“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44, ESV)
Rethinking Submission
After writing last week’s post on Kingdom Submission, I felt the need to write one more post on the topic because we often misunderstand submission.
On the one hand, there are many people in our current culture who view submission as a dirty word. They believe we should never submit to anything outside of ourself. We are our own people, and nobody should tell us what to do.
Yet, there’s another side to submission—one that easily grows in the church. Some people recognize submission is necessary. They notice how often the Bible speaks about it. So, they work hard at submitting to Jesus in every aspect of their life. That’s not a bad thing. However, many people pursue this submission while “gritting their teeth.” They submit, but they don’t like it. They give up certain things, but they long for the days when they had them. Their life becomes all about what they are NOT doing rather than what they ARE doing.
Selling Everything
Yet, this isn’t the picture Jesus painted of submission. He told this parable about the kingdom of God: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44, ESV).
This man is wandering through a field and comes across a treasure. He knows he doesn’t have enough money to buy the field right away. So, he buries the treasure in the field, runs back home and begins selling everything so he can buy the field.
Yet, he handles this differently than most of us. I think most of us would sell everything we have sorrowfully. We would let go of it, but we’d be sad. Yet, this man JOYFULLY got rid of EVERYTHING so he could have the treasure.
Joyful Submission
This is a picture of joyful submission. As I’ve mentioned before, entering the kingdom of God requires submission to King Jesus. Remember, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34, ESV). If you want to follow Jesus you need to deny yourself and follow him. That means you need to submit to him rather than yourself. When Jesus wanted to turn that into a metaphor he would say, “sell all that you have”—submit everything—and follow him.
Yet, as I pointed out in that parable, we are called to do more than submit everything to Jesus—we are called to JOYFULLY submit everything to Jesus. That means we need to submit our finances to Jesus with joy. We need to submit our sex lives to Jesus with joy. We need to submit our spouse, children, and families to Jesus with joy. We need to submit our thoughts and emotions to Jesus with joy. Everything submitted with Joy.
HOW?
When I’ve talked about this in the past, I’ve been asked the question, “How do I do this? How can I joyfully change the way I spend my money? That’s really difficult. I don’t really want to change this. I like the way I’m spending it now.”
The short answer to this question is: Jesus never asks us to give up a good thing for a bad thing. When we submit to Jesus, we are either giving up bad things for good things OR good things for better things. We can NEVER forget this. We are “selling” cheap things for things with eternal value. So we do it JOYFULLY.
An Example
This can apply in thousands of different scenarios—things we encounter every day, but let me give one particular example: If Jesus is calling you to quit your high-paying job, move to another state, and work for a significantly lower wage, how do you do that joyfully? You recognize that He’s got something better in store for you. It may not result in financial increase, but it may result in more peace and purpose than you’ve ever had before. It may open doors for ministry and influence that would never have been open before. You have no idea what Jesus will do with your submission.
ACTUALLY, you do know. You know He will use your submission for His glory and furthering His kingdom and BOTH things are good for you—blessing poured upon your head. So, you joyfully go where Jesus has told you to go—you joyfully submit to Him—take the lower wage, joyfully do your work to the best of your abilities, and trust that submission to Jesus is ALWAYS the best thing to do.