It is my heart to guide you to the experiences that the revelation on submission has brought me to. In order to do this, I must carry you through every experience the Lord took me through, and in the order that He did.
Before I received the revelation on submission, the Lord took me through a situation that required my humility. I had come to a place where I felt stuck, and I knew it was because God was resisting me. My conscience was becoming hard, and I feared for the wellbeing of my soul. It was then that I fell on my face and interceded for my own soul.
It was not until I humbled myself in that prayer that God began to work with me again. I am able now to look at that prayer in retrospect and extract spiritual principles. Now, I will connect what we are learning about humility to that experience.
Humility is to obey, believe, and agree with God. Thus, in order for anyone to repent or retain fellowship with God, they must abide in these three principles.
When I fell on my face, the first thing I had to acknowledge was the fact that I was walking contrary to His will. Hence I had been lifted up in pride. It is important to add here that prior to my repentance, I felt like I had a right to feel the way I did because I was indeed wronged in many areas. However, God was not pleased with me. I had resisted His will by entering into a murmuring spirit. Thus, the Lord was abasing my pride by resisting me.
As mentioned, acknowledgment is the first step of humility. Acknowledgment is crucial because it is a confession that you recognize that your decision to abandon the will of God was indeed a sin and ought not to have happened. Acknowledgment is also a declaration of a desire to recant your decision to sin. When you acknowledge your wrong, you are confessing to the Lord that you indeed challenged His authority, but you now recognize the need to return to submission.
Psalm 51:2-4
2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
Acknowledgment is also crucial when one has not sinned, however, in this case, it is 'the need for God' that is being acknowledged.
Acts 3:12
And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
Here, Peter acknowledges that he was not the source of the power and holiness that he walked in. Though we are one with God, the excellency of the power is of Him (2 Cor 4:7). This is the same attitude of heart that we must walk in. If He is indeed the source of our power and holiness, then without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5).
Acknowledgment identifies God’s order. He is above all, and we all need Him. It is through acknowledgment that you confess that you agree with this order. If we ever deviate from His structure, we will be abased. Therefore, acknowledging your faults allows you to own them. It is a form of self-abasement. Thus, if you abase yourself, it is seen as humility in God’s sight, and His heart will move favorably towards you.
The second step is a bit more difficult to explain because it is based on God’s disposition towards us individually. However, as I have introduced it let me say that acknowledgment does not equate to repentance. I can acknowledge that I have rejected God’s way without actually intending to or even believing that I can change.
The greatest form of humility is when you agree with God. To agree with God means that you prefer His way. It means that His ways are what you want and have determined for your life. When you agree with God you desire no other experience, other than what He wants for you. So, whereas acknowledgment agrees that God is above all and worthy of obedience, agreement says obedience is my preference.
It is important to note here that you cannot prefer obedience without believing that you can obey. This is where the pride of unbelief presents itself in our repentance. If God has declared a truth, who are we not to believe it? Is that not also disagreement with His order? If you do not believe the things God has declared, you are believing another voice as you should God. Thus, unbelief is also a challenge to His Deity.
This is the step many fail to go to. Unless you take God’s word as truth in your heart you still have not humbled yourself. In other words, if you do not believe that you, as a son of God, can be holy, you still have not repented. You may have apologized for other sins, but you still have not repented of the sin of unbelief. Thus, you still have no fellowship with God, and He will continue to reject this pride.
In my prayer, though I had acknowledged my sins, I still felt a wall between God and I. That wall was my own indecision concerning whether I would return or not. That wall was built by unbelief, as well as my desire to have my way. This wall of pride must be destroyed in order for true fellowship to be restored.
I had to make a definitive decision to relinquish my wants and to believe that I could. I had to agree with what God was saying to my heart. It was only then that I came forth with true humility because my heart was now on the same page with God. God instantly responded to me by filling my heart with joy, peace, and a spirit of reverence for holiness. This is the sign of forgiveness.
On the other hand, for those that are holy, the time that would be spent agreeing with God is spent in thanksgiving, because they are currently enjoying the fellowship of the Spirit, and they recognize that their experience is because of the goodness of the Spirit. Their giving of thanks is the manifestation of their humility before the Father. It is the individual's method of acknowledging that truly everything good that has been accomplished in their life was done by God.
Let us protect our walk in the Spirit, by remaining humble.
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