July 5

"Submit yourselves to God." James 4:7.

THIS is the great thing. This is the excellency, the essence, the proof of religion. God is our Saviour, our Lawgiver, our Disposer. Under each of these characters his people are made willing to submit to him in the day of his power. And nothing but the efficiency of divine grace can influence a man cordially to resign himself to God in all these relations.

We must submit ourselves to God as the Saviour. Here our concern with him begins, and here it must begin. We are condemned; and the first thing is to obtain deliverance. We are diseased and dying; and the first thing we want is the physician and the remedy. When therefore the Jews asked our Lord, What must we do, that we may work the works of God? "This," said he, "is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." When the jailer asked Paul and Silas what he should do to be saved, they said unto him, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." God is a sovereign, at whose mercy we absolutely lie. We have no claims upon him, and it is wonderful that he is disposed to undertake our case at all. But he requires us to submit, and never will allow us to prescribe. He will have the entire management of our case, or he will have nothing to do with it. And it might be supposed that there would be no great difficulty here. But men are not sensible of their condition and danger, and there is much in the nature and manner of this salvation that is not palatable to the pride of the human heart. No court is paid to our reason, but we are required to trust in a plan concerning which we have never been consulted; and even to become fools, that we may be wise. However decent and moral our character has been, we must be content to enter into life in the very same way with the chief of sinners. We must renounce our own righteousness, and plead for acceptance as guilty. We must depend on another for all our strength. We must acknowledge that all we have is from the exceeding riches of his grace, and be crying to the last, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake."

But to this every awakened and humbled sinner is brought. And his submission is not the effect of necessity only. It is accompanied with acquiescence and approbation. He sees a consistency and an excellency in it that delight him, while they relieve. And though he knows there is no other way, yet if there were a thousand other ways, he would turn from them all, and say, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We must submit ourselves to him as the lawgiver, and be willing to live not to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. He only is the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. We cannot love him till we hope in his mercy, nor run in the ways of his commandments till we are freed from the load of guilt and terror--a burden too heavy for us to bear. But faith is followed by love, and love by obedience. We are delivered from the hand of our enemies, says Zechariah, not to be lawless, but to serve Him who has made us free, without fear, in holiness and righteousness, before him all the days of our lives. Our obligations are infinitely increased by redeeming grace and dying love. And every believer feels them, and acknowledges that he is not his own: for he is bought with a price, and bound to glorify God in his body and in his spirit, which are God's. The love of sin, as well as the love of self, is subdued in him; and he gratefully asks, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?" "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" He finds his yoke easy. He accounts his service to be the truest freedom. He cannot, indeed, do the things which he would; and this is his grief: but he delights in the law of God after the inward man. He would not bring down the divine commands to his deficiencies, but longs to rise to the level of their perfection. And though he is full of complaining, it is of the servant and not of the Master. He always speaks well of his name, and recommends him to others.

We must also submit to him as our disposer, and be willing that he should choose our inheritance for us. Man naturally loves independence; he wishes to be at his own control, and to have the management of events, both as they affect others and himself. Many also who talk much of the providence of God, are constantly striving with it. Hence they envy the success of their fellow-creatures, and are discontented and repining when things do not fall out according to their mind. And especially under their trials, they think God deals improperly with them, and so charge him foolishly or unkindly.