Wholly Following – Living a Submitted Life (part 2)

If we desire to answer Christ’s call to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him today, in this very moment, we must depend wholly upon God’s promised work within and through us.  God is the one who forms faith as the attitude of our heart, and as he does, we begin to take the first steps of living a submitted life – a life examined by his Word and Spirit and fortified by Christ’s faithful mercy of forgiveness.  True self-denial can only occur under the authority of God’s Word.  The follower is called to submit himself and herself to its examining gaze. 

The Word searches and tests the hearts of its hearers. It is such submission to the Word that distinguishes a “different spirit” and enables the disciple to follow fully, to follow wholly.  Caleb yielded himself to the authoritative command to go into the land. He was firmly convinced of God’s purpose in giving his people the land.  Caleb’s confidence in the Word to which he submitted himself bolstered his exhortation to the people:   “The Lord is with us; do not fear” (Numbers 14:9).  Fear could easily have stalled Caleb, but by yielding himself to obey the Word, he was enabled to go into the land, and he called others to follow his path.  

The same is true for every follower of Christ.  We begin that journey by submitting our entire being to the full examining gaze of God’s Word.  His authoritative Word reveals the truth about who we are and shows us our desperate need for Christ to save us, to make us whole in himself, and to grant us ears that hear, eyes that see and hearts that obey his Word.  Only as we live submitted to daily examination under the scrutiny of God’s Word of Truth do we become ones who are wholly following after Christ.

Examinations are common place in human experience.  When we are young and going to school, testing is a regular occurrence.   From weekly quizzes to annual standardized tests, assessments are part and parcel of the educational experience.  But, it is not just in school that testing has a prominent role.  One visit to your physician will most likely result in a battery of diagnostic tests to disclose the source of an existing aliment or expose indicators of some impending disease. 

Even if you shy away from a doctor’s examining eye, you will still encounter tests as prerequisites to many of life’s routine activities. No one is granted a license to operate an automobile without successfully passing an examination.  And, nearly every professional or certified technician must achieve a passing score on a licensing exam before being qualified to practice a profession or to ply a trade.   Indeed, it would not be too much of a stretch to say that life, in its many stages, is all about testing.

And what is true today was also true in ancient days.  One of the most recognized wise men of ancient Greece was Socrates.  In his famous speech defending himself against the charge of corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates proclaimed, “The life which is unexamined is not worth living!”  Socrates spoke the truth that we as followers of Christ must likewise heed.  So, by faith we yield our lives daily, moment-by-moment, to God’s examining Word by the promptings of his Holy Spirit who indwells each and every follower.  We'll next explore how God cultivates an awareness of our soul to these promptings of the Spirit.

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.