Submission - What, Why, How

Submit yourselves, then, to God. James 4:7

What is submission? What does it mean to submit? According to the dictionary, submit means "to yield oneself to the power or authority of another, to defer to another's judgement, opinion, decision ,etc." In other words you give another person power or control over you. I looked for examples of submission on the internet and some interesting things popped up. Just as Jesus' use of parables teaches valuable lessons, these real life examples of submission helped me to better understand my submission to God. I ran across several blogs that discuss submission. One blog mentioned that submission is a gift freely given to another person, also that once given it cannot be taken back.  Just because it is freely given does not mean that it is easily handed over; some times there is a struggle to fully give the gift of submission.

Why do I think I need to submit to God to experience abundant life? First off let me say that it has nothing to do with my salvation and everything to do with my salvation. The day I admitted that I needed forgiveness for my sin and that forgiveness could only come through accepting Jesus into my life my salvation was sealed. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ... not by works, so that no one can boast" Ephesians 2:4. I cannot earn my salvation; therefore, if I do not submit I am still saved. However, when I asked Jesus into my life I did not ask him to be only my Savior, but also Lord. I am called to be conformed to image of Christ (Philippians 2:5) and in order to do that I must submit myself to God (Philippians 2:6-8).

How do I submit to God? This question is a bit trickier for me. Yes, I can say "God you are in control of my life," but what does submission look like in action. Again looking at the lives of people who have chosen to give control over to another human has shed some light on the subject. Basically it boils down to two words : Obey and Serve. Often people in relationships that practice power exchange have a list of rules or responsibilities, particulary early on in the relationship, that instruct them on how to obey and serve. As they learn each other better eventually it is thought that the rules/responsibilities do not need to be as well defined because the submitting partner will naturally follow a pattern of obedience and service. As one person wrote on their blog that they had gotten to a point in their submission that all the rules could be thrown out and she would only need to follow one rule - do as her master commands. As a Christian I have 1,189 chapters (around 31,103 verses) on the "rules/responsibilities" in order to show my submission to God, but it all boils down to 2 commands - Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40).

I wish I could say after all these years that I only need those 2 commands in order to submit to God, but after this past year I can see that I am continuing to struggle with fully submitting to God and need more structure and instruction in order to more fully submit. I have already thought of some ways that I can show my submission to God - Thankful Thursdays and Mediation Mondays.  I will be putting up a more complete blog about "rules" in Christian submission probably next weekend in case anyone is curious and as a reminder to myself.