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Christlife Posture: Submitting to God's Love and Leading

Topic: How Submission Brings Freedom

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Suggested Approach: Choose 1 thing from each of the three boxes

OR Choose 1 from Media or Reflection + 1 from Scripture 

Media Excursions             (Watch/read/listen and be ready to discuss Q's)

Photograph

  • Salvation (Michael Belk)  The artist writes “salvation is not a get out of jail free” card.  What freedoms come with surrendering to God?  How does this photograph encourage you in the area of submission?

Video Testimony

  •  Pete Briscoe (I Am Second) Submission in the spotlight. How was a decision to surrender to God his turning point? How did this shift in his paradigms produce a deeper sense of life for him?

Song

  • Zion and Babylon (Josh Garrels) This song shows the contrast between being enslaved and the freedom God offers.  In what way do you relate to being enslaved? How does God's response stand out to you? 

  • All That I Am (Rend Collective) How does the rest of the song lead the songwriter to conclude “It’s only in surrender that I’m truly free”?

Article

  • What the Biblical View of Freedom Means for Your Life (Dr. Art Lindsley) Which of these implications challenges your own understanding of what it means to live in freedom? Why? (Look at the two linked articles on what the Old or New Testament says about freedom for more.)  

Video Teaching

  • Defeating Darkness (Be the Bee #8) What are the benefits of the kind of surrender that this short video encourages?

Reflection Options  

Journal (Reflect on one or more of these options)

  • Write about your perceptions or misperceptions about what it means to surrender.  Identify any lies that you have believed.

  • If there is someone you know who models godly surrender, think about what evidence of freedom you see in their life. Write about what that looks like.

Quote Response (Agree, disagree or otherwise engage with the quote/quotes) 

  • The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.  (William Booth)

  • God’s purpose in redeeming men from sin is not to give them freedom to do as they please but freedom to do as He pleases, which is to live righteously.  (John MacArthur) 

  • True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will. (Jonathan Edwards) 

  • ...true Christians are the freest people in the world.  (John Piper)

Reading & Reflection from the book, Shaping The Journey of Emerging Adults

  • Read the “be a truth teller” story (p. 137).  What freedoms might that young adult experience if he chooses to submit to God’s heart in the way Rick suggests?

  • Read the two stories in “Humbly Leaning in to Pain and Brokenness” (pp. 231-234).  What did each of the people in these two stories need to surrender to in order to find the freedom God would have them experience?

Explore Scripture

Meditate on one or more of the following passages. Always look them up in context.  Take some time to really explore the verse in relation to this topic.  What do these verses help you understand about surrender and the freedom it can create in your life?  Make a note of what you discover to share later.  See "Learn More About Ways to Study Scripture" below for help in getting the most out of the verse.

  • Job 11:13-15

  • Psalm 37:3-7

  • Psalm 119:41-48

  • Psalm 139:23-24

  • John 6:35

  • John 8:31-32

  • Galatians 2:20

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