Submit to God

Submit First

Submitting to the Lord is our first line of defense when fear rears its ugly head. And guess who loves it when we live in fear? Our spiritual enemy. Fear is his playground. 

Thankfully, we have a plan of attack. God has given us a spiritual dress code in Ephesians 6:10-18. We must be fully equipped with the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit and a prayerful heart. Once we’re appropriately clothed, we can heed the words of James, the half-brother of Jesus:

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7 NIV

Before we start rebuking or resisting the devil, we must ask ourselves if we’ve fully surrendered and submitted to God. Submitting to God means fully abandoning our lives to Him. With our spiritual armor fully in place and prayer in our hearts, we’re yielding to the One who has the ultimate authority. We’re given the strength to resist the devil when we surrender our entire lives to God. And then guess what happens? The devil flees.

Yet, what we often try to do instead is first resist the devil or rebuke him, when we have yet to really submit to God. Resisting the devil is hard when we haven’t submitted our will, our ways, and our wants to God. Submitting to God is not only the first step, but our submission to God is actually us resisting Satan at the same time. 

We have the tools at hand. Let’s take steps toward fully giving our lives to our good God, for when we do, the devil has no power over us. 

Romans 3 vs 23-25

Mathew 5 vs 44

Forgiveness

Forgiveness Is Not Justification 

Forgiveness can be a sensitive topic in the Church. It is often so because the word “forgiveness” has been misunderstood. First, it is important to know what forgiveness is not. It is true that some horrendous things have been done to certain people by others. Forgiveness does not mean justification of these things. To forgive a wrong does not mean that this wrong was not done to us. To forgive something does not make it excusable. When we forgive, it does not mean that we deny that what was done to us was enormous or hateful.

We can consider our own forgiveness by God. Does the fact that the Lord forgave us mean that we have never sinned? Are we saying that we have done nothing wrong when we receive Christ’s sacrifice? Are we saying that our sin was not enormous? Are we saying that we did not deserve condemnation? Nobody is saying that. What we are saying is that God gave us unimaginable grace in view of our colossal sin. Moreover, God has done that at His own cost. Christ laid down His own life to forgive us for our sins.

So I am not justifying what someone has done to me when I forgive them. I look their sin right in the face and I say, “This sin is enormous. It is worthy of death. However, I forgive this wrong because I have been forgiven.”We take a full account of what has been done to us when we forgive. Then, we choose to release the person who hurt us. 

Thinking that forgiveness is justification can be confusing. One can wonder: How can a just God say that sin was OK? How can He justify rape? Murder? Stealing? Betrayal? God does not justify those things. He calls them what they are. Then, He chooses the death of His Son as the price paid for them. The Bible says that the payment for sin is death. God does not justify sin. The reason He can forgive our sins is because Christ died in our place. He also died in the place of the people who sinned against us. The sacrifice of Christ is enough to pay for the sins we committed and the sins that were committed against us. Forgiveness is accepting the sacrifice of Christ as sufficient. It is not justifying sin. Forgiveness is accepting that each sin has been paid for in full by Christ.  

Our sins are forgive Bible App

The devil wants you to believe the lie that you are unworthy so he can keep you enslaved to sin and hopelessness. We often beat ourselves up about our behavior and our sins. We feel burdened by the guilt and condemnation that we lay on ourselves! It could be that you are basing your belief about God’s forgiveness on your feelings rather than on God’s word. Our emotions can’t discern the truth from lies. They just respond to what we think. It’s dangerous to base truth on how we “feel.” Feelings come and go, but God’s Word never changes.

 

God’s mercy and grace will enable you to turn from the sinful lifestyle that once held you captive. As you believe this more deeply and renovate your mind, you will be set free from self-condemnation. Just believe in God.

 

The only way to truly know you are forgiven is to believe God’s Word. God has forgiven you based on what Christ did, not on what you do. Jesus Christ was the perfect God/Man who died so that we might be fully and completely forgiven of all our sins (past, present and future). Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. Not one sin was left out (except the sin of rejecting Him).

 

When you trust in who Christ is and what He did, you receive the forgiveness His sacrifice provided. Apart from God’s full forgiveness, we could not have a relationship with Him and He could not live in us. Everyone in Christ lives in a forgiven state with God, 24/7. The Biblical word for this is justified, which means God relates to us “just-if-I’d” never sinned.

 

One reason we question God’s forgiveness is that we believe God has only forgiven our past sins and not our future sins. We mistakenly think that any new sins that we commit separate us from God once again.

 

When we receive Christ into our life, our forgiveness is a settled issue once and for all. The issue now is not forgiveness but understanding how Christ’s life within us can set us free from sin’s destructive power.

 

So, go ahead and receive it! Agree with God and thank Him for His complete forgiveness. This is where freedom begins. You either believe God that you are forgiven or you are saying that Christ’s death on the cross was not sufficient to pay for your sins!

Galatians 6 /8-10

Hebrews 4/12

Isaiah 43

Proverbs 4 vs 23

Bible App Devotional

To obtain truth, we need 4 Rs:

1. Revelation (new enlightenment or understanding of Truth)

2. Renovate (trash the lie(s); study and meditate on Truth)

3. Rely (rest in and live out of the Truth)

4. Resist (resist the devil and stand firm in the Truth)

 

We all need revelation of God to know him better. We need an eye-opening experience, a revelation, to see the things of God that we cannot possibly see with our physical eyes. God wants to give us his revelation. He has poured it out in his scripture. He has made it clear that he wants us to have it. So if we want more revelation, we have to ask for it. He is faithful. When we ask, he provides every time. 

 

Renovate, defined in the dictionary is to make new, or renew. Renovating your mind takes time, takes commitment, and takes courage. It is choosing something different than what everyone else is choosing. In the battle of renewing your mind in God’s word, you will be met with resistance. 

 

When the enemy comes behind you and the enemy tries to steal, kill, and destroy you, he will make you look at your blemished past. Don’t. Rely on God and look forward. Stop looking at your flaws. Stop looking at your past. You have been bought with a price. Jesus Christ took all your flaws and that alone makes you worthy. Rely on God.

 

Do you need to resist the enemy? Is there a place right now where the enemy is involved in your life and you know it? Put up your barriers. When you know what you have in Christ and you know who you are in him, you will begin to put up barriers against the enemy. 

 

Even when you are relying on God, when you are renewing your mind, when you are resisting the enemy, you will still meet with other resistance. It can be something like a desire to not work, not push forward. Just starting to get into the word of God breaks the resistance. It is going to set you free. There is freedom where the truth is.