Everyone wants to resist the devil and watch him flee, but before that can happen, we must submit to God. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). Humbling ourselves before God is therefore the first step in submission. When we humble ourselves before God, we draw nigh to Him, and here it is promised that He will draw nigh to us. How simple, yet how profound, that God Almighty, Jesus Christ Victorious, the king of the universe, the maker of all that is seen and unseen, the maker, redeemer, and sustainer of our souls, would draw nigh to us? It is through love that this happens.
All that grace, all that love, all that He desires to give us and more, it all comes from His love for us, His never-ending, undying love for us. It is a covenant love, not based on emotion or a whim or a fleeting favor, but a promise to love us forever, even when we sin. It is not a feeling…it is a fact based on choice. He could have started over in the garden, He could have slain Adam and Eve where they stood, but He made a Choice, to love them and through them, us…a Choice we now have presented to us. Jesus chooses to love us. He chose to sacrifice Himself for us. He chooses to forgive us and accept us now with an everlasting love. But a covenant is between two parties….we in return must choose to love Him. Not through a fleeting emotion, but in a covenant choice, making the effort to love Him every day, and choosing to place Him number one in our lives. We love him, because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 reads 4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: 5 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Part of this love is Submitting to God. As a committed bride before her committed groom, we submit ourselves to God, in a posture that is more than duty, more than tradition, more than fear. We submit ourselves in a conscious choice of love to God.
Submit your heart to God today, for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it (Jeremiah 17:9)? But when Jesus enters in and takes up residence in us through the infilling of the Holy Ghost, He takes our old stony heart and replaces it with a new heart, a living heart, a heart with His law written on it, that it might not sin against Him (Ezekiel 11:19, Ezekiel 36:26). He set us free from the law of sin and death that we might love Him with all the love that He has poured into us, and in turn we might love the body of Christ around us, forgiving as we have been forgiven, allowing love to cover a multitude of sins.
When Jesus enters in and takes up residence in us through the infilling of the Holy Ghost, He takes our old stony heart and replaces it with a new heart
Submit your soul to God today, your mind, your intellect that He has granted us, your free will to think and do, out of a mind of love. Recognize that love is not just a feeling, it is a choice, and we choose to love Him with all our mind. Submit your thoughts to Him, your emotions to Him, your opinions to Him. His ways are higher and His thoughts are higher (Isaiah 55:9). Lay down everything that besets you and deceives you, seeking His truth that we might wear it as a secure belt. Lay your minds, your souls, before Him in trust, knowing that He made them, redeemed them, and His plans are for us and not against us (Jeremiah 29:11). Ask Him in submission of love to open your minds to His word, that we might receive it in the mind but plant it in the heart, that we may not sin against Him (Psalm 119:11).
Submit your strength to God today, let all that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6)! Even when we feel we have no strength, His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Seek Him in the strength of your spirit, seek Him with JOY for the JOY of the LORD is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10), our joy in Him, our delight in Him. He delights in you…do you delight in Him? Ask Him to set your minds and your hearts at liberty to worship Him with all your strength in spirit and in truth.
When you submit to God in love and devotion daily, you will find your relationship with Him quickly growing.