I am crucified - Yield yourselves unto God!

Hello To All:

We are into a new month, as we continue our great adventure of: "victorious discipleship in Jesus Christ." If you are a first time visitor, I invite you to open up last months blog archive, and look over the first seven essays, in this current series, regarding the reality that: "I am crucified with Christ."

With today's posting, we continue in our examination of what the King's Book means, when it says: "Submit yourselves unto God." Our last posting took a hard look at this reality; and if you haven't already done so, I invite you to take another look, at our last posting.

Two of my favorite copies, of the King's Book, are older copies, from the middle of the last century (about the same age as I am). They are both King James Versions and contain helpful dictionaries and concordances. One of them defines submit as: yield to and surrender; words that are extremely relevant, as we continue examining our relationship to Jesus Christ.

Please take a moment to ponder these definitions, while I take some time to speak, to those of you, who may not have a personal copy of the King's Book. Some of you are readers, from countries where Bibles are difficult to come by. Some of you are readers, who may not have the resources to purchase a Bible; and there may be a variety of other reasons for limiting or denying your access to a copy of the King's Book.

In order to better facilitate private communication, with those of you who are interested, I have included my email address, in the title block and description for this blog. If you are in need of a Bible; send me an email; and I will do what I can to get you a copy of the King's Book, in the language of your choice. Whenever I pray for my family - I also pray for all of you, who are readers of this blog. Our Lord Jesus Christ, has given me this work of helping, each of you, on your own journey with Jesus Christ. Being God's instrument of getting a copy of His Book, into your hands, is one of the privileges that I have, in serving Jesus Christ. So please, communicate your needs; and allow the Lord our God to use me, to do what He enables me to do, to satisfy that need. Can we say thank you Jesus and Amen?

Now, back to today's posting: "I am crucified - Yield yourselves unto God." Our beginning text comes from Romans 6:13: "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God."

Our text sets two paths before us: the path of unrighteousness - the path of righteousness. One path - the path of unrighteousness - is the path of willful sin - the path of death. As it is written (Romans 6:23a): "The wages of sin is death..." The other path - the path of righteousness - is the path of willful obedience to God - the path of life. As it is written (Romans 6:23b): "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Our text, from Romans 6:13, speaks of yielding. To yield, is to give absolute primacy to whatever or whoever is being yielded to. The whatever or whoever, that has been yielded to, now has absolute sovereignty over the circumstance and the moment of the yielding. When we yield - we give up control to something or to someone, other then ourselves. When we yield, we are saying yes to one thing and no to another. When we yield to unrighteousness - we are saying no to God and yes to sin. When we yield to righteousness - we are saying no to sin and yes to God.

Consider this, from Ephesians 4:24: "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Here, we have an example, of what the King's Book has to say about or positional reality: Our identity in Christ Jesus - that is our "new man" - is "created in righteousness and true holiness."

Consider this, from Romans 10:3: "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." Here, we have an example, of what the King's Book has to say about our wilful reality: The "righteousness of God" - must be "submitted" to. This submission, this yielding, is an act of our Christ empowered, willful obedience to God our Father.

The positional reality, our identity in Christ; and, in the case of today's text, "our righteousness unto God," will not be manifested, without our Christ empowered willful submission to God our Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is why our text says: "yield yourselves unto God."

In closing, my beloved, let us all ask ourselves the question: Which path are we choosing?

Until next time, my beloved brethren, in Christ Jesus, I continue to be:

Your servant and your fellow pilgrim,
Elder Theophilus