Tag: Submission

Lent 2020 | Day 25: “Go”

The irony of today’s word focus is not hard to notice!

The world has virtually stopped. What was once hustle and bustle has now become still and quiet. This is the world ruled by an invisible adversary.

And yet, in the midst of all of this God has called us to be a people who go. Go the extra mile. Go for the sake of others. Go into the highways and byways of the world. God to the least of these.

Just because we have to be more aware of the threats around us does not relieve us of the charge to go. We may have to get more creative. We may have to do things we never thought we could. We may even have to step far outside our comfort zone. But the admonition to go is about making an assessment of our own hearts. Are we willing to consider others before ourself?

It can be quite challenging to serve one another. It can even be down right difficult to serve a stranger. But, the call to go is at its core a call to serve. What many of us don’t realize is that we will discover the assignment or task when we get moving. Not before.

God wants to see us get up and move. Then he can see if we are being serious. Not everyone is ready to take a step like that. But, I think only difficult step is the first one. After that I just becomes a habit.

Until we see that the biggest issue with going is in the heart, we will find ourselves worried about the where we will be sent. Don’t worry about it. If God is in it, you will never be alone.

Lent 2020 | Ash Wednesday: “Led”

As we begin our journey into the season of Lent this year, I would like to begin by posing a question. What does it mean to be led? What does it mean to follow someone else? What does it mean to submit to the leadership of someone whom we consider to be an influence, a mentor? Someone who provides for us an example that we can truly follow.

One of the most interesting realities of the Christian faith is that being a follower is a key aspect, a key identity to being a disciple of Christ. To being a Christian in the fullest sense of the word. We are called to submit. We are called to obedience. We are called to allowing ourselves to be influenced by someone, namely Jesus, who will provide for us the example that we need in order to become the people that we ought to be.

As we begin this season of Lent, I want to encourage you, I want to encourage myself, to remember that one of the most important tasks we have been called do is to be led.

To be led to repentance.

To be led to grace.

To be led to the cross.

We have been called, and we are admonished over and over again in the scriptures that we are followers. That doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with us. That doesn’t mean that there’s something missing in us. What it means is that we have recognized that in order for us to achieve our greatest aims, we must follow the one who is leading us to the place where we longed to be, whether we realize it or not.

We all have a longing to fulfill our purpose. But we don’t know how to discover it. We all have a desire, to have a purpose, to have meaning, to be fulfilled in everything that we do. And so we must follow Christ, who is the ultimate example of goodness, the best model for how we should conduct our lives in this world. And the more we follow, the better we are at seeing and being who Christ wants us to be.

We discover that our truest and deepest identity is in Christ. That our desires should be those of Christ. And what we have longed to be should be given to us by God in Christ.

And so in this season of Lent, as we begin this journey, I encourage you to ask yourself, are you being led? Are you allowing yourself to submit to the leadership of Christ as he strives to lead you to where you should ultimately long to go?

Lent 2019 | Day 13: The Simplicity of Obedience

Obedience is simple, but it is rarely easy.

I want to make sure that I make this distinction right from the beginning. To say something is simple does not mean it is easy. Obedience is simple, but it is rarely easy.

As we have seen over the last couple of days, the call and difficulty of obedience are related to the problem we have to submit to what we have been told to do by God. The more we seek to know and do God’s will, the greater our chance of confronting the greatest obstacle of our faith: We do not want to do things God’s way. We wonder quietly (and sometimes openly) if God really wanted to he could make it easier for us to obey.

Let me answer this simply: NO! God will not make it easier.

Obedience will always be a challenge because it will always ask us to actions that challenge our comfort. I don’t know why we want to make obedience to God easy. It is not easy. It’s not supposed to be because God is working to remove the vestiges of sin from our lives. That means that until all God sees is Christ in us, there is a continued need for obedience.

The miracle is that God has not left us powerless. When Jesus ascended into heaven, he promised to send another. One who would be both our comforter and our source of strength. When I say this I mean two specific things. First, the Holy Spirit comforts us not in our sinning. No, the Spirit of God comforts us by reminding us that in spite of our sin, we have been forgiven; that in spite of our tendency toward failure, Christ’s success on the cross cannot be revoked or rescinded.

Second, the Holy Spirit is our strength. What I mean by this is that we are not going to win the battle for obedience against sin in our own ability. It is divine enablement that makes the life of a born-again believer of Jesus possible to live until we see Jesus face-to-face. The Holy Spirit pokes and prods our conscience, letting us know we are moving away from God’s will and purpose. When we heed this prompting we are drawn away from danger and reset on our journey.

Obedience is hard, but not because God has made it hard. It is hard because we make it hard. When we fail to obey, it is not an indictment on God, but on us. We have failed to obey because we found something of lesser value than God more worthy of our time and efforts.

Obedience is simple. We just want to make it complicated. And this is what makes it hard.

Lent 2019 | Day 11: The Difficulty of Obedience

The great difficulty about obedience is that it is runs counter to our instincts to do what we think is best.

The great difficulty about obedience is that it is runs counter to our instincts to do what we think is best. We don’t like the idea of substituting our judgment for that of others. Whether we realize it or not, our tendency is to trust our emotional responses to the circumstances we find ourselves in and the decisions we have to make. This can be a dangerous method to making important decisions in life.

The irony is that the season of Lent calls us to forsake our own impulses and tendency and intentionally do one of two things. We can set something we value aside or we can add something we know we need to do that is of spiritual value.

In the Christian faith, obedience is vital if we are going to see anything resembling maturity. If we cannot control our tendencies, insecurities, impulses, or whims we will find it difficult to make progress. This is why obedience is such an important aspect of maturity.

The greater our obedience the easier it becomes to know that we are living in a manner worthy of the Gospel. Our obedience is the expression of our inward  convictions and understanding of God’s character and his commands.

The apostle John said as much when he said in his first letter.

3For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3 ESV)

Not only does the apostle equate our love for God with our obedience to his commandments, he adds this extra reminder. John lets the reader know that for those who are children of God, obedience should not feel like a burden! That is a remarkable thing to say. And it is an even more remarkable thing to experience. But, it all begins with a commitment to obey.

Lent 2019 | Day 10: The Call to Obedience

Obedience is the greatest challenge of the Christian life because we are called to put aside our judgment of what is best and submitting to God’s judgment of what we should do.

We have spent some time looking at the reality of God’s grace in the life of believers. I would like to turn our attention for a few days to the call of obedience. What I mean by this is that now that we have been born again to a new life in Christ, we must submit ourselves to live in a manner of life “worthy of the Gospel of Christ” (Philippians 1:27).

This idea—live in a manner worthy of the Gospel of Christ—is something I have encountered in several places in the New Testament (Eph. 4:1, Col. 1:10, 1 Thes. 2:12). It is interesting because every single time I read it, I intuitively know what it means. It is a call to conform all of my life so it reflects the person of Jesus. If this is what Paul is asking of believers (and I believe he is), we have to confront our tendency to buck at what it entails for our lives.

There is another passage that I find horribly inconvenient. It is found in 1 Samuel 15:22-23. The context is Samuel’s admonition to King Saul about how he had disobeyed the command of God to destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions. Saul did not do this, he saw the spoils of war before him but failed to control the people. Then to make matters worse, Saul tries to “make things right” with God by saying that what was kept was going to be sacrificed to God as an act of worship!

It is in this context that the prophet tells the disobedient king,

22And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23 ESV)

Obedience is better than sacrifice.

Obedience is the greatest challenge of the Christian life because we are called to put aside our judgment of what is best and submitting to God’s judgment of what we should do. Every time we fail to obey, we guarantee displeasing God. Every time. There are no exceptions here. We struggle to see God at work, we miss seeing God’s favor in our lives, we falter in our labors because we are not obedient.

In this season of Lent, I want to challenge you to consider where you are not being obedient to God. Once you have identified it, the proper response is to repent and begin to obey. God is faithful and just to forgive. His word has promised that he will (1 John 1:9).

3 Reasons Lasting Disciples are not Made in the Church

We have to see that the reason we study, memorize, and teach what the Bible says is so that we can become what Jesus was. While the cliqué has become tired, the truth it contained has not. If we want to do what Jesus did, we have to become who Jesus was.

Over the last several years, the subject of discipleship has become an important topic for me. One that occupies my mind most days. I have spent a good amount of time reading, studying, discussing, and engaging in discipleship as much as I can. Of all the things Jesus said to his original disciples, and were written down for us to read in the Scriptures, what Jesus said about discipleship requires careful consideration. Continue reading “3 Reasons Lasting Disciples are not Made in the Church”

Easter 2010 (Pt. 4) | “My God, My God…”

Easter 2010 Meditations

The Fourth Word

33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:33-34)

Meditation on the Fourth Word

Jesus’ 33 years on earth were the most turbulent years in the existence of God.  For the first time in the span of eternity the perfect communion of the God-head was impeded by flesh and blood.  In these words we hear the ultimate suffering of God.  Anyone who believes that God has not paid a price in our redemption has missed the Cross. For it is here that we see Jesus standing in our distress.  For the first time in God’s existence God experienced what it was like to be separated from God in the person of Jesus.  When you cry out to God because He feels so distant, and you will, never forget that God Himself knows what you are going through.  Therefore, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, ESV).

What is the Gospel? (Pt. 12) – “Submit Yourself Unto The Lord”

This is part of the series”What is the Gospel?”

Several months ago I had a thought about how God desires for us to relate to Him when we are confronted with the Gospel. The line of thought that I followed revolved around two words—Submission and Surrender. While I believe that both are aspects of the Christian journey, the more I thought about it the more I leaned toward submission as the appropriate response to God. God desires for His children to grow in faith and relationship with Him. This process is called Sanctification (which I understand to mean “becoming like Jesus”). Why is sanctification important? It is important because it serves as an indicator of the progress we have made in our walk with God. Are we striving for God’s will? Do we see the world through His eyes?

Submission and Surrender are a part of this unfolding drama in that it reveals to God the inclination of our Heart. What is the difference you may be asking? I would have to say that it is choice. When I submit I am voluntarily ceasing from pursuing my own program. I have decided to defer, to consent to the will of God. Surrender is different in that it implies the end of a valiant, yet fruitless attempt to win against the opponent. Surrender is the need to back down under compulsion. Many may hear the gospel and it goads them into rejecting its message. For this person the option chosen is that of surrender. They have to be made to give in. The Gospel will feel like a battle to be won, and yet they will never overcome. The bible says that every knee will bow. Then there are those that hear the gospel and rejoice because it is Good News to their heart. Submit yourself unto the Lord and allow God to order your steps.

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