Modern readers will probably associate the word ‘submission’ with concepts like domination or aggression, but that is part of the cultural drift. We have forgotten the freedom and power of submission. However, there is at least one organization that still uses the “archaic” yet empowering definition: no military unit in the world would survive long without it. Commanders have authority and subordinates can choose either to submit or face punishment. But note this: commands are given for the welfare of the subordinates or their loved ones. A good commander thinks not of dominating his subordinates, but of directing them to accomplish the common objective.

Imagine an admiral who issues an order to his fleet. This order must pass through and be obeyed by many levels of subordinates. Each recipient of the command must apply it to their specific situation, carry out the appropriate actions, and perhaps even relay further instructions to their own subordinates. As long as these actions are consistent with the admiral’s orders, that person is in submission to the admiral. Their actions may bring safety to the entire fleet – so long as those actions are in line with the order. Not only that, any commands they give pursuant to their superior’s order effectively take on the same authority. Before the process is complete, a seaman 2nd class could give instruction with the effective authority of an admiral. That is the power of submission.

When we work under authority, and within the bounds set up by superiors, their word becomes our action – so they are now responsible, too. The bond of their command makes you their agent — the opposite of what we might call a “free agent”. They are implicated in what you do as their representative. Have you ever done something that turned out to be wrong and your boss or parent (who instructed you to do it) went to bat for you? That is the protection and freedom of submission.

So it doesn’t matter that some people do not like the boundaries of submission. It does not matter who labels this concept as “archaic”. It does not matter who ignores their responsibility, either as one who gives orders or one who obeys. Submission remains a vital and indeed a critical concept for our lives today, even more so in a world of post-modern relativism and obedience evasion. Submission gives structure, power, freedom, and protection that we need in order to be effective people of faith.

So often I come to the altar wanting to give my all to God… but I also desire to know what the future has in store for me. I want to have the security of knowing I’m in God’s will and knowledge of what will happen in the future. While it’s great to know exactly what is in store for you down the road, I realized that knowing what’s in store doesn’t make me surrender my life to what God wants. That’s not seeking Him first. The truth about my feelings is that I want to take a look into my future without surrendering my life to God — I choose to wait until he reveals the things in my future that I want to know about before I’ll commit to Him.

That isn’t how He intended it at all! We are to throw ourselves into whatever he has for us with an almost reckless abandon, not caring what becomes of us, so that we can become all that He has for us to be, whether or not it’s revealed to us at this moment. We must become willing to submit His process for our lives whether He shows it to us or not.

Imagine that you’re a young child and that God is your father, taking you on a vacation. You’re excited because He’s told you that you’re going to another state and the two of you will be driving there. While you’re on your journey there, however, what are you doing? You are in the car with Dad, having a splendid time, but what are you doing? Since you don’t have a driver’s license, much less a road map, you’re left trusting that He knows where He’s taking you. You must accept that He knows the way and He has the best route in mind for you.

We know that we cannot successfully guide ourselves through the roads of life and make every turn correctly. We must rely on our heavenly father. We are mere children in the scope of eternity, in need of a Father to guide us and make sure we get to our destination safely. We can’t control where he brings us: we just have to submit to the ride ahead and hopefully enjoy it.

I want to surrender to God’s process for my life without doing it for a look into the future. My prayer is that you will do the same.

That reminds me of a similar story. Jonah received a clear command, and just like a certain motorist from Cleveland, Jonah made the wrong decision. Jonah’s instructions did not come from a police officer, but they were no less clear and direct. In Jonah 1:2, the Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah made his big mistake and got on a ship headed in the opposite direction, to the city of Tarshish. Before long, Jonah was thrown off the ship and spendt the next three days and nights in the belly of a fish!  Both of these stories are pretty comical to me. If Jonah had followed God’s orders the first time, he would never have been thrown overboard and eaten by a fish. If the driver had pulled over in the first place, he probably would have driven away with nothing more than a ticket.

We shouldn’t have too much fun at their expense, however.  I wonder how many times I’ve behaved like Jonah? Has God ever asked me to do something, but I ran in the opposite direction? I imagine I’m not the only one who has disobeyed God in this way. One lesson we can learn from Jonah is that God wants the best for us and for the people around us. When we turn from Him and act disobediently, we hurt ourselves and the people we influence. We have a choice: we can run blindly, jumping fences into prisons of sin with long lasting consequences for ourselves and the people around us, or we can be obedient to a clear command and fulfill God’s will. Like the citizens of Nineveh, people are lost and looking for truth. Like Jonah, we have an opportunity to share Jesus with them. We have the keys to unlock the prison gates. Will you open the gates?

