Being Saved from the Lawlessness of Walking according to Self-Will by being Submissive to God

May the Lord have mercy on us to save us from the lawlessness of walking according to self-will by being submissive to God.

As believers in Christ, we need to be rescued from lawlessness by doing what is right in God’s eyes by obeying the principle of serving God; we need to be delivered from rebellion and learn submission and obedience in our service to God.

Christ is the King of the ages, the King of glory, who is enthroned in our being; His throne is established in lovingkindness.

In this age of grace, God rules and reigns in us by tender affection, by shepherding us, and by speaking to us as He makes His home in our hearts.

May we allow Christ to reign in us and bring into us the kingdom of God; He will not force us but rather, He will bring in the kingdom with lovingkindness, truthfulness, faithfulness, justice, and righteousness.

As He brings in the kingdom in this way, we become the same as He is in these virtues.

We need to allow Christ to reign in us. By default, it is not Christ who reigns but it is us who reigns; we think we are reigning, but it is actually the self reigning, and Satan is hidden behind the self.

May we open to the Lord and enthrone Him in our being, allowing Him to reign.

If we are passive toward the Lord, we do not allow Him to reign; but if we exercise our spirit and the function of our will, we will enthrone Him in our being.

Day by day we need to exercise the function of our will and enthrone the Lord in our being, allowing Him to reign in parts of our being that He did not rule or enter before.

As we do this, as we willingly open to Him and allow Him to rule and reign in us, He will bring in the kingdom of God with lovingkindness.

And we will have the virtues of truthfulness and faithfulness, justice and righteousness. Our whole being will become real, genuine, and sincere.

He will make us faithful even as He is, and He will make us His overcomers to be one with Him to overcome the enemy (Rev. 17:14).

And we will live more under Him as the King in His kingdom, allowing the Lord to rule and reign over our thinking, over our reactions, over our feelings, over our speaking, and over every part of our being.

In this way, as we cooperate with Him and allow Him to make His home in our hearts, He is making us the same as He is in all these virtues.

Christ is reproducing Himself into us and He makes us the same as He is. Instead of being rebellious and disobedient persons who reject God’s rule and are ruled only by the self, we will be persons in the kingdom of God with Christ as our King.

Being Saved from the Lawlessness of Walking according to Self-Will and thus being Rebellious and Disobedient

When we walk according to our self-will, we rebel against God’s authority. Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness also, and sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4).

Whenever we do things in ourselves, from ourselves, and according to ourselves, no matter how good these things seem to be, we rebel against God’s authority.

When we do good things according to our own flesh, we do not please God, for even if our conduct is approved, our very person is condemned as long as we act according to the flesh.

To sin is to act presumptuously; it is to act and do things without contacting God and apart from being in the organic union with Christ.

In God’s eyes, all the good man performs by self-will is lawlessness.

What God desires is not sacrifice, that is, He doesn’t want His people to do many good deeds for Him without His leading and His supply.

Doing what is right in our own eyes is lawlessness (Judg. 21:25); this describes the entire living of the society today, for everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes.

To be lawless is to be without law; being lawless means that man rejects God’s rule over man and does not keep the principle of God’s ruling over man.

To sin is to be without law, to trespass against the law.

In God’s eyes, a person sins when he acts according to his own nature and deliberation, walking according to self-will and rebelling against God’s authority.

For example, in the book of 1 Corinthians, we see that two brothers had a problem, and instead of coming together to sort it out and bringing it to the church, they took one another to court.

So Paul asked them, Why would you do that, go to the people in the world? It’s better to suffer loss.

But the reason for this is that both brothers thought they are right, so they take action to do what was right in their own eyes; this is lawlessness.

It may be that we might be right, we are correct, but taking action in ourselves do to something about it is not right with God.

We may be right with ourselves and in ourselves, so we walk according to self-will, but we are not right with God, for whatever we do by walking according to self-will is rebellion against God and therefore it is lawlessness.

May we all just love the Lord, consecrate ourselves to Him, love the truth, appreciate the genuine ministry, and open to the Lord to be enlightened concerning the self-will.

If we do this, we will be very much enlightened, for the Lord will show us the darkness of living in and according to self-will.

When the self-will is strong and we are convinced that we are right, we deny God and reject His authority, for we think we are right and everyone else (including God) is wrong.

We may even not pray about it: we simply know we are right, so we don’t need to pray about this.

This is what it means to rebel against God’s authority.

We may think that we don’t rebel against the church, we still go to the meetings, we still sing and praise God, and we say nice things about God, so how can we be rebellious?

Well, this is between us and God; if we are not really open to the Lord in love for Him to touch us concerning our rebelliousness toward Him, we will think that we are right – and indeed we are dead right, but we are rebellious against God.

May the Lord have mercy on us all that we would be saved from the lawlessness of not recognizing and not submitting to God’s authority as we walk according to self-will.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You. We love Your word, we love the truth, and we open to being enlightened concerning self-will. Save us from walking according to self-will, thinking we are right. Oh Lord, may we remain in the organic union with You and reject any rebellion that rises up in our being. Have mercy on us, Lord, and expose the rebelliousness in our being. Expose any desire to be right and to do things in ourselves according to self-will. Make us those who love the Lord and remain in the organic union with Him, depending on Him, and doing nothing apart from Him!

Turning from the Principle of Rebellion and Serving God in the Principle of Submission

There are two principles in this universe: the principle of God’s authority and the principle of Satan’s rebellion; there is no neutrality.

There is no way for someone in this universe to be in a third place – you either submit to God’s authority or you’re one with Satan in his rebellion.

The whole world is in rebellion against God, for the whole world lies in the evil one, in the sphere of his operation.

Soon there will be a man of lawlessness that will rise up, and all mankind will follow him, for he will speak unspeakable and rebellious words against God, and seemingly God will not judge him.

The presence of the lawless one will result in fallen man overturning all forms of authority.

Man loves to act according to his self-will, and therefore lawlessness reigns; each one does what is right in his own eyes.

Ever since Satan fell and rebelled against God, Satan is continually fighting against God’s authority; he deceives man and causes man to join him in his rebellion.

The underlying principle of this world is rebellion against God.

As believers in Christ who are being delivered from the authority of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, we need to be delivered from lawlessness and rebellion, and we need to serve God in the principle of submission.

We cannot serve God on one hand and take the way of rebellion on the other hand.

We may be able to even give a sermon and do great works for God, but Satan will laugh at such a thing because he knows that we are in rebellion, in the principle of Satan. Oh, Lord.

May the Lord have mercy on us and cause us to meet God’s authority and touch His authority.

Once we touch it, we will realize that there is the principle of rebellion in us, and we need to serve God in the principle of submission.

We need to serve God and live our Chrisitan life not according to self-will but in the principle of submission.

Unless we touch authority and its underlying root, the Lord will not be able to have any work done through us, for we act in the principle of rebellion.

May the Lord really have mercy on us and grant us a real touch with authority so that we may turn away from the principle of rebellion and reject the way of rebellion.

In lawlessness, one not only rebels against authority but also acts as if there were no law.

If we look around us, people act as if there is no law, no morality, and no God; the age we live in is increasingly lawless and it will become more lawless until the man of lawlessness is manifested.

We must be trained by the Lord to live contrary to all the evil forces released in this age; we need to live in the kingdom of God, serving God in the principle of submitting to God.

In order for God to purify to Himself a particular people as His peculiar possession, Christ gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness (Titus 2:14).

Christ not only died for our sins – He died to redeem us from all lawlessness.

We are no different from any other human being – lawlessness is in us, in our very nature, but Christ died for us to redeem us from lawlessness, to rescue us from it, so that we may live under Him as our wonderful King.

May we see this and realize that all our service to God must be in the principle of submission, not according to self-will which is rebellion against God.

Lord Jesus, thank You for giving Yourself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness. Hallelujah, we believers in Christ are a particular people purified by Christ unto Himself to be His peculiar possession, and we are being rescued from all lawlessness! Shine on us, dear Lord, and expose all lawlessness and rebellion in our being. Head us up in Yourself and bring us under Your rulership in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. Be merciful to us and grant us a real touch with God’s authority so that we may reject any rebellion and serve God in the principle of submission!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 59, pp. 106-108, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (2021 summer training), week 9, The Children of Israel not having a King and Everyone doing what was Right in His Own Eyes.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Submitted to God’s ruling, / All virtue thus will win; / Rebellion to His Headship / Is but the root of sin. / The evil aim of Satan- / God’s throne to overthrow; / Our aim and goal is ever / His rule to fully know. (Hymns #941)
  – ’Tis by His heav’nly rule within / As heav’nly citizens we live; / ’Tis by submission to His rule / Expression of His reign we give. / Here in this heav’nly realm we live, / And with this heav’nly pow’r possessed / We walk and fight in heav’nly light / Until the Kingdom’s manifest. (Hymns #942)
  – Today we must learn to submit to His throne, / How to have a strict life and His government own; / His authority then we’ll be able to share, / o’er the nations to rule with God’s Son as the heir. (Hymns #947)