Dear BPCWA worshipper, Last week, we saw how we can have mental assent of God and His incommunicable attributes, but our responses and our reverence toward Him can often fall far short. God, the Creator, is obeyed unquestioningly by His creation, “for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him” (Luk 8:25). The amazing planetary systems in the heavens that man is enthralled with were created at His command, “He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass” (Psa 148:6) and creation obeys His very bidding instantly and constantly. Man was created with the ability to know and understand God, the greatest privilege in His creation, “for in the image of God made he man” (Gen 9:6). It was to man that God revealed Himself – through creation, in His Word, and finally through His Son (Heb 1:1,2). Today, it is men who reject His authority over them. Unbelievers will never accept the absolute sovereignty of God over every aspect of life, but Christians, saved by grace through Christ and indwelt with the Holy Spirit, must honestly admit that we must be different from them. 

The proper view of God. Since God is God and Creator, our attitude must be that He is the highest and supreme because “he is before all things” (Col 1:17). Furthermore, “by him all things consist” (Col 1:17), which means we owe our very daily existence and survival to His power. Man knows with absolute certainty that he cannot prolong his life as he wishes. Our lives are dependent upon God’s appointed boundary, where our “days are determined . . . that he cannot pass” (Job 14:5). Knowing this, we must have both a sense of submissive awe and profound gratitude, and constant indebtedness must arise within us. Our very lives are in His Hands, and His alone. That is how helpless we are before Him. The high view of God will naturally cause us to realise our infinitesimal insignificance in contrast with His Supremacy. This must make us very humble instead of having inflated views that we know better or that we are better than God when we think His ways are not ideal or that we matter more than Him. In a day when self-esteem is promoted, even Christians are not ready to unconditionally obey God and do His will. What arrogance it must be to think that we, created beings, can even think that this infinite Almighty God is not wholly worthy of all our adoration and obedience and that there is anything about Him that we can choose not to like! What insolence it must be to think that we can pick and choose what to believe and obey in His Word.

The change needed in us. It is without a doubt that the transformation from carnality to submission and spirituality is only through the regenerative work of God in the unbeliever. The change begins with repentance, which is a change of the mind away from the enmity that once existed toward agreement with God and submission to Him. After salvation, the regenerate child of God is a new man who would continue to repent, i.e., change his way of thinking when he realises that his thoughts about something are wrong and so submits to what his Father wants. We need to realise that our thoughts about God have been far from what they ought to be and repent! Our view of His commandments reflects our view of God, who gives the commands. The Apostle John, who had much to say about love, testifies that those who are “born of God . . . loveth him that begat” (1Jn 5:1). A trait of God’s child is “the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1Jn 5:3). This keeping is not mere outward conformity. The child will acknowledge that his Father’s “commandments are not grievous” (1Jn 5:3). Even if his flesh struggles, his heart acknowledges that he is wrong. God says in 1 John 5:18, “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” A genuinely saved person will not choose to sin, i.e., simply ignore His command and wave it off as if it were inconsequential. A born-again child of God will not refuse to acknowledge that it is sin to ignore God’s commands when made known to him, and hence keeps sinning the sin, even though he knows the command is in God’s Word. This means a saved child cannot feel that picking and choosing what to obey in God’s command is his right, and does so with no qualms, even boasting of it. Though God has revealed His glory to man both in creation and His Word, one day we will see His full glory. Then, we will be able to witness the worship that the whole of creation gives to Him. But “for now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face” (1Co 13:12). After declaring the whole of creation submitting to God’s command, the Psalmist tells “Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: 12 Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children: 13 Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven” (Psa 148:11-13). Power, learning, and experience of age that men often think so highly of fade into insignificance before God. Yet, men continue to deceive themselves that God is not so great that they need to submit to Him in certain areas that rub against what they like and want to do. Because we are all created beings, we owe our very existence to God and must give Him the praise and glory that is due to His Name. But an elevated view of ourselves causes us to think we have a choice. We can voluntarily choose now to bow in humility before Him and live our lives worthy of Him, or let God make us do so one day, regretting that we did not. God, our Father, will not close one eye and ignore our insolence. Moreover, one day, every man, great or small, will stand before His Throne in judgement (Rom 14:10). A day will come when “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them” will say, “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever” (Rev 5:13). But to realise then is too late, for our lives will be past and God’s judgement of our lives would have been eternally sealed.

When we fully realise that He truly is the head of everything, we will cringe in fear and shame that we even once thought that we ever dared to question His commands by not accepting or liking everything He commands and decrees. I pray that with this reminder of Who God is and what He deserves naturally without question, we will bow in worshipful and joyful acceptance of all He says when we have the right view of Him and ourselves. Only the highest view of God will bring the fullest joy of submission to Him.

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psa 8:3-4)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor