Beginning the journey of submission

 

Chapter 1: What Is Biblical Submission?

Submission is often misunderstood. It's not weakness, passivity, or losing your identity—it's a strong, deliberate act of yielding to the will of God out of love and trust.  It's a commitment to take a posture of agreement despite circumstances, or perceived outcomes, and to endure in belief that God really is God over the universe.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” — James 4:7

At our point of accepting Christ, we step into the belief that, "though I don't deserve abundant grace, mercy, and love, I need it and therefore I lay down my life to the God who embodies this, trusting Him to lead my life."  Oftentimes, though, after our revelation and first step of submission, we pick back up where we left off.  We fall back into old habits; ways of acquiring a counterfeit of provisions.  I just watched MGK and Jelly Roll's "Lonely Road" music video.  What a picture of this torn living.  Whatever our crutch, whatever our addiction, whatever it is that we've learned to put our trust in, we've got to keep submitting our hope in that for our hope in Christ to give us answers.  Holy Spirit will lead us, even in provisions.  

To put it simply, we must be ready to give up what has become familiar to us; whatever it is that we think keeps us going, for the trust that God will keep us going, even if His way doesn't make sense to us.  

To submit means to come under God's loving authority. It means trusting His wisdom above your own and yielding your preferences, emotions, and ambitions to Him—even when it’s uncomfortable. It’s believing that He is truly Lord, not just Savior.  He cares about every area of our life: in fact, He wrote an instruction book, a historical love letter for us to meditate on and hear from Him.  The more we spend time in His Word, and asking Him to open our eyes to His desires for us, the more we will see it come to life.

Spending time in His Word, and opening ourselves up to His guidance, will give us answers for daily living, planning for our future, and learning His mission for us.

Submission is ultimately an act of worship:

"But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.  Whose confidence is in Him.  He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.  It does not fear when heat comes; it's leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."  The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?  "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve..."  Jeremiah 17:7-10

Continue reading and there is a warning against taking our life into our own hands, trusting in what we see before us, instead of trusting what God can do, and how He will provide.  

Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means.  When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool.  A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary (our hope and protection).  O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame.  Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.   Jeremiah 17:11-13

Can you see that this is a warning to trust God, and submit to His ways, trusting that He will provide?  When we worry, we are saying we don't trust.  When we act on what we don't trust him for, we fall into sin.  It is not an accident, it is a result of "pre-meditation" of rebellion; "I cannot trust you, therefore I will take this into my own hands."  Jesus admonishes us in this, in Matthew, as He instructs us on living in trust of our Heavenly Father.  

Read Matthew 5-7, His sermon and instruction for living under God's banner.   

In all of our life, God is: "therefore, do not worry about you life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barn and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"  Matthew 6:25-27

When Satan tries to tell you, "you are not valuable to God, you must take this into your own hands," rebuke him, and realign your trust in God.  In this is a posture of submitting, and in that submitting, action.  Submission is not a passive stance, it is a "ready" stance.  A soldier submits to his officer, "ready for the next command." Yes, hit your knees, go to your prayer closet, open yourself to His Word for the day, and then get up and do it.  God will lead you to miracles; miracles take the risk of believing in the unseen.  Walking in His way, believing it will be before you see it: because you trust Him.