You Are More Than a LabelSample

Lose the Label: Rebellious

Changes in our identity are hard—but doable—as God’s amazing grace replaces those once devastating thought patterns and strongholds with a new discipline by obedience, given through forgiveness, and results in a gentle willingness to agree with Christ. By His blood-bought forgiveness, we can have confidence that we’re cleansed by grace. Truth is, you can’t be rebellious AND obedient. The two don’t co-exist. I have found we have issues with lordship in our life. We say “yes” to submission and trust in God for our salvation experience, but we exclude God from coming in to clean our closets. I know I have failed to lend my heart to the guardianship of the Lord. There’s no natural ability in humans to want this; we must submit our flesh, humble ourselves, and ask God for help. 

Let’s look at how the military trains soldiers. From the initial sign-up, every soldier must give first place to his obligation to the armed forces and second place to his own private life and wishes. In the same way, as followers of Jesus, we submit and surrender our will to God. We come into agreement with the plan He’s designed for us and obey what He says in His word. 

The heart is deceitful above all and the mind follows suit. Honestly, it’s challenging to walk in obedience to God because our flesh wants to invite excuses and justifications into our choices. The bottom line is, as humans, we are compromised in our obedience, and our wills get hung up on our insecurities, failures, and inferiority complexes.

Gain God’s truth: The heart of the matter is we have a choice to make, and our Heavenly Father is a very polite God. He desires our will and when we offer ourselves humbly to Him by submission, God receives our will as an offering. Surrender is our heart’s response to the love and grace given to us. We all know the depth of our own weaknesses and have compromised values because of sin. We are called to live by obedience, which perpetuates a willingness that isn’t humanly produced. Obedience was initiated by Jesus himself on the cross, so we claim His victory. Therefore, make your choices to obey and don’t delay!