No Turning Back

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

Have you ever noticed that, as Christians, we sometimes say or do things without even thinking about them? Especially if we’ve been in church for a while, it can be easy to do! This week, God challenged me to think about something seemingly basic in a way that I never had before: the idea of surrender.

Surrender can actually be defined a few different ways in the English language. The main definition, though, is “to cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.” This really surprised me. Obviously, that’s not what we mean when we talk about surrendering to God, but the word itself is military in nature! In the context of the church, we would choose another definition, perhaps something more along the lines of: “to abandon oneself entirely to” or “to give in.” As I searched the Bible though, I couldn’t find many scriptures about surrendering to God. However, there was a word used many times that would actually make many people in our society uncomfortable. The word was submit.

Now, the verse shown above, in James 4:7, is a very well-known scripture, but the context of that verse is actually very interesting. In James’ letter he talked about many things, especially dealing with issues of worldliness that could plague a believer. He talked about faith without works (James 1:14-17), the impossibility of taming the human tongue, which he called an unruly evil (James 3:8), and the issues of pride, personal favoritism, and worldly wisdom. Finally, in James 4:4-8, the Holy Spirit revealed the answer to all of those difficulties:

“Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, l whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

The answer to every battle we face against the enemy is summed up in those four simple verses. It’s so simple! We don’t need to fight; we need to submit to God and resist the enemy. That scripture captured my heart this week, as I felt the Lord impress upon me that what He wants from us is not so much surrender, in the way I understood it, but submission.

The word used for submitting in the New Testament is a Greek word that could also be translated “to place under,” “to subject,” or “to obey.” It literally means “under-arrange.” When you are submitted to God you are under His arrangement. There are several other scriptures in which we can find this word in the New Testament. It’s used in reference to being submitted to God’s righteousness (Romans 10:3); to His law (Romans 8:7); and to Christ, as a wife submits to her husband (Eph. 5:24). Furthermore, there is a very interesting Scripture in the book of Psalms that reveals something about God’s heart on the idea of submission. It’s rather long, but stay with me. I challenge you to read this, slowly:

I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
your hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I delivered you;
I answered you in the secret place of thunder;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah.
Hear, O my people, while I admonish you!
O Israel, if you would but listen to me!
There shall be no strange god among you;
you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.

So, I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.
Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!
I would soon subdue their enemies
and turn my hand against their foes.”
Those who hate the LORD would cringe toward him,
and their fate would last forever.
But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat,
and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” (Psalm 81:6-16)

Let’s think about these verses. God said, “In distress you called, and I delivered you” (vs. 7). How many of you can say the same thing? I know I can! In my distress, when I was at my lowest point, God saved me. It was a rescue in the realest sense of the word. However, after God rescues us, there is a choice to be made. We have to choose to listen and submit to God. It’s not enough to be rescued from Egypt, which corresponds to being saved from sin. We have to learn what He’s like; to obey His word; and to submit to Him. Can you hear the broken heart of God in the Scripture above? Can you hear the love He has for Israel? He said, “If you would just listen
to me...”
God’s desire was to subdue their enemies, to provide for them, to feed them with the finest of the wheat and honey from the rock, but He couldn’t, because they wouldn’t listen. This has both natural and spiritual connotations for the New Testament believer! All of that is true for us too. God’s heart is to provide every good thing for us. All He asks of us is our submission—to Him and every truth of His word.

Now, I want to talk about the difference between surrender and submission. As we saw above, surrender has a military connotation. It means to give up; to cease doing something; to choose to stop fighting. Typically, someone surrenders because they are backed into a corner and there are no more options. An army only surrenders to an opposing force they cannot defeat! However, the idea of submission is different altogether. In our society, it doesn’t have a good connotation, to be honest. The reason for that is the lie people believe that submission means to give up freedom, but submission to God actually brings freedom!

Submission, unlike surrender, isn’t necessarily to cease doing something, but to choose actively to do something. It’s to willingly and knowingly to put yourself under the authority of another. It’s an act of absolute trust and it’s a daily choice, not a one-time decision. Giving yourself to someone you don’t trust is to surrender, and it’s done when there’s no other option. However, giving yourself to someone you trust is submission, in the Biblical sense of the word. We give our hearts to God because we choose to trust His wisdom, His word, and His goodness. It’s looking at the world and every option we have and saying “God, of everything I could choose to do, I choose you.” We submit not because His will has overpowered ours, but because we trust Him. God will never make us do anything, but if we choose to submit to His word, to listen and obey Him, it will absolutely change our lives. Submitting to God is the most liberating thing we could ever do! So, I want to ask you this week, have you surrendered to God as if He’s an overpowering army or have you submitted to Him because you know that you know that He is good? Have you simply ceased fighting Him or have you given yourself to Him in joyful submission? I confess, my heart has been raw this week as God challenged me on this. One of my favorite songs, and one I’ve sung many, many times is I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. The chorus is simple:

I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back,

Following Jesus and submitting to His word is something we have to choose every, single day. I want to encourage you as God has me, to submit fully to the One who loves us more than we could ever know. He said, “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” When we trust Him, open-handed, with a submitted heart, the enemy has to flee from us and every victory we’ve fought for will come easily. God will feed us with the finest wheat and satisfy the cry of our hearts with honey from the rock. He is bigger than we could ever dream and better than we could ever hope. His goodness is beyond our capacity to understand. He is God; He loves us; and there is absolutely no safer place than the shadow of His wings!

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