(Back to the beginning of Becoming a Winner)
Continued
(Back to the beginning of Becoming a Winner)
James 4:7 brings it together:
1. Let Jesus rule in your life (Life’s most exciting adventure)
‘Submit to God,’ is the way James put it. Let God control your life.
At first thought, this seems so oppressively restrictive that it’s frightening. And we’re scared we’ll be told to go somewhere awful and do something embarrassing. In reality, for you to fear God’s commands is as unnatural as a much loved baby fearing its mother’s breast; as a shivering child fearing sunshine; as someone sick fearing health. To obey God is to say good-bye to mistakes and regret and open the door to excitement and achievement.
No one understands you like your Maker. No one knows your future like your God. No one has your best interest at heart like the One who shed his blood for you. No one can bring you happiness like the Inventor of sex and sunsets, sight and sound, touch and taste, life and beauty. He alone offers heaven.
When you really analyze it, nothing could be more exciting, fulfilling and rewarding than God’s desires for you. Fearing God’s will is as irrational as worrying about what the world’s best mechanic might do to your car, and as stupid as insisting on defusing a bomb for fear that experts will not do it properly. The Almighty, your Creator and Savior, is selflessly devoted to maximizing your happiness. Moreover he has infinite knowledge. When God asks you to do something, he is granting you the unique privilege of tapping into the greatest Mind in the universe. You have the opportunity to do something infinitely smart. Explore that thought. It could add a whole new dimension to your life.
Disregard your Maker’s right to tell you what to do. He merely gave you life and everything you’ve ever touched. He holds your atoms together and gave you the brain cells you think with. Forget that Christ purchased your allegiance by trading his life for yours, becoming the devil’s plaything on the cross so that evil couldn’t touch you. And overlook the power of God to determine your eternal destiny. Consider merely God’s infinite knowledge, perfect goodness, and self-sacrificing devotion to your highest good. That alone is enough to force the conclusion that disregarding God’s slightest suggestion is the height of stupidity.
Yet another exhilarating thing about God’s will for you is that it is not only perfected by infinite love, it is backed by infinite power. It is not only achievable, it is unstoppable. For as long as you let Jesus rule your life, nothing can thwart it. Do you believe God is all-powerful? Then you believe he could over-ride your every weakness. He could ask nothing of you that he couldn’t do through you. And if he has a speck of love, or any respect for his reputation, he’s not going to command, and then abandon you to your own resources. It’s exciting when God asks the impossible of you. A miracle is around the corner!
Since God, in his love, longs to see you reach your highest potential, his desires for you will stretch you to the limit. But no matter how Satan tries to distort that thrilling truth into something scary, there is always something more frightening than doing God’s will – not doing God’s will. The mere fact that we could fear God’s beautiful will is clear proof that God has a spiritual enemy who carpet bombs our minds with malicious untruths. Nothing could be wiser, or better, than obeying the God who has a sacrificial commitment to giving you the very best.
God telling you to do something is the Almighty Lord expressing his desire for you to enjoy his best. And obedience is simply receiving that love, delighting and rejoicing in the beauty, perfection and security of God’s yearnings for your welfare. We only disobey when we secretly believe we are smarter than God, that his love for us is inferior, or that he is so weak that our inadequacies could nullify his power. Obedience is love made real.
It has rightly been said that God’s will is the greatest good his infinite wisdom can devise. Snuggle into it. Experience the exquisite perfection of his love plans for you. Then luxuriate in the security of knowing that of every possible alternative, you have chosen the very best.
Note that submission to God is letting God be God – allowing Jesus to assume his rightful place in your life. The emphasis is not on you trying to obey, but on Jesus ruling. It is letting him do the work. It is avoiding taking upon ourselves responsibilities that don’t belong to us. The Evil One would love to distort this into a dreary put down, but it is actually a glorious relief. We’re free to enjoy life as God’s children and leave all the hard work to Jesus. We don’t have to prove ourselves to God, Jesus has already done it. We don’t have to defeat sin, Jesus has already done it.