Aaron sighed loudly as he looked up the mountainside to see the same rocks and scattered foliage as the day before. No sign of Moses. Not for weeks. He could hear the more vocal dissenters approaching, but he didn’t turn around. They wanted the same thing as yesterday: a new symbol, a new direction. And with Moses gone, maybe they had a point…

The story of Exodus 32 is familiar and sad. God’s chosen people decided to abandon Him even as He was giving Moses plans for the tabernacle to hold His glory. But there is a very curious detail of this story that’s worth mentioning: let’s examine the excuses that are used. The people caused Aaron to make the golden calf, saying “as for this Moses, the man that brought us out of Egypt, we wot not [Ed: know not] what is become of him.”

Wait a minute. The man that brought us out of Egypt? Go back to chapter 20, verse 2: “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt…” Had they already forgotten after only forty days? God made it very clear that He expected them to recognize that He was responsible for their deliverance. But it’s easier to ignore a man than to ignore God, so we humans tend to “decide” that it wasn’t God. It was convenient to believe that Moses was the one they followed because, hey, Moses wasn’t there anymore.

What about Aaron? Surely he knew, right? Surely he was faithful, or at least he owned up to what he’d done? Well, no. “And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.” As far as excuses go, “the fire made me do it” is right up there with “the dog ate my homework” on the lameness scale. Less subtle, but just as useless as the peoples’ argument that Moses had gone missing again.

God judged the congregation of Israel that night: many lost their lives for the sake of a god they had invented for themselves. The calf could not save them or provide for them. It had no bearing on current events except in what they ascribed to it — and they even attributed their miraculous deliverance from Egypt to the calf Aaron had just made. It didn’t have to make sense; it just had to be comfortably docile so the people could enjoy themselves.

God was not mocked. He didn’t buy their excuses, and He didn’t play their little game. If not for Moses’ intercession, the entire nation of Israel would have been destroyed. God did not (does not!) tolerate idolatry. You can’t mask that with stupidity, either.

We would do well to remember that while people like pastors, group leaders, and mentors are humans that can be fooled or ignored, the God who placed them in our lives cannot be fooled. He didn’t buy excuses at Sinai, and the odds haven’t improved since then. (Excuses are cheap anyway; supply exceeds demand.) The Living God does not make excuses for Himself, doesn’t need to, and He won’t accept them from you and me. It’s not always easy to do, but I want to look past the things that trip me up and see His glory. I want to live for the God of no excuses — with no excuses.

When the patriarch Jacob realized that he was going to die soon, he gathered his sons together and blessed them — or more accurately, he foretold what each tribe of Israel would become. Judah was favored, but there is an unfamiliar phrase in the middle of his blessing:

“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.” –Genesis 49:10

What is this Shiloh? At the time, Jacob’s descendants had not even left Egypt, much less established the tabernacle at the city of Shiloh in the country of Ephraim. There are more complicated explanations, but simply stated the phrase “until Shiloh comes” means “until the one to whom it belongs will arrive.” Jacob knew that the rule of his family truly belonged to God, and that one day He would appear to fulfill Israel’s destiny. History shows that the patriarch was right.

It’s an amazing story, but what does it have to do with us? Well, just like the aged Jacob, it behooves us to examine who the ruler of our life is. Who do I belong to? Myself? Or can I acknowledge that God created me, gave me life, and still cares about the way I live it? The Messiah has already walked the earth, but He must also walk in my heart: the rule of my life belongs to Him.

Righteous Branch

“Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts, shall lop the bough with terror: and the high ones of stature shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall be humbled. And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord;”  –Isaiah 10:33-11:2

Isaiah and his successor Jeremiah were sent to a spiritually dark nation of Judah. While it had fared better than the northern nation of Israel, Judah was slipping into idolatry — or perhaps worse, insincere Judaism. For some time the prophets attempted to change the spiritual climate, to no avail. Eventually the Spirit moved them to begin speaking of the restoration: the coming of the Messiah and His effect on the world. While the corrupt institutions of Judah were being swept away, the prophets said, hope still remained in God’s mercy.

