VICTORY AND FREEDOM IN SUBMISSION
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Deuteronomy 6:1-25 And these are the commandments, the
statutes, and the judgments, which Jehovah our God commanded to teach you so
that you might do them in the land where you go, to possess it, that you might
fear Jehovah your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I
command you, you, and your son, and your son's son, all the days of your life,
and so that your days may be prolonged. …
Life is not
without problems, product of personal decisions, ours mostly, and those of
other relationships that affect us, with these latter influencing us usually
only according to our reaction and handling. (At this very moment my convoluted
previous sentence being a problem for grammarians. J)
Though we may
pray that God will change us; within function of His gift of free will we must
submit to His provision of guidance and direction in order to attain victory
and freedom. I may pray with anguish, wanting God to change me or others, but
without my or their surrender it will not happen.
The greatest
example of this is trusting surrender unto receiving His imputed righteousness
unto everlasting salvation (Jn.3:16; Rom.4:13-25; Eph.1:13-14), but this one
paramount agreement is not followed by His forcing us to live righteous daily
salvation (Phil.2:12) anymore than He forces eternal salvation upon us.
God also presents
us with problems. Consider the promise and provision of a homeland for Jews.
Indeed God did provide
them with the path out of physical bondage in Egypt, but as is evidenced in the
majority’s unsubmissive mishandling of the problems God gave them, they did not
treat the battle as spiritual, continuing to see things physically, continuing
to look for physical answers from God and/or within humanity.
It is one thing
to easily submit to God’s commands when respect is on our side and/or we are
doing what we want to do or are after what we consider is owed us (Ex.11:1-3),
but not so easy to follow His direction when it is not our preference (Numbers,
chapters 13 & 14; emphasis 13:30-33;14:1-4).
Let us never
forget that we are often a fishy weepy leeky lot cucumbered about with a taste for
garlic, melons and onions. Let us be reminded that God’s manna, His provision
for victory and freedom comes from only harvesting and dining His Way.
(Num.11:4-15)
EBB4
No comments:
Post a Comment