On Submission

What if I could take Jesus seriously?

My whole life, I have read His promises of peace and hope and joy and eternal life and received them happily, and soundly closed the book whenever He started to talk about me denying myself, and taking up my cross (that is, readying myself to go to my death) and following Him.

But what if I didn't do that?

God's promises and His commands are one. The command to take up our crosses and the promise of eternal life cannot be separated from one another, because taking up our crosses is the only way we can obtain eternal life. It's written on the foundation of the whole creation: Nothing may really live that will not submit to death. Even Jesus Christ, God-in-the-flesh, submitted to the will of His Father, which was death, for the greater glory that was set before Him.

So what if I took up my cross?

What if I let go of comfort, of fast food and television and air-conditioning, and allowed Jesus to make me to be content with only Himself?

What if I let go of controlling my own life (control was only ever an illusion anyway) and submitted to go where He sends me?

What if I let go of my ego, of my need to be right, and to be liked, and to have my rights, and submitted to be despised and abused and made to look foolish, if that would bring glory to Christ?

Jesus is my Savior. What if I also submitted to Him as my Lord--my Owner and Ruler?

"O the depths of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are His judgments, and how inscrutable His ways!
For 'Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been His counselor?
Or who has given a gift to Him,
To receive a gift in return?'
For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever."

That's from Romans 11. I forget the exact reference, but it's verse 30-something--close to the end. My pastor preached on it a month or two ago, and he said something I don't think I'll ever forget. In those verses, St. Paul puts his whole discourse on pause, and just breaks into doxology, praising God. He paints a picture of God, exalted and holy; whose decisions are beyond finding out, whose actions are too great, too far-reaching, too powerful even to be examined. And my pastor's comment was this: There are only two reasonable ways to react to that kind of God: either to submit to him without reservation, or to just walk away.

I cannot walk away from God. I've been down that road, and I know where it goes. When we walk away from God, all that waits for us is misery and futility and death of every kind.

But I have only been playing with the idea of submission. The Holy One has been advancing on me, as it were; and at every step I have conceded, I have drawn another line between us. In every concession there's been an escape clause: "Jesus, you can be my King unless . . ."

But whether I submit or not, Jesus stands alone at the helm of creation. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, that He is Lord. Jesus is Lord. There's no way around it.

What if we all bowed our knees and confessed His name now?