Submitting to God must never be thought of as obeying a set of rules. That’s dull and cold. And God is neither. Following a list of dos and do nots is not following God the person, but something impersonal. It brings with it the great danger of shutting God out. Submitting to God is loving God the person, getting as close to him as you can, and drawing strength and comfort and direction from him. It is driving with God in the front seat with you, enjoying his companionship. From time to time in your conversation he will say such things as, ‘Turn left. . . . You’ll need to slow down a bit here. . . . Let me show you a short cut. . . . This next part is easy, drive however you choose, I know you’ll handle it well. . . . Further on it gets tricky. Better let me do the driving for that stretch.’
Now let’s be brutally frank. God’s directions are seldom that clear, although when the situation demands that degree of clarity, he will give it. Mostly, God leads by such things as vague feelings. That can be frustrating, but it’s our opportunity to let faith rise, trusting God to guide with whatever degree of clarity divine wisdom knows is best, while we play our part by drawing close and listening intently. God and I seem to have an on-going argument. ‘Speak louder!’ I keep telling God. And I think he keeps replying, ‘Listen harder!’
An important aspect of submission involves avoiding battles God has not authorized you to fight. Sam has the commendable self-control to never switch a television on, but if it’s on, and a sex scene appears, he rarely musters the will power to switch it off until he has seen it all. Jody finds it very hard to resist sex when subjected to heavy petting, but she can carefully pray as to who she dates and ensure she only goes out with men she can trust to never touch her where they shouldn’t. Sam must avoid all television that has a remote chance of a sex scene and Jody must avoid getting into compromising situations with men. In other words, they are winners, provided they are not so foolish as to engage the enemy on a front where they have no right to be.
Some situations God permits no Christian to enter. Some situations he permits only certain Christians to enter. Don’t be influenced by what other Christians can get away with. Listen for your Commander-in-chief’s personal orders. We live in a war zone. Various areas are subjected to differing types of attack, and some areas are more heavily protected. The Commander-in-chief knows his troops, and he has equipped them to engage in different types of warfare. All of us are safe, provided we each follow his orders, staying within our designated areas.
Sin has you in its deadly sights. It’s about to pull the trigger. Jesus steps in front of you and takes the bullet, so that you can live and enjoy life. To try fighting sin without your Savior’s constant help is to slap Christ in the face, then walk out of his protection into the devil’s hail of bullets. If we face temptation alone (ie without Christ), sin will mow us down. But we need never be so foolish. We need never face temptation alone.
The moment Joe Ordinary becomes a police officer he gains special power over evil. He’s no stronger, nor smarter, yet suddenly law breakers fear him. His extraordinary power rests entirely on him submitting to his superiors. Disregard their orders and he would be suspended from the force. His powers would immediately vanish, and law breakers could walk all over him. Likewise, our power over sin hinges on our submission to God.
Because your power link with God is critical to the defeat of evil, the Enemy will do all he can to drive a wedge between you and your Savior. He’ll do his best to make you feel that God is harsh, thinks lowly of you, and so on. If you have the slightest doubt about God’s feelings for you, I again remind you of the following webpages.
2. Resist the devil
Stubbornly refuse to give in. How dare that slimy loser act as if he owns you! Dig your heels in.
Imagine your father buys you a sleek second hand car for your eighteenth birthday. Next day, the former owner arrives, demanding your car keys.
‘No way!’ you exclaim.
‘It’s my car!’ he shouts. He’s bigger and older than you.
The car’s mine!’ you protest, ‘My father paid for it!’
The veins in his neck bulge. ‘You know nothing! Hand me the keys!’
‘Get out of here, or I’ll call my Dad and he’ll have you for trespassing and for fraud!’
That’s resisting. It’s standing up for your rights. It’s refusing to be cheated out of something Father has given you. It’s preventing a con artist from walking off with things that cost your Father greatly.
Over and over, Scripture affirms our need to take action against sin. Here’s a sample:
Rid yourselves of all malice . . . deceit, hypocrisy, etc – 1 Peter 2:1
Put on the new self – Colossians 3:10
Put aside the deeds of darkness – Romans 13:12
Put off your old self – Ephesians 4:22
Put to death . . . whatever belongs to your earthly nature – Colossians 3:5
Throw off . . . the sin that so easily entangles – Hebrew 12:1
And many more.
Notice, it’s not all God. We would have to cut our Bible to shreds to produce one that says God does it all. We ourselves are expected to put in an effort. This surprises many people, and others get it wrong, so let’s see what is involved.
