Submission

I have been thinking a lot lately about the theme of submission in several different ways. First and foremost, submission to God. I find that one of my favorite things to meditate on and realize is that God is God and I am not. His ways are so much higher than my ways, and His thoughts are so much higher than my thoughts. For me to say, "God would not do this or that (even when it is clearly in His Word) because that is unfair or unequal" is basically me judging God, putting myself in the place of Him, subjecting God to my opinions, belittling him, and saying my ways are higher than his ways. How utterly wicked this is!

The scary thing is that this attitude of non submission to God is very often subtle, subconscious, and unnoticeable in the heart of a believer. Our flesh apart from the power of the Holy Spirit does not want to submit to God at all. This is why we need to be born again of the Spirit by faith (dependence on God in mind, heart, and action) so that we have new spiritual sight to see things as He does and a new heart that does not want to sin or be rebellious to God anymore. Even as a Christian, we can be submitted in 98 areas of 100, but there might be two things that offend our cultural or personal sensibilities that we have a hard, rebellious, arrogant heart towards God. Whether it be hell, the question of predestination, the role of women in the home and church government, the way God deals violently with Israel's enemies in the Old Testament, homosexuality, the inspiration of Scripture, money,  or a number of different things in the Bible, we often come to these questions with an agenda, with opinions, and with an attitude that says, "I couldn't believe in a God who..." I believe that our total submission to God and his Word is the most important thing about us. If we do not have a submitted heart to believe things or do things that offend our cultural or personal sensibilities, we will miss out on God's best because submission to ALL of His ways brings life.

I often have conversations about the topics listed above with students, and the first thing I always address with them is the issue of submission with their questions. I ask them to try to come to Scripture with an open mind and an honest pursuit to discover what it is saying. A good quote to this point: “The existence of many disagreements about the meaning of Scripture throughout history reminds us that the doctrine of the clarity of Scripture does not imply or suggest that all believers will agree on all the teachings of Scripture.  Nevertheless, it does tell us something very important – that the problem always lies not with Scripture but with ourselves.” Usually the most challenging parts of scripture are not the parts that we don’t understand but the parts that we do. Let us not get too caught up on the questions that we do not understand, but prioritize the things that God values the most (which are the most simple): pure faith and devotion to Christ, surrender and taking up our cross daily, loving God and others rightly, a pure heart and conformity to His image, waging war against sin, guarding your mind and heart against the world, the flesh, and the devil, persevering, pressing into God, living for His glory, etc. The truth is, some of our questions can never be fully answered on this side of heaven and new creation, but a submitted heart is so precious to God.  

The following ten minute clip by Francis Chan gets at this issue of submission and it is worth the watch for sure.