Subjection or Loyalty?

If I do not subject myself willingly to God as my supreme authority first of all and on a daily, hourly basis, then other authorities will impose themselves on me by force sooner or later and I will become enslaved by the fear that they will use to control me. I will become self-centered, desperate, resentful and bitter and I will likely blame my problems on God and on those around me. But doing so will only be like fighting in quicksand as it will suck me deeper into the deadly trap of fear which is exactly the plan of the enemy and many of the ministers of wrath that God allows to represent authority on this earth.

The only hope anyone has to rise above the ugliness and darkness of earthly perversions of authority is to focus very deliberately on submitting daily and thoroughly to the Sovereignty of God at the heart level and in the mind so that there is no resistance to authority to cause fear and pain. As I sense the greatness of God that is infinitely surpassing to all the feeble attempts of earthly authorities to intimidate me; as I make the principles of God's kingdom first priority in my life and allegiance to Him and His instructions to me paramount above all other demands in my life, then I will be free of all internal handles by which earthly powers can control or manipulate me and use me to discredit God's reputation.

The real conflict in life is between who we will serve, not whether or not we will serve. No matter how much I believe I can be free of service to anyone, that is a completely impossible option that can never take place in any life. In the heat of the greatest battle ever fought there is no such thing as neutrality for there is no place in the universe to hide from the participants in this battle. If we are not committed to serving and submitting to God and His ways of living and thinking then we are prime targets for capture by the enemy. He may use deceptions or he may use force to absorb us quickly into his army, but capture us he will and that quite easily, because we are already sinners caught in his territory and surrounded by others loyal to his ways. He already has handles in the heart by which to jerk us around and only full subjection to the authority of Jesus Christ gives anyone hope of having those handles disattached.

This is the very real battle that I sense I am facing at this time. I see others caught in intense cross-fire in the same situation and realize that I am facing the same issues internally right now. I am being forced more and more openly to choose sides as to which power I will make as priority in my soul. This is not only a spiritual battle carried on strictly in the religious realm of life as many suppose it might be. That kind of thinking is completely an illusion designed to weaken our defenses. This battle for my supreme allegiance, the power that I allow to dominate my thinking and feelings, the power that controls my sense of fear is the power that will take control of my destiny. I must live under one authority or the other, there is no third alternative.

If I allow the fear of earthly authorities with all their means of force and intimidation and threats to absorb my attention and dictate my actions and choices then I acknowledge them and the demonic powers behind them as the supreme authority for me which is exactly what they demand. Living in fear is the sign of my allegiance to earthly authorities and is the emotion they work hardest to induce in my heart. They will tolerate profession of religion so far as it does not interfere with their stronghold of fear in my heart by which they can control my behavior, but as soon as allegiance to God's authority interferes with submission to their demands they will inflict whatever means it takes to create fear and dread of them and to force compliance, and they will attack my choices of conscience as acts of treason against their supremacy.

This can take place at any level and on any subject. The subtle bottom-line issue that at times is very difficult to observe clearly is this – the one I dread and allow to control my fears is the one that I am worshiping in fact, irregardless of my profession. I may firmly believe I am a Christian and I may argue and fight for my rights as such, but if fear is dominant in my heart and my primary motivation for making choices is based on fear, then I am being loyal to Satan's kingdom and the kingdoms of this world, because fear is the root element and the modus operandi of those kingdoms.

The only alternative to being controlled by fear is to fill my mind and heart with the real truth about God's superiority, God's truths and the far greater claims that Jesus Christ has on my life through His death on the cross for me personally. I must be completely submitted unconditionally to the authority of God in my heart above all other claims. I must have a very real sense and gut-level understanding that Jesus has already fought this battle for me and has made the hard decisions ahead of time so that I do not have to be any longer a slave to fear. Jesus immersed Himself into the most intense battle with earthly authority during the last few days before His crucifixion and He did so on my behalf so that I could be empowered to live hidden in Him as I face similar circumstances. He made the hard choices so that they could be duplicated in me as I allow Him to live within me during my encounters with these same forces.

The real choice left for me now is whether I will allow the threats and demands of earthly authorities to dominate my thinking and induce my fears to give allegiance to them as supreme and make God's demands second-place in my heart, or whether I will subject myself to God's authority as supreme and thus have nothing left to be manipulated by the terrors used by earthly governments. If my fear of being out of sync with the heart of God is greater than my fear of pain and death imposed on me by earthly powers, then those powers will not find any place in my heart by which to control me. They may be able to inflict great pain on my body and mind but they will not be able to steal my soul from the hand of the One to whom I belong.

