Relinquish the False Self - Submission

     When I think about the word submission, I tend to think of being utterly broken down and cowering beneath someone else's power.  That may be the way the world sees submission, but that's not what the biblical view of submission is all about.  It's more about a willing humbling of ourselves.  It's all about giving up everything that makes us selfish so that we can be totally sold out for God.  It's important to focus on the word "willing."  Submission isn't forced on you by God, and it's not about an abusive relationship in which God makes you do whatever he wants you to.  That's the beauty of biblical submission: it's something you have to want to do.

     "[Jesus] Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death -- even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:6-8)

     Jesus understood the discipline of submission.  Jesus was completely God, but submitted himself to God.  He wasn't saying that God was any better than Him, because He was God.  He was saying, "God the Father, have your way in me."  Submission to God was just a way of Christ telling his Father that he would follow his will to death, which was where he knew he was headed the entirety of his life on earth.

     "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Ephesians 5:21) 

     So what does it mean to submit to each other "out of reverence for Christ"?  Well it's pretty simple.  We are to model his example!  As Christians, we believe that no one is greater than another.  Paul refers to himself as "less than the least of these" because he realized the importance of staying humble.  Paul is saying in Ephesians that the way to live in a Christian community is to submit to each other in love.  No, that does not make one person greater, it just brings about a community that focuses on serving one another in love.  Every person has their own distinct part in this community; no one can be replaced or set aside without the community suffering as a whole.