Kingship and You.
Think for a moment if you will, about your life. Think about what happens when things don’t go according to plan, or when coming up with a plan is difficult. Think about when someone else had an agenda for you and your life. All these situations are not fun, and can result in having an idol, in our lives.
For me, I desire to lead, to exert leadership. Control. Leadership is my control idol. I have a natural tendency to be a leader. Whether good or bad, I tend to have the ability to be the leader. When I don’t get the opportunity to lead, I get frustrated pretty easily, because I have an insight that would make the situation better, at least in my mind. Leadership can become an idol pretty quickly in my life, if I don’t keep my heart in check, and the Lord on the forefront of my mind.
Looking back at “according to plan,” what’s this say to you? I think you’ve got something in mind. It doesn’t have to be what I deal with. Maybe in control looks like making sure your body looks the right way, and you control it with the way you eat (or don’t eat.)
Maybe you deal with lack of control, and hurt yourself. Maybe it is control over other people, and playing mind games with them. Whatever it is, you know your version of control, and what dangers lurk within. You know the control that these items have over you.
In the book of Joshua, God tells us to be strong and courageous, because He is with is. While this passage is talking about the calling God had over the life of Joshua, I think we can pull some important items from it, describing the character of God.
Scripture tells us that God is the same always. Specifically it says, “He’s the same Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” So we know that His presence in our lives is unchanging, and that He constantly seeks to have communion with us.
It’s at this point that I think we should establish that idols don’t necessarily have to be something we like. An idol is anything that we either submit to, or allow to have control over our lives. We can enjoy it, but sometimes we don’t like it at all.
It’s because God desires to have communion with us that He also deserves to have the place in our lives that we submit completely to him. Let’s interchange the words idol and control with kingship; because Christ is king. Psalm 22:28 states “For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.”
Not only does God desire that kingship over our lives, it’s already His!
Finally, 1 Peter 5:6 gives us the best course of action for our lives, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”
Submit to the kingship of the Lord, because He’s worthy of it, and because making Him an idol in your life, won’t let you down. Let His control and direction be what you submit to, what you let control you, because in the end, it’ll allow you to be used of God, and exalt you to better make Him known.
– Jarin