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The Discipline of Submission
The Discipline of Submission
Pastor Richard Hovey
Pastor Richard Hovey
Defining Submission
Defining Submission
Submission is the spiritual discipline that frees us from the everlasting burden of always needing to get our own way. In submission we are learning to hold things lightly. We are also learning to diligently watch over the spirit in which we hold others— honoring them, preferring them, loving them.
Submission is the spiritual discipline that frees us from the everlasting burden of always needing to get our own way. In submission we are learning to hold things lightly. We are also learning to diligently watch over the spirit in which we hold others— honoring them, preferring them, loving them.
Richard Foster
My child friendly definition of submission is “giving up getting our own way.” . . Submitting is an act of choice; true submission is given, not demanded or forced.
My child friendly definition of submission is “giving up getting our own way.” . . Submitting is an act of choice; true submission is given, not demanded or forced.
Lacy Finn Borgo
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.
Apostle Paul (Philippians 2)
Practicing the Discipline of Submission
Practicing the Discipline of Submission
Are there areas in your life where God is not first? What are some practical ways you can increase loving God with all of your heart, mind, strength and soul?
Are there ways that you can love your family - biological or spiritual - through letting go of having your own way? List some things you could let go of in order to put the interests of others before yourself.
Like Saint Augustine one asks not for greater certainty of God but only for more steadfastness in Him. There, beyond, in Him is the true Center, and we are reduced, as it were, to nothing, for He is all. . . Self is emptied into God, and God in-fills it. In glad, amazed humility we cast on Him our little lives in trusting obedience, in erect, serene, and smiling joy. And we say, with a writer of Psalms, "Lo, I come: in the book of the law it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God" (40:7-8). For nothing else in all heaven or earth counts as much as His will, His slightest wish, His faintest breathing. And holy obedience sets in, sensitive as a shadow, obedient as a shadow, selfless as a shadow. . . Gladly, urgently, promptly one leaps to do His bidding, ready to run and not be weary and to walk and not faint.
Like Saint Augustine one asks not for greater certainty of God but only for more steadfastness in Him. There, beyond, in Him is the true Center, and we are reduced, as it were, to nothing, for He is all. . . Self is emptied into God, and God in-fills it. In glad, amazed humility we cast on Him our little lives in trusting obedience, in erect, serene, and smiling joy. And we say, with a writer of Psalms, "Lo, I come: in the book of the law it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, O my God" (40:7-8). For nothing else in all heaven or earth counts as much as His will, His slightest wish, His faintest breathing. And holy obedience sets in, sensitive as a shadow, obedient as a shadow, selfless as a shadow. . . Gladly, urgently, promptly one leaps to do His bidding, ready to run and not be weary and to walk and not faint.
Thomas R. Kelly
Thomas R. Kelly
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