Commit to Submit

The Lord is the One who ordains our work. What we will do, where we will do it, and how it will be done. Although this is true we are accountable for the work we do. We are responsible. This reality is easy to accept when everything is going well, when circumstances are pleasing. When we are welcomed and received with kindness and care.

But what about when circumstances turn negative?

What happens when everything we do to honor the Lord falls down around us? We are accused, maligned and mistreated. More than that our Gospel testimony is questioned, and the integrity of God’s Word is compromised. How would you respond? What will you do?

Perhaps your experience is more personal, your family rejects you as a Christian. They accuse you falsely, they compromise your testimony not knowing the full implications of their idle and misspoken words.

Thankfully the Lord provides understanding for us in moments like these. And, our response to trying seasons exposes our spiritual reality. Are we depending on God, or in what others think of us?

Our only way to endure these difficulties is to commit to submit. But how? What practical ways can we walk in submission to the Lord, what should our focus be?

1. Grasp a hold of the person and the work of the Lord – can you explain this clearly to another – write it out

2. Focus constantly on His presence – what does that mean, what does it look like

3. Acknowledge His sustaining hand and protection in your circumstance – start a gratitude journal

4. Accept His sanctifying work

5. Understand our weakness and need of growth

6. Commit to submit to what He is doing in your life and in the lives of others

• In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials (1 Peter 1:6).

• It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death (Philippians 1:20).

• If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name (1 Peter 4:16).

• I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me (2 Timothy 1:12)

• I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16).

• It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).

• Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Romans 5:3-5).

#storm #submit