Richard Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, writes, “The obsession to demand that things go the way we want them to go is one of the greatest bondages in human society today. People will spend weeks, months, even years in a perpetual stew because some little thing did not go as they wished.”

Have you ever been thrown into a stew because something didn’t go your way? I know I have—and often when it does happen I walk away wondering why I can be so obsessive about not getting my way.

The answer, I believe, is that…I have not learned the spiritual discipline of submission. Many of us haven’t. So often we believe we are free when, in truth, we are not even free from ourselves—because we are not free to give up our way. In other words, we are not free to submit. Many of us simply cannot let it go when we don’t get our way.

This is likely because, even if we seek to follow in the way of Jesus, we have never learned that in order to be free of the burden of needing to get your way we must learn the spiritual discipline of submission. We haven’t learned this because most churches and pastors don’t like to talk about submission. One reason for this is that we have so often seen or heard of its abuse: the one with more power lording it over the one with less power; a spouse being forced to submit in an unhealthy relationship; church leaders using their power to manipulate those who are following. Sadly, the negative examples abound.

It is no secret that our culture doesn’t look fondly on submission. You don’t hear Oprah or Dr. Phil or NPR programs talk about the freedom that comes with submission. Much more likely you hear things like: “Do this and you will achieve happiness, success, and self-actualization. Do this, follow me, read my book, read my magazine, and take my advice and you will experience self-fulfillment.”

What would really shock people is if the mainstream media started saying something like: “The true path to life isn’t through self-fulfillment or self-actualization or worldly success; the true path to life is through self-denial.” If people heard this from a talk show host, they’d probably think the person was going crazy.

Self-denial and submission are not just for wives and children; all who follow Jesus are called to deny themselves as they submit to each other and to God (see Ephesians 5:21). Jesus came preaching about this very thing. Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34-35, emphasis mine). What in the world? Could saving your life, could experiencing true and lasting freedom in life, really be about self-denial?

The message of Jesus is that true life is not about self-indulgence or self-fulfillment or self-actualization. True life is about submission to God. It is in submitting to God that we embody our love for the Creator of the universe, and it is in submitting to God that we are empowered to love our neighbor as we ought. Jesus knew this was true and he knew these two aspects of submission could not be separated (Matthew 22:37-39).

The way of Christ is about self-denial because following Christ is about giving up our way for the sake of others and for the way of God. This is something that we may be okay with in theory—but the reality is that most of us so-called “good Christians” often avoid submitting to God and his Word.

Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and theologian, writes of the reluctance of Christians to submit to the Word of God and the way of Jesus. He explains, “The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament” (emphasis mine).

These piercing words are perhaps hard to hear because they contain a bit too much truth. We are unwilling to submit to God and his teachings—because we want to be able to follow Jesus and at the same time live by the gospel of self-fulfillment and self-actualization. The fact of the matter though is that it is impossible to follow Jesus without sacrifice. It is impossible to follow Jesus without cost. God calls us to a new way of life, and this way of life is the way of submission and self-denial.

Our human nature fights against such a way of life—because it wishes not to relinquish control. But this is the only way. If we want to experience true life, if we want to truly follow Jesus and walk in his ways, we must relinquish control over our life and submit it into the hands of the living God.

Copyright 2005 – Pastor Matt Kronberg