Authority of God by Jason G. Lutz

I am sure most of you reading this have heard me say something to this extent, “the Lutz house serves no mortal master, only Jehovah”.  I am, of course, borrowing and paraphrasing a Greek adventurer named Xenophon.  I fully admit that I often trip over my own bravado, so let me be clear: all believers are called to submit to civil authority, church authority, and professional authority giving honor where it is due right up to the point where said authority demands us to blaspheme our God or transgress His commandments (Romans 13 can be a bummer for a believer).  We are called to respect and work with those who have authority over us, as if working for the Lord, whether said authority deserves it or not.  That understood, we bow before no one or no thing other than our God.

So after a lengthy exercise, I get to the point: bowing before our God.  How many of us humble ourselves by getting on our knees in prayer?  How many of us make a physical statement before God that He is the only Authority of our lives?  Physical acts can and do demonstrate exactly where our heart is.

I bring this up not because I have found a way for us to get extra credit with God, by Grace we have been saved.  I bring it up because every day I am a little more convinced that suppressing the Truth of God’s Sovereignty over every believer’s life and the life of the Church is problem number 1 in our churches.  And this comes down to the individual believer: we disregard and minimize His authority over us (almost every message in our culture and much in our churches tells us that we are the authority over ourselves and God is there to affirm us and please us, if He is active at all), we suppress the obvious directives of the New Testament to suit our current desires and pleasures (much that we accept as normal is unambiguously sin), and we concern ourselves with almost everything but articulating what we believe and why it is so very very important, it is a matter of life and death.

I will simply say that submitting completely to God as He reveals Himself through His Word is beyond all importance and kneeing before Him in prayer is an invaluable physical
sign of this.

Grace be with you,

Jason