Encouragement to surrender to the Lord Jesus.

What this letter is. A short, urgent evangelistic letter — an "encouragement to surrender" (Anmuthigung zur Uebergabe) — to a friend who had asked Tersteegen for "a word of awakening." Its striking move is that Tersteegen refuses to be that word himself. "I point you away from myself, to Jesus. If Jesus-for-us and Jesus-in-us cannot move you… much less can a poor child of man." The director steps aside so that Christ can do the converting.

He works on two fronts, both christological. First, Jesus-for-us: he sets the friend before the suffering Saviour — "how He, the Son of God, sweats in Gethsemane, and hanging on the cross cries: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" — and asks him to believe that this was borne "expressly for your sake, out of a lamenting compassion and an undeserved love." Second, Jesus-in-us: the same Christ is already at work within, "at the door of your heart, and has stood so long — rebuking, warning, admonishing, enticing, and offering all grace." The famous reversal of Revelation 3:20 becomes the letter's heart: "We have no need to wait for Jesus; He waits inwardly for us. God knows how long!"

Everything drives toward a single decision, stated plainly at the close: "Surrender yourself… in full renunciation of all else, sincerely to Jesus, and cling to Jesus with undivided faith-desire." For a writer usually so gentle and gradual, the tone here is bracingly direct — the "spurs" of a friend who sees a soul standing at the threshold and will not let it dawdle. (The letter is dated 29 February — a leap day; Tersteegen was writing from Mülheim in a stretch of recurring illness.)

A few words and echoes.

• "I point you away from myself, to Jesus." John 3:30, "He must increase, but I must decrease" — the true director makes himself dispensable.
• "Sweats in Gethsemane." Luke 22:44, "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground" — the agony in the garden.
• "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Matthew 27:46 (Mark 15:34), Christ on the cross quoting Psalm 22:1 — quoted here verbatim in the King James wording, the deepest point of Jesus-for-us.
• "Reconcile you… win for you all possibility of redemption." 2 Corinthians 5:18–19, "God… hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ"; the atonement understood as opening the door of redemption.
• "Jesus stands at the door of your heart, and has stood so long." Revelation 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock" — Tersteegen's favourite emblem of the patient, waiting Christ; note the inversion that follows.
• "We have no need to wait for Jesus; He waits inwardly for us." Isaiah 30:18, "therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you"; Isaiah 64:4. The initiative is entirely God's; the soul has only to stop delaying.
• "In full renunciation of all else." Luke 14:33, "whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple" — surrender means letting go of every rival hold.
• "Cling to Jesus with undivided faith-desire." The single-hearted faith that "remains faithful" — Tersteegen's ungetheilte (undivided) devotion, the opposite of a divided heart (James 1:8).