That all sounds very nice religiously but it is actually very frightening to me right now. I have a growing sense of urgency that circumstances are very quickly intensifying behind the scenes to expose the real choices that I am making on this issue in ways that will be far from pleasant. I believe that very soon an overwhelming storm of political and physical conflict will involve severe hardships and violence is about to burst upon the whole world that is primarily designed to induce the maximum fear in every heart in order to secure their supreme allegiance to earthly authorities. Every means possible is going to be used to create fear and terror in the hearts of every person so that they will comply with the demands of allegiance to the ways of this world in the name of security and maintaining the way of life as the rich and powerful want it.

There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Luke 21:25-26 NRSV)

But ironically allegiance to God involves a curious appearance of subjection to earthly authorities. So my logical question is this, “what is the difference between subjection and allegiance?” I can only have one God in my life and the power that dominates my thinking and underlies the important choices in my daily reactions will be driven by either fear of men or submission to the claims of Jesus Christ on my life. If I surrender all of my loyalty and allegiance to God first without any reservations, then any subjecting that I do to earthly authorities will necessarily be in the higher context of what God desires for me to do, not in response to intimidations imposed on me by earthly authorities.

I cannot leave any vacancies in my heart that have not been surrendered to God's authority or they will be exploited and dominated by fear induced by earthly control. If I try to hold back anything from God for selfish reasons or from fear of others, then I am completely vulnerable to being captured by the power of fear which will always find a way to undermine my allegiance to God. That is why resistance in any degree to the call of God for total obedience is fatally dangerous. It is not because God will get upset with me for some infractions of His rules but because resistance itself creates a weakness in the armor of God designed to protect my soul from infections of fear (the counterfeit kind).

As I am beginning to perceive the message of Romans 13 here, subjection to earthly authorities can only be safely carried out within the context of first being totally submitted to God's authority and His full possession of my heart. Otherwise, demands for subjection to earthly authorities will result in damage of my heart through fear that corrupt earthly authorities almost always use as their means for controlling the world around them. If I am compromised by fear and do not overcome it through a full surrender to God's authority in my soul, then I may still be able to maintain a religious belief and even a very convincing religious apparatus that I think will save me and be pleasing to God, but I will not be grounded solidly to endure the storm. The only real religion that is meaningful and connects me to God is the absolute loyalty and submission of the heart and affections – not only the mind – to His access as the first and best and only power and authority that I worship.

If I try to obey the instructions in Romans 13 without a vital, heart-relationship with my Creator and Redeemer who owns my life, then I may try to maintain the appearance of very strong religious beliefs and profession but my heart will actually be worshiping the authorities of earth via the fears by which they are able to control me. When earthly authorities are able to intimidate me and make me afraid, I will sooner or later conform to their demands in violation of my allegiance to God, and I am giving them worship whether willingly or not. If I obey earthly authorities because these verses demand that I do so but do not have an intimate love relationship with the heart of God, then I have a dangerous liability in my heart that will sooner or later be exposed and filled with the loyalty of fear that will react and conform to the forces of evil.

Only perfect love casts out fear – the kind of love that applies even to enemies. And only as I am more and more filled with the genuine, selfless love of God and experience the transformation of that love at the deepest levels of my soul can I safely subject myself to earthly authorities without coming under their domination through fear. For more and more, earthly authorities are aligning themselves in opposition to the authority of God, though it is often not apparent to many. But God still allows them to function as legitimate, ordained authorities until their evil is fully exposed and the polarization is fully complete between those who live by fear and compliance to the force employed on earth and those who live from the heart in a vital connection with the God of real life.

But in the process of separating the wheat and the tares, God asks us to stay in the field and be subject, but not necessarily loyal, to the legitimate earthly authorities under which we find ourselves. This means living respectfully while perceiving reality and people through the eyes of heaven and with the compassion that God has for all His enemies. While it does not involve being controlled or infected with fear, it does seem to require an immense amount of grace and internal maturity and dependence on God's Spirit to keep proper perspective of what is reality and what is the earthly facade. Only those who are constantly led by the Spirit of God at the heart level will be able to live in subjection to earthly authorities without becoming infected with the fear and resulting bitterness that those authorities induce to control their subjects.

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