Sin kidnapped us, and our effort does nothing to pay our ransom. Only Jesus could pay that exorbitant price. Innocence was nailed so that we, the guilty, could go free. All we do is stand up for the rights Christ paid for in blood. Resisting the devil is simply cooperating with God; choosing to enjoy the freedom Christ has won for us. All the hard work has already been done for us, and even then God is with us every step, to ensure we make it.
But there’s a spine tingling reason why God wants you to play a part. Like the proudest father, your God wants you to be like him. The Almighty actually wants to share his throne with you! This is serious, and glorious. You are being readied for a heavenly crown, not a party hat. That’s why God has entrusted you with a role in resisting Satan’s attempt to trespass on your turf. You are being trained to rule.
You’ve probably heard of people being effortlessly freed from sin’s grip, such as heroin addicts delivered from addiction without a single withdrawal symptom (see Amazing Examples). That’s the mighty God we serve! For God to forever do everything for us, however, would be like a teacher never trusting us to sit for a test, but always taking the test for us. Eventually, like the devoted parent he is, our heavenly Father wants us to begin to grow up and start exercising the authority he has proudly entrusted to us. Maturity must never be confused with lack of intimacy with God, however. We exercise spiritual authority only by maintaining our power link with the Almighty, and letting his power flow through us.
If you’re looking for a soft religion, dump Christ right now. Hebrews urges us to look to Jesus for inspiration. He suffered enormously to make us pure. And he chose the agony, knowing it would be totally eclipsed by the joy it would finally produce. Your war with sin, Hebrews continues, hasn’t yet reached the point where your blood pours out. (Scripture) The Bible never promises that our fight with sin will be painless, just that surrender would end up being significantly more painful.
I’ve heard it said that holiness is reaching the point where you have no more longing to sin than you do to eat horse manure. Not likely. Remember Jesus, nearing starvation after eating nothing for forty days, being tempted to turn stones into bread. Remember Jesus, in the garden dripping blood-like sweat, praying ‘with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him’ (Hebrews 5:7) as he stammers, ‘Nevertheless not my will . . .’ Remember Jesus in agony on the cross, when he could have called legions of angels to his rescue. ‘He learned obedience by what he suffered,’ (Hebrew 5:8). Holiness is not reaching the point where temptation loses its attraction. Holiness is choosing God’s way when it seems every fiber of your being is crying out for the devil’s way.
To be Christlike is to be willing to suffer for the sake of God. Strong temptation toughens us. When resisted, temptation acts like your personal training coach, building you up so that you will receive more glory on the Big Day.
(For inspirational material to build courage, click here.)
Ironically, the more prepared you are for a long, tough fight, the shorter it usually is. Once you uncover one of Satan’s schemes, and become determined to hold your ground no matter how strong the pressure gets or how long it lasts, the Enemy quickly senses he is wasting his time persisting with this tactic, and he usually backs off soon after.
Satan is furious at having lost you. He knows he has no hold over you, but if he fools you into thinking he can still boss you around, you’ll make his day. He’ll try every dirty trick he can dream up to bluff you out of all that is rightfully yours, and to cast doubt on the extent of Christ’s stupendous victory. To stand up to someone as persistent and conniving as Satan, you have to thoroughly know the rights Christ won for you, as spelt out in God’s Word.
Think of it this way. Through a life and death struggle, Jesus disarmed Satan and handed you a loaded weapon. Don’t expect Jesus to pull the trigger. That’s easy. He’ll let you have the fun of scaring off Satan. But if that diabolical cheat can fool you into thinking the weapon Jesus gave you is unloaded, he knows you won’t bother to use it. He then has nothing to fear, and he’ll walk all over you.
Because you have given Jesus control of your life, you have the upper hand whenever you meet evil. Resisting is simply realizing that your enemy is beaten, and acting accordingly. It is refusing to let a defeated enemy steal back your precious liberty and dignity that cost Christ everything. The almighty Son of God let the devil nail him, so that you could walk free. Live in that freedom. And no matter what happens, keep seeing yourself as God sees you – powerful, holy, victorious. It is this faith that makes you a conqueror. (Scripture)
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