Written by Sharri Burggraaf

God's Protective Authority

Job 36:11-12   “If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.”
Do you find pleasure in doing God’s will and obeying Him and serving Him? Or have you developed a pattern of putting your pleasure—your plans or your agenda before the commands of God?  God promises to provide protection in exchange for our submission to His  authority.  God has ordained the church, marriage, family and government as His protective authority for us and His Word describes in detail these various roles.
 A specific role found in Romans is submitting to governing authorities. We are told to submit to governing authorities for all authority is delegated by God; since all authority originates from God.
Romans 13:1-2  “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”
We are accountable to God and also to the authorities that preside over us.  But, submitting to God or man’s authority goes against our democratic mindsets.  It is hard for our earthly minds to comprehend God’s Kingdom principles of submission. We complain and protest and tend to use the argument – of the people, by the people and for the people to challenge authority and assert our rights and what we want. 
In Ephesians there are examples of institutions that have been ordained by God to reveal to us more about His protective authority. Wives are told to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. Husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church. 
Ephesians 5:23-24  “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.” 
Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”   
Ephesians 5:29  “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:”
These are meant to be examples of God’s love and protection. Some people think of shrewd male chauvinism when you mention submission.  Ephesians 5: 23 – 24 has been misused to support the concept of male dominance not only over a man’s wife but over all women.  One false belief is that submission implies an inferiority of the individual who must submit. But the husband and wife are of equal worth in God’s eyes since both are created in God’s image. When Paul writes in I Corinthians that the man is the head of the woman, he also refers to the order of creation as the basis for this position.
I Corinthians 11:7-10  “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man. For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.”
God’s design for women and men before the fall was perfect. Sin has distorted the proper relationship between the husband and wife, and only redemption through Christ and the Spirit-filled life can restore God's proper design for this relationship.
The husband who is redeemed by the blood of Christ and anointed with the Holy Spirit is able to love his wife as Christ loves the church, and the wife is able to graciously submit to the leadership of her husband as the church is to submit voluntarily to Christ's authority. Redemption in Christ removes the oppressive elements of the fallen relationship between men and women and brings marriage into it’s proper accord. The Holy Spirit is the resource by which we accomplish this.   Paul calls upon the husband to love his wife as Christ loves the church. The command given to the husband is to be the spiritual leader of the household, and treat his wife