Submission To God # 2

Submission To God # 2

The first aspect of submission is to receive as from God's hand, whatever comes to me in a providential way, with recognition of His absolute right to take the same way - when He deems that will be most for His glory and my good.

When we pray, as we are bidden to do, "May Your will be done in earth - as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10), the emphasis is to be placed on the word "done".

It is first, a request that the Divine will may be wrought in us, for we can only work out our "own salvation with fear and trembling," as God is pleased to work in us "both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:12-13); for it is thus that God writes His law on our hearts. Only as His will is wrought in us - are our wayward wills brought into accord with God's.

Second, it is a request that the Divine will may be performed by us. The first is in order to the second. God's will is done by us - when we consciously and voluntarily abstain from and avoid those things He has prohibited, and when we practice those things which He has enjoined upon us.

Third, it is a request that the Divine will may be acceptable unto us, that we may be pleased with whatever pleases Him: That so far from repining, we may thankfully receive whatever God is pleased to send or give us - His chastisements not excepted.

The perfect exemplification of what we have sought to bring out above, is found in our blessed Redeemer.

First, there was nothing  whatever within Him which was contrary to God, which was capable of resisting His will. He was essentially holy - both in His divine Person and in His human nature; and as the God-man, He declared, "Your law is within my heart" (Psalm 40:8).

Second, when He entered this world, it was with the assertion, "Lo, I come to do Your will, O God" (Hebrews 10:7); and so completely did He make that good, He could say, "I always do those things that please Him" (John 8:29).

Third, He never uttered the slightest murmur against the Divine providence; but instead, declared, "You have assigned Me My portion and My cup; you have made My lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for Me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance" (Psalm 16:5-6). And when the supreme test came, He meekly bowed,saying, "The cup which My Father has given Me - shall I not drink it?" (John 18:11). When in Gethsemane, He prayed, "May Your will be done" (Matt. 26:42), He included all three things:

May Your will be wrought in Me.

May Your will be performed in Me.

May Your will be well-pleasing unto Me.

If, then, we are to be able to say as Job did when so severely tested, we must emulate his previous conduct and regularly tread the path of obedience. Furthermore, we must learn to sit loose to all worldly comforts and stand ready prepared to part with everything when God shall require it at our hands. Some of you may perhaps have friends who are as dear to you as your own souls; and others may have children in whose lives your own lives are bound up: All have their Isaacs, their particular delights. Labor for Christ's sake, labor you sons and daughters of Abraham to resign them hourly in affection to God, that when He shall require you really to sacrifice them - you may not confer with flesh and blood any more than the blessed patriarch did." (George Whitefield).

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)