arges: I don't have to become what somebody else thinks a Christian woman should be like. I get to bring the whole person God created.
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Carla Arges: Under the loving Lordship of Jesus, my mind, my body, my emotions, my gifts.
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Carla Arges: Even my wounds.
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Carla Arges: My relationships, my calling, my personality, all of it. Not erased, not at the end of self, but surrendered, not discarded.
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Carla Arges: but entrusted.
00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:46.000
Carla Arges: When I look at the people Jesus encountered.
00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:56.000
Carla Arges: I actually don't see him flattening their personalities. I mean, Peter is still Peter, he's bold, he's passionate, he's sometimes impulsive.
00:19:57.000 --> 00:20:05.000
Carla Arges: But Peter surrendered to Jesus becomes different from Peter ruled by Peter.
00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:14.000
Carla Arges: his boldness gets redeemed. His boldness that he was created with serves kingdom purpose.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.000
Carla Arges: His intensity gets redirected.
00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:25.000
Carla Arges: God doesn't need to destroy everything about us to make us holy.
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:27.000
Carla Arges: And he doesn't want that.
00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:42.000
Carla Arges: Maybe you're not too much, maybe something good in you has simply been operating through fear, maybe something good in you has been operating through your need to control it.
00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:45.000
Carla Arges: Maybe you're not supposed to become less passionate.
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.000
Carla Arges: Maybe your passion just needs to become surrendered.
00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:53.000
Carla Arges: Maybe you don't need to become less sensitive.
00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.000
Carla Arges: Maybe your sensitivity just needs safety and wisdom.
00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:59.000
Carla Arges: Right? Do you see the difference?
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.000
Carla Arges: That's very different than abandoning yourself.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:11.000
Carla Arges: Because if you believe holiness requires continually disconnecting from yourself.
00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:14.000
Carla Arges: Eventually, you can stop knowing yourself at all.
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:17.000
Carla Arges: What do I actually feel? What do I actually need?
00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:19.000
Carla Arges: Can I trust myself?
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:26.000
Carla Arges: Am I saying yes because God asked me to, or because I'm scared of disappointing someone?
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:30.000
Carla Arges: Is this conviction from the Holy Spirit or shame?
00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:42.000
Carla Arges: Those distinctions matter. God created us to be embodied people. Jesus himself experienced the physiology of being human.
00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:49.000
Carla Arges: Hunger, exhaustion. The emotions, grief, anguish. He rested, he withdrew, he ate, he wept.
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:57.000
Carla Arges: His human limitation wasn't inherently sinful, because he was of no sin.
00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:04.000
Carla Arges: And ignoring every signal coming from your mind and body isn't automatically spiritual maturity.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:09.000
Carla Arges: Sometimes the faithful thing for you to do is actually pay attention.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:15.000
Carla Arges: Again, the goal is not less you, it's more of Christ in you.
00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:28.000
Carla Arges: Obedience isn't God standing over you saying, prove that you love me.
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:35.000
Carla Arges: It's you looking up at your father saying, I trust you enough to follow where you're leading me.
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:37.000
Carla Arges: Even when I don't understand.
00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:48.000
Carla Arges: When we allow God to redeem what sin distorted, instead of assuming He wants to destroy everything that makes us who we are.
00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:51.000
Carla Arges: That is when…
00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:53.000
Carla Arges: We are able to surrender.
00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:55.000
Carla Arges: and walk in obedience.
00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:03.000
Carla Arges: And when we finally believe that surrendering ourselves is not about abandoning ourselves.
00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:11.000
Carla Arges: It's placing yourselves into the hands of the One who knew exactly what He was doing when He made us.
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:21.000
Carla Arges: The affirming truth I have for you today is I do not have to abandon who God created me to be in order to obey Him.
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:31.000
Carla Arges: I can surrender control, trust His love, and allow the Holy Spirit to redeem and mature every part of me.
00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:37.000
Carla Arges: And my anchoring scripture for you today is from Psalms 139, 13, and 14.
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:43.000
Carla Arges: For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb.
00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:48.000
Carla Arges: I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.
00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:52.000
Carla Arges: Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.
00:23:53.000 --> 00:23:59.000
Carla Arges: God is asking you to trust who He knit you together to be.
00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:02.000
Carla Arges: He isn't confused about who you are.
00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:06.000
Carla Arges: He isn't disappointed that you have a personality.
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.000
Carla Arges: He's not asking you to disappear.
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:12.000
Carla Arges: He knows your inmost being because he made it.
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:15.000
Carla Arges: What he's asking for you to do.
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:17.000
Carla Arges: is loosen your grip.
00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.000
Carla Arges: Surrender control.
00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:22.000
Carla Arges: So you can follow him.
00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:26.000
Carla Arges: as the person He created you to be.