“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”
Isaiah 57:15 /KJV
“If I give it all to you, will you make it all new?”
When the process of sonship started in my life, almost a year and three months ago in Antigua Guatemala, I was asked to put my guard down and to submit all that I was to the leadership in place. Can you imagine how difficult this was for a physical and spiritual orphan?
My country celebrates democracy and freedom, but we struggle with submission. Unfortunately, Guatemala has been known as a country with high orphanhood rates because of the civil war, as I have stated in some of my last posts, is a large scale problem.
“Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”
Romans 13:1 /JKV
I’ve been a Christian for six years and I knew of my great issue with the word “submission”; it was “my game; my rules, my world and my life…” Slowly, I started to understand that there’s a significant difference between, fixing my behavior and fixing my heart.
It’s easy to say: “Lord, I trust you” when it comes to salvation, but it turns really difficult when we hear His calling. I was having a hard time trusting God’s calling in my life.
My thoughts for this process were mostly something like this: “They don’t know anything about me, how in the world are they going to exercise any authority over me? This time was different; they only asked me to go to the Father whenever I was troubled about something. For the first time I got to experience the love of family that knows how to love well, and the true empowerment that comes through it.”
My heart breathes this today:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.”
Psalm 34:8 /NIV
It’s clear to me that the Father longs for his children to believe, to trust, and to walk in confidence towards His heart. To leave everything behind in order to gain something that transcends all that could be possible to imagine. And, as every good kingdom journey we get to experience places in our hearts such as: abandonment, brokenness, dependence, empowerment, calling and confirmation. Know this, He will meet us right there.
By submitting ourselves to the call of the Father, He provides the people, and the environment we need to grow.
UNBECOMING
This action took a whole new level of comprehension in my heart.
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”
1 Corinthians 1:25 /NIV
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8’11 /NIV
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thusit is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Mystery and Victory
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed”
1 Corinthians 15:44’51 /NIV
For years I thought that I was meant to despise my body for being contaminated, but we can’t get rid of our own body, it’s our body! In the search to be more like Jesus we start to understand that we need to submit and to obey the voice of the Lord through the people speaking into our lives. This is a place where many people take self-denial to the extremes; this has caused too many people to abandon the process of getting to know the Father, their place as sons / daughters and the role they can play in the expansion of the kingdom! We can bring ourselves before the Lord every day as a living sacrifice and be changed by his presence, because He becomes the filter we use to breathe life into our souls.
We can be transformed!
“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”
Luke 2:52 /NIV
“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
Romans 12:1-3 /NIV
“I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body [Physical] also will rest secure”
Psalm 16:9 /NIV
The thought of God’s continual presence on David’s behalf brought him to acknowledge that his corporeal nature, is united closely with his “heart” and “spirit” – rests, and will rest, secure, confident that God will watch over it, and make the whole complex man – body, soul, and spirit – to “dwell in safety” (Ref. Bible h. commentary)
“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
Psalm 27:4 /NIV
The benefits are countless,
- It takes all the striving for recognition and performing issue out of the equation.
- It gives us the confidence to walk with no pressure and to hear clearly the only voice that matters, which is God’s.
- We move in freedom and power in the will of God.
- Our faith is increased.
- We gain authority through submission.
- We become like-Christ.
- We become dependent.
And to depend on God is not a weakness, is not a trend neither a cycle, but a way to grow and be empowered, to become the men and women of God, we begin to speak the language of a son / daughter.
“But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.”
Hebrews 1:3 /NIV
Why bring the issue of submission to the surface?
Simple, when we lay our guard down and submit to what the Father is speaking it is easier for us to walk in the places where His heart is.
Unbecoming is exactly what Paul went through in the process of his apprenticeship, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to understand the language and the ways God was talking unless he was willing to get rid of all that he considered “knowledge”.
“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ”
Philippians 3:8 /NIV
To be continued…
