February 3
“Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7
Starting with this first principle of submitting to God, we can see from the discussion just the last few days that it can be more difficult to submit to God during times of trial since our natural reaction is to pout and rebel against God when He gives us trials, and we know that it is difficult to submit to God during times of blessing since it is easy to become proud, thinking we ourselves did all this, and distracted will all the time that managing and enjoying our blessings entails.
Whatever our situation, whether we are feeling blessed or cursed or stuck somewhere in between, submitting to God is neither easy nor natural, and it takes great godly character to bring every desire and thought of the heart into subjection to Him. Yet that is our goal and what each of us must achieve. When is the last time you asked God to grant you the ability to submit fully and completely to Him, to take every thought and desire you have and refine it and make it pleasing to Him? When is the last time you clearly did not submit to God, and what was the result? When is the last time you clearly did submit to God, and what was the result?
We must get to the place where we are fully submitted to Him, but this is so very, very difficult. At least is was and is for me. I have many things that I want to do and many things that I would like to enjoy and see happen in my life. I have many ministry ideas and desires that I would like to fulfill also, and these are good things but perhaps not what God wants. The problem is that giving up the world, with its lusts and passions, and putting to death the desires of your own flesh is probably the most difficult thing you could ever do. And the extent to which these selfish and worldly desires run deep within our sin natures is frightening, or at least it is looking into my own heart.
I am not accustomed to submission. Even in my job I would often gravitate to do things that I wanted to do. (Fortunately, I was in R&D, and my ideas were plausible enough that I was allowed to pursue them for a good part of my time.) They say that you should do what you love, and everyone is pursuing their passion. And this is good advice to a point, because we have to pay attention vocationally to what we are interested in and good at. But when it comes to my selfish desires, of which I have plenty, this is not good advice. Indeed, it is the opposite that we should be doing.
The bottom line is that I like to be in control, and I like to have the ability to indulge my flesh when and how I like. Submission, even to a holy God Who only wants what is good for me, in order to bless me and use me to help others, logically makes sense but is the most difficult thing for me to do. But this is where it all starts, isn’t it? How can we have any true or lasting success and progress in this life if we are not submitted to God?
We’ll discuss this more in the next few days.