Wholly Following – Living a Submitted Life

Last semester I began a series of articles on the subject of discipleship. That series focused on discovering what it means to wholly follow Christ as an authentic believer in the midst of the realities of life here and now.  As a starting point, I suggested that Christ’s call to discipleship is best expressed when he says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). 

As we thought through Jesus’ teaching, we learned that his call on our lives is three-fold:  to deny oneself, to take-up one’s cross and to follow him on the path he walked here on earth.  To deny one’s self is to live a submitted life.  To take-up one’s cross means living a singular life with every facet integrated together in Christ, and following him leads us to sacrifice our lives in real and practical ways for the sake of others.

In this semester’s series, I would like to explore further the first of these three aspects of wholly following Christ.  We’ll examine what it means to deny ourselves daily, to yield our will to God’s, and to submit our lives to Christ and his Word.  We will see, I believe, that we can only live a life of denial of self and submission to God by the grace and mercy of Jesus present and at work in our lives each day.  It is a life that is daily examined by the Spirit through the Word. 

As humans we have a natural tendency to assert and justify ourselves and to promote our self interests.  The disciple, though, is called to say no to these natural inclinations by denying self every day and submitting his will to God’s.  We live such a submitted life by God’s work within us.  He forms faith as the attitude of our heart, develops an awareness of our soul to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and disciplines us in the life practice of meditating upon His Word as we submit our lives to its examining gaze.

Let’s begin, then, with God’s work of forming faith as the attitude of heart that provides the foundation for living a submitted life.  Faith is God’s gift to us.  (Ephesians 2:8).  At its core, faith is absolute dependence upon Christ and his Word.  Our journey on the pathway of discipleship begins with the single step of faith that is wholly enabled by the grace of God. “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” (Colossians 2:6).  We receive Christ by faith, and so we take the first step to wholly following Christ – denying our self – by faith.

By faith, then, we daily deny our natural self-reliance and depend solely upon Christ’s life in us.  We deny our self-justification and acknowledge sins as they are exposed by the examining scrutiny of God’s Word applied to us by the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.  By faith, we pray: “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24).  As God forms faith as the attitude of our heart, we begin to take the first steps of living a submitted life -- a lofe examined by his Word and Spirit and fortified by Christ's faithful mercy of forgiveness.