Ephesians 5:21

“submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

            The context Paul is writing in for the church of Ephesus here is walking in love towards one another. When you submit to someone, you are willing to do whatever they ask whenever they ask you to do it. When we submit to one another, it is mutual because each person is submitting to the other. One is not dominant over the other and they are both willing to be in whatever place God asks them to be. We submit to others because God has placed them in our lives for a reason to be in some position of authority over us. We have to trust that God puts people exactly where He wants them whether we understand or agree or not. Ultimately, we are under God’s authority and because of that, we should be willing to submit to others who are also in authority. Sometimes our authority won’t be Christ followers, but we still have to submit to them because they are still out authority, unless something we are asked to do goes directly against God’s word and what He has called us to do.

            Part of submitting is dying to self. This is something that I am continually learning how to do daily. It’s hard to not let my flesh control my thoughts and actions. Sometimes, I do it without even realizing because I speak of a place not coming from God, but from my own heart. When I do that, because my heart is wicked, the Lord convicts me and I have to go back and apologize and be humbled in that way, understanding that I was wrong. I didn’t realize how talkative I could actually be until I got to IGNITE. When I get comfortable around a group of people, I stick my foot in my mouth a lot and God is teaching me how to just sit back and be quiet. It is definitely a learning process because my flesh still gets in the way and I mess up. God is revealing to me that I really need to think about what I say and how I say it before I speak, which is not easy for me to do, but I know God can do it if I just submit to Him. My application for this week is to submit to others and authority without question and to pray that God will give me discernment about my words.