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DIR Return to: Lesson 20
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#Post#: 17--------------------------------------------------
Question 10
By: tmstanhope Date: April 1, 2020, 3:36 pm
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The command to be in subjection to the governing authorities
impacts out lives today.
a) In addition to the government, who in your life has authority
over you?
b) It can be difficult to submit to authority, especially if we
are not in agreement. Describe a time when it was difficult for
you to submit to the authority in your life.
c) How has choosing to be in subjection enabled you to avoid
punishment and have a clean conscience before the Lord?
#Post#: 33--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question 10
By: tmstanhope Date: April 3, 2020, 4:08 pm
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a) In addition to the government, I choose to submit to many
others in my life: Firstly, I submit to God. I also submit to
pastors and teachers, Bible study leaders, my husband. The Word
even tells us to "submit to one another in love", which means
that I submit myself to relationships with others in which I
understand and willingly lay own my desire to be right in order
to allow God to use people to speak truth, bring about
correction and give insight to me. Proverbs 27:17 says "As iron
sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend".
Proverbs 20:30 says "Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, As do
stripes the inner depths of the heart."
1 Peter 5:5 says "Young men, in the same way, submit yourselves
to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility
toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
Submitting to each other can be painful, but it is healthy and
vital part of our walk with God. If we choose not to submit to
each other in this way, we are prideful, and not able to receive
from God. As a matter of fact it says that He will oppose us. I
want to be humble and be able to learn from others, and I
definitely don't want to be in opposition to God.
b) I have had lots of opportunities (most of them revolving
around church ministry) where I have had to deal with submission
to authority when in disagreement. The most difficult situation
I have experienced was while serving on the praise and worship
team at my home church in Idaho. At the time (over the course of
about a 7 year period) the woman in charge of the team was
controlling and abusive, and mistreated me along with the other
3 women on the team. She would go to the pastor and purposefully
tell him things about me that were untrue. It got so bad that
all the other women on the team quit, and I was the only other
woman left on the team. At this point, she intensified her
efforts to control and silence me. I prayed and asked the Lord
to be released from the team, but I felt to stay on. And even
though I disagreed with the pastor's choice to leave her in her
position after all that happened, she kept her position. It
wasn't until several years later that she was asked to step down
after she had an affair and left her husband (the associate
pastor).
It was during this time that I learned one of the greatest
lessons of my life, and I now understand why God didn't release
me to step down. I earned that when we submit to earthly
authorities, we honor God. It may seem that in our submission we
are showing honor to a person (and in my case, a person
undeserving of such honor), but ultimately God sees our
submission as a service unto Him and will honor and bless us for
it. I believe that God would have understood if I had chosen to
step down in an attempt to disallow the mistreatment, but if I
had I never would've learned this valuable lesson.
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