Showing posts with label Submission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Submission. Show all posts

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Created, Bought, Indwelled

Our body has not only been created by God and will one day be resurrected by him, but it has been bought by Christ's blood and is indwelled by his Spirit. Thus it belongs to God three times over, by creation, redemption and indwelling. How then, since it does not belong to us, can we misuse it? Instead, we honor God with it, by obedience and self-control. Bought by Christ, we have no business to become the slave of anybody or anything else. Once we were the slaves of sin; now we are the slaves of Christ, and his service is the true freedom.
-John Stott, The Cross of Christ

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Stop Signs for the Lord's Sake

Rebekah and I live on the campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. There is an all-way stop thirty feet from our apartment building. A very small percentage of cars heed these stop signs; some don't even bother tapping the brake.

The apostle Peter tells us why we should stop at stop signs.

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.


Human institution, in this case the U.S. government, has implemented stop signs which, by law, drivers are required to stop at. Therefore, subject yourself to this authority for the Lord's sake.

It doesn't matter if no one is around. It doesn't matter if police officers do it too. It doesn't matter if you are in a hurry. It doesn't matter if it's not killing anyone. There is absolutely no good reason for not stopping at a stop sign, and to be honest, there is an excellent biblical reason for stopping at a stop sign which I articulated earlier.

If you still want to ignore the words breathed out by the Spirit of Christ through the apostle Peter, please take the Icthus off of your car.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Submission

The real estate of submission has no hills to die on.