Submission – Key to Apostolic Power
James
4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil , and he
will flee from you.
Submission is
the hand that fits into the glove of authority. Neither works
without the other. We understand and believe that God through his
word and by his spirit is the authority by which everything
exists. By the authority of God’s word the sun shines, the moon
reflects, the stars twinkle, the waves roll, the earth moves,
animals eat and man breathes. I submit to you today that authority
is NOT the problem in our world today, SUBMISSION to authority is
the problem. Submission -
the
condition of being
submissive , humble, or compliant: an
act of
submitting to the authority or control
of another.
Man is the only created being with
the power to choose if he will submit to God’s way completely and
surrender all or selfishly and faithlessly submit only to what he
can control. I am afraid this is where too many Christians find
themselves today. We give but we only give so much, we go, but we
only go so far, and we do but we only do so much. Selfish
Submission allows us remain in control. As long as man is in
control, God will be limited in his authority. The bible is full
with examples of selfish submission. Selfish motives take over,
however we must remember, there is still only one way to get to
God, submission to the authority of his word through prayer,
witnessing, sacrificing, and worshipping.
It
is very important for us to understand that submission to
authority is more than just doing what someone in authority tells
you to do. Submission goes much deeper than just being a puppet on
a string, a “yes” person; submission literally propels us into
levels of revelation and dimensions of sensitivity to the will of
God like nothing else in this world. Submission is a sense of
trust, love is trust, hope is trust, our submission to God and the
authority that God has placed in our lives defines or determines
our sensitivity to God to perform and accomplish his will and
purpose in our lives. The basic principal is the more we trust
God, the more he reveals and entrusts to us.