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE Lord OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”  –Jeremiah 23:5-6

Perhaps the greatest message of hope we can see in this passage is the symbolism of a branch. Branches are a natural part of trees. Unlike Gentile Christians, who are called “grafted branches” (Romans 11:13-24), this righteous Branch is part of the family tree of David. While there may be many corrupt branches of our life, it’s comforting to know that if we stick to God’s plan, the same righteous Branch will show up in our lives, too.

Eph 2:19,20 “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;”

It’s almost surprising that our Lord and Savior would be called a rock, a stone. Isn’t that insulting? However, God was referred to many times in the Old Testament as a rock.  The psalmist mentioned Him this way in Psalm 118:22 and many other times called Him a “rock,” meaning refuge or fortress. Isaiah spoke prophetically of Him in the 28th chapter of his book, calling Him “a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation.”

But what does all this mean?  The “corner stone” is the most important stone in the foundation. The rest play their role, but without the corner stone it will all fall apart. In fact, the building cannot exist without it.

And that’s exactly what Jesus Christ is to us: He’s all in all; He’s everything. If you are attempting to build this spiritual house that Peter talks about in I Peter 2, then you’d better have your foundation in the person of Jesus Christ. Then mix in the law and the prophets and the doctrine of the apostles. But without Him, it just ain’t gonna work regardless of who you are—Jew or Gentile, as Paul shows in verses 16 and 17. You’ve got to build on Jesus if you want your house to weather the storms.

Head of the Church

Eph 5:23 “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.”

Just as a wife is supposed to submit to a loving and provisionary husband, we are to submit to Christ. He is the head. The head receives signals from the rest of the body, just as we send our prayers and petitions up to Him. He then sends the command for the correct response to us. The head holds knowledge and wisdom. This is important here, because if I’m the feet, I might be tired of walking. To me it makes sense to stop. But to Him it makes sense to go on because He knows the end from the beginning. He can see that just over the next hill a rest awaits, so it’s always best to follow Him.

Here is a clear picture of the importance of submission to Christ in our lives: what is a body without a head? It’s certainly not a living body. And that’s exactly what every Christian is, every church, every preacher, pope, pop star, and president who won’t summit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They may be alive and vibrant to the natural eye, but God looks on the heart. Who is in charge of my life?

Holy One

The name “Holy One” is scattered 48 times throughout the bible. Almost 30 of those come from the prophet Isaiah calling God “the Holy One of Israel.” John the Revelator saw the four beasts who each have six wings, and are full of eyes within and never rest saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.”

There are many gods in this world, but this One is so holy that He could come and dwell among us and be the perfect One to be the ransom for many. How holy is God? Well, you can’t melt a giant iceberg with a small candle. In the same way, a God who is a little holy can’t forgive the magnitude of man’s sin. But that isn’t a problem for Jesus, who is the Holy One of God.

In reality, that’s a distorted view of the way submission is supposed to work. Submission is supposed to be a relationship in which each party has a healthy respect for the other. Although one person may have authority over the other, they would not do anything to harm the other individual.

We see people learning to live up to their full potential through submission almost every day around us. No model is perfect, but let’s examine the model of a teacher and a student. When the student submits to the teacher’s instruction and begins giving all their effort to their studies, the teacher can teach in a way that maximizes the student’s learning capacity.

The student would likely not learn near as much without the help of the teacher. Think of the teacher’s help as guidance that the student submits to. Without it, the student would not reach their full potential.

I’ve come to see parallels to this model in our walk with God. He, along with many other individuals in our lives – such as pastors, youth leaders, deacons, elders and parents – are our spiritual teachers. If we learn to submit to their instructions and grow under them, then we will be able to reach our full potential. We will grow up to be what God has promised us we would be, strong and thriving in Him, unhindered by things that would hinder us otherwise.

Submission done right is a positive experience. As was mentioned at the beginning of the article, many people don’t know how authority figures are really supposed to act. It takes seeing it in action to appreciate how submission can really be a good thing and the key to your potential.

Are there any positive experiences you’ve had with a mentor or teacher? Encourage someone else to follow God’s plan for submission – the right way – and reach their potential: share your story in the comments section!