Submission to God's Will

Submission to rightful authority is something that is contrary to man's very nature. We see this plainly in two-year-old children whose favorite word is often "no". I am sorry to say that my generation is a generation characterized by a lack of submission to rightful authority. This has infected the entire culture of America and perhaps is America's biggest 'export' to other nations. But God commands us to submit our wills to his will. Although we may struggle with this at times, it is really not so difficult when we truly love God and desire to please him.

God wants his children to obey him; to set their own ways aside and to follow him in all things.

God requires us to submit ourselves to rightful civil authority:

Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

I Peter 2:13

Within a faithful church, God requires his own to submit themselves to the godly authority within that church:

Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

Hebrews 13:17

Within a faithful church, God requires his own to submit themselves to those who are truly serving God:

I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,) That ye submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with us, and laboureth.

I Corinthians 16:15-16

Most of all, God requires us to submit ourselves to himself. All of God's faithful servants understood this, including King David, the prophet Isaiah, and James:

LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor min eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.

Psalm 131:1-2

But now O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.

Isaiah 64:8

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 4:7

In order to be saved, we must recognize that our own "righteousness" can never please God. Then we must submit ourselves to God's righteousness:

For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Romans 10:3

For those who are saved, their lives need to be submitted to God's will rather than to the ways of this fallen world:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 12:1-2