Submission and Obedience are Not the Same

PRAY OVER THIS

“And Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’”

(Mark 12:17)

 

PONDER THIS

Suppose you work for a person and he or she asks you to do something dishonest. Someone asks you to cook the books, to juggle things, to steal for them, and you try to be in submission. Suppose the government enforces upon you an unjust law and asks you to do something that is contrary to the will of God. Suppose the government was to tell us that we could not proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is important to understand that submission is not always the same as obedience. Your ultimate loyalty belongs to God. You’re to render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar and unto God the things that belong to God, but never give to Caesar the things that belong to God. Our ultimate authority is God and we must always submit to Him above any other.

When was a time you faced a conflict between honoring God and honoring man?

When was a time you faced difficulty for choosing to honor God over man?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of ways you currently are called to honor human authority. Ask God to reveal to you any way you might be honoring people over Him and to help you change your course in this area.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

If You Don’t Fight Lust

Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11)

When I confronted a man about the adultery he was living in, I tried to understand his situation, and I pled with him to return to his wife. Then I said, “You know, Jesus says that if you don’t fight this sin with the kind of seriousness that is willing to gouge out your own eye, you will go to hell and suffer there forever.”

As a professing Christian, he looked at me in utter disbelief, as though he had never heard anything like this in his life, and said, “You mean you think a person can lose his salvation?”

So, I have learned again and again from firsthand experience that there are many professing Christians who have a view of salvation that disconnects it from real life, and that nullifies the threats of the Bible, and that puts the sinning person who claims to be a Christian beyond the reach of biblical warnings. I believe this view of the Christian life is comforting thousands who are on the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13).

Jesus said, if you don’t fight lust, you won’t go to heaven. “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29). The point is not that true Christians always succeed in every battle. The issue is that we resolve to fight, not that we succeed flawlessly. We don’t make peace with sin. We make war.

The stakes are much higher than whether the world is blown up by a thousand long-range missiles, or terrorists bomb your city, or global warming melts the ice caps, or AIDS sweeps the nations. All these calamities can kill only the body. But if we don’t fight lust, we lose our souls. Forever.

Peter says the passions of the flesh wage war against our souls (1 Peter 2:11). The stakes in this war are infinitely higher than in any threat of world war or terrorism. The apostle Paul listed “immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,” then said it is “on account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5–6). And the wrath of God is immeasurably more fearful than the wrath of all the nations of the world put together.

May God give us grace to take our souls and others’ souls seriously and keep up the fight.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Colossians 3:19

[19] Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

Ephesians 4:31-32

[31] Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. [32] Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Colossians 3:8

[8] But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

Ephesians 4:29

[29] Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Submitting to the True Authority

PRAY OVER THIS

“Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors...” 1 Peter 2:13

 

PONDER THIS

What is biblical submission? Submission is one equal voluntarily placing himself or herself under another equal that God may therefore be glorified. Submission is simply getting under the authority that God has established, not for that authority’s sake, but for God’s sake who established the authority.

When you submit yourself to a governmental authority, you’re not doing it for their sake; you’re doing it for Jesus’ sake. And that makes a difference. God has established authority everywhere. And God is behind all authority. So when you submit, you’re not merely submitting to a human being, you’re ultimately submitting to Almighty God. And when you do that, God begins to invest in your kingdom authority.

How does today’s devotion challenge your thinking on submission to authorities?

Where is God calling you to submit to an authority you have a disagreement with?

PRACTICE THIS

Take practical steps of submission to authorities in your life this week, remembering that you are ultimately submitting to God and not to man.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What It Means to Love Money

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. (1 Timothy 6:10)

What did Paul mean when he wrote this? He couldn’t have meant that money is always on your mind when you sin. A lot of sin happens when we are not thinking about money.

My suggestion is this: He meant that all the evils in the world come from a certain kind of heart, namely, the kind of heart that loves money.

So what does it mean to love money? It doesn’t mean to admire the green paper or the copper coins or the silver shekels. To know what it means to love money, you have to ask, What is money? I would answer that question like this: Money is simply a symbol that stands for human resources. Money stands for what you can get from man — other human beings — instead of God.

God deals in the currency of grace, not money: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1). Money is the currency of human resources. So, the heart that loves money is a heart that pins its hopes, and pursues its pleasures, and puts its trust in what human resources can offer.

So, the love of money is virtually the same as faith in money — belief (trust, confidence, assurance) that money will meet your needs and make you happy.

Love of money is the alternative to faith in God’s future grace. It is faith in future human resources — the kind of thing you can obtain or secure with money. Therefore the love of money, or trust in money, is the underside of unbelief in the promises of God. Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. . . . You cannot serve God and money.”

You can’t trust in God and in money at the same time. Belief in one is unbelief in the other. A heart that loves money — that banks on money for happiness — is not banking on all that God is for us in Jesus as the satisfaction of our souls.

John Piper 

Bible Study

1 Peter 2:13-16

[13] [n]Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, [14] or to governors as sent by him [o]to punish those who do evil and [p]to praise those who do good. [15] For this is the will of God, [q]that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. [16] [r]Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but [s]living as servants of God.

1 Peter 2:3-8

[3] if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

[4] As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, [5] you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. [6] For it stands in Scripture: 

    “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,

        a cornerstone chosen and precious,

    and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

    [7] So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, 

    “The stone that the builders rejected

        has become the cornerstone,”(1)

    [8] and 

    “A stone of stumbling,

        and a rock of offense.”

    They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. 

Romans 13:1-2

[1] Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. [2] Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

Titus 3:1-2

[1] Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, [2] to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

Into a New Kingdom

PRAY OVER THIS

“Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.”

Romans 5:20

 

PONDER THIS

Today’s verse tells us in plain English that God gave us the law to let us know we’re sinners. Those who have trusted in Jesus have come into a new kingdom; it is the kingdom of grace, and it is much better than the kingdom Adam had even before he sinned. Adam had an earthly dominion, but he blew it. But Jesus bought it back, and it now has become a kingdom of grace.

One of the effects of Super-glue is that when you put something back together, it is stronger than when it began. That’s what salvation is. It’s stronger after it’s been put back than it was before it ever got broken. Paul said that by one man—Adam—we got into one kingdom, and by another Man—the Lord Jesus—we got into the kingdom of love and light. But the two are not equal; the kingdom of God is far better than the kingdom of man.

Can you name some ways Jesus has transformed and restored the brokenness that resulted from Adam’s sin?

Does today’s devotion stir in you a desire to live for the kingdom of God over the kingdom of man?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend some time using Super-glue to repair something broken in your home. Reflect on the reality that your salvation is much stronger than the brokenness that separated you from God.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers