Tag: direction

Discipline of Submission

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 15 – Reforming our Souls

Discipline of Submission

[Bible references: Romans 13; 1 Corinthians 16:16-17; Ephesians 5:21; Hebrews 13:15-17; 1 Peter 5:1-7]

Mutual accountability

Despite what the world may think, there is nothing weak in being strong in the spiritual discipline of submission. However, it is one of the most difficult disciplines to practice. We want to be independent and strong, and we don’t want people to walk all over us. An important part of developing the spiritual discipline of submission is to balance when to be open and humble with knowing when not to let people take advantage of us.

As Christians, we are accountable to God. We know that we should confess our sins to Him and that He sees all that we do. Yet, we are also accountable to others around us. In allowing ourselves to be accountable, we also become more open to direction. Taking criticism well is difficult, which is why submission is a spiritual discipline. It takes effort to take criticism well. It’s far easier to be defensive and dismissive of what we’re being told is wrong. Yet when someone has developed the spiritual discipline of submission, they are able to not only take criticism and direction well, but they actually remain open to it.

Priority of listening

When we practice the spiritual discipline of submission, we learn more about ourselves, we become far more patient, we learn humility, and we understand how to be honest with others and ourselves. By allowing ourselves to be accountable and open to direction we become stronger in our faith, because we no longer have to hide our weaknesses from others. We are able to listen to others with minds that are open, and we break the cycle of always thinking of ourselves first. When we learn to be submissive, we learn to put ourselves in God’s hands far more, which allows us to build our relationship with Him. Saying we’re going to be more submissive is fine but putting it into action is a whole other thing.

Guarding against abuse

Of all the Spiritual Disciplines none has been more abused than the discipline of submission. Somehow the human species has an extraordinary knack for taking the best teaching and turning it to the worst ends. Nothing can put people into bondage like religion, and nothing in religion has done more to manipulate and destroy people than a deficient teaching on submission. However, each the aim of each discipline is to gain freedom, the freedom to be who we were meant to be.

The corresponding freedom to submission is the ability to lay down the terrible burden of always needing to get our own way. Instead, in the face escalating demands and counter-demands and strong wills needing impose their own way, we can offer the grace of silence. Biblical submission focuses primarily on the way we view other people, not in terms of our hierarchical relationships but on the attitude of mutual subordination and mutual respect, valuing people for themselves without demanding the same in return, for it is far better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way.

Observe

Read Romans 13:1; Ephesians 5:21; 1 Peter 5:5-7. What is our motivation for humility?

Our relationships

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 14 – Remembering our creation

Our Relationships

[Bible references: 1 Peter 4:7-11]

All of these activities are done in context of our relation to God, to each other, and to our land. God has created us in His image, in the image of a triune God in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit exist as three persons united into one. Within that framework, God created us as male and female, each created as creatures made in God’s image yet different from and interdependent upon each other. When God made a woman for Adam, He specified that the woman would be an ‘ezer kegnedo,’[1] a strength corresponding to him. God created us from the dust of the earth, so although we are stewards of the earth, we are also dependent on the earth. In the earth, God has provided for us the resources we need to do our tasks. In all these relationships, God has intended that we are to live in unity with Him, with one another and with our environment.

Over time, our unity in all these areas got more complicated as our numbers grew. We needed to create organizations which necessarily became more complex as our societies grew and as our collective impact on the earth became more substantial. We needed extra discipline to maintain our relationship with God. We also needed to develop more skills in diplomacy, administration, and hospitality as we deal with more and different people. We needed to pay closer attention to the effects of our culture on the earth and its creatures to minimize the damage from so many people using our physical resources.

All of our work, our stewardship, is intended to have a direction, to bring maturity, fruitfulness, and growth to God’s work. The work we were charged to begin in the Garden of Eden was designed to end in the filling and subduing of the earth, in the cultivation of the whole earth where heaven and earth overlap so that work and worship are the same thing.[2]

[1] God’s Word to Women. “Ezer Kenegdo” God’s Word to Women godswordtowomen.org/ezerkenegdo.htm; Francois, Mark Steven. “(Ezer Kenegdo) in Genesis 2:18” Between the Perfect and the Doomed markfrancois.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/%D7%A2%D6%B5%D7%96%D6%B6%D7%A8-%D7%9B%D6%B0%D6%BC%D7%A0%D6%B6%D7%92%D6%B0%D7%93%D6%B4%D6%BC%D7%95%D6%B9-ezer-kenegdo-in-genesis-218/

[2] Huber, Dave. “Avodah Word Study” EFCA Today Summer 2012 www.efcatoday.org/story/avodah-word-study

Observe

Read 1 Peter 4:7-11. What are we charged to do?

Scope and direction of sin’s consequence

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Scope and direction of sin’s consequence

[Bible references: Genesis 2:16-17; 3:14-15, 23; 6:5; Romans 8:19-28]

And so, it happened. The one thing that could create the ultimate catastrophe did happen. The good Creator, who only intended good things, allowed his image-bearers to give into their temptation, to put their own authority above His and violate the one restriction placed before them. This violation by the stewards of His creation broke everything: the relationship between themselves, the relationship between them and Him, the relationship between them and creation. All of creation was affected and is even now waiting for things to be made right again.

Everything in creation had been designed to be good, to reflect the good character of the good God. Creation was designed to be a place where God and his image-bearers could keep on creating good things and bring increasing glory to God. But now, although the ultimate structure of creation was still good, it was headed in the wrong direction. The broken universe would now cause things to move away from God’s glory.

“Anything in creation can be directed either toward ward or away from God – that is, directed either in obedience or disobedience to his law. This double direction applies not only to individual human beings but also to such cultural phenomena as technology, art, and scholarship, to such societal institutions as labor unions, schools, and corporations. and to such human functions as emotionality, sexuality, and rationality. To the degree that these realities fail to live up to God’s creational design for them, they are misdirected, abnormal, distorted. To the degree that they still conform to God’s design, they are in the grip of a countervailing force that curbs or counteracts the distortion. Direction therefore fore always involves two tendencies moving either for or against God.” [1]

In our current times, we can get things so quickly and easily compared to times in the past. We want what we want, and we want it now. Our desire to get what we want now overwhelms our capacity to think of others, as we put ourselves at the center of our part of the universe, replacing God with ourselves. In the case of the first humans, they wanted to grab knowledge and wisdom for themselves instead of waiting to receive it from God.

Everything was broken and separated from God. Spiritual death, the impaired relation between God and His image-bearers was immediate and would be mirrored by the physical death caused by separation of the people who would no longer have access to the Tree of Life. This was a great tragedy that could not be undone, not by the image bearers. But as we look around us, we can see that, despite the tragedy around us, things aren’t totally bad. Even though evil is very evident around us, there is still some goodness that is evident. It is in that observation that we can glimpse the possibility of hope.

God had ordained the penalty of death to be the consequence of turning away from him. Sin resulted in spiritual death, the immediate separation God’s image-bearers from God, nevertheless, the people did not die physically right away. Instead, what God did, was to apply discipline to his image-bearers. He also gave a hint of the solution to the problem created by sin, the first of many other hints that were to come.

[1] Wolters, Albert M. “Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Kindle Locations 685-689). Kindle Edition.

Observe

Read Romans 8:19-28. How has sin affected you and the one’s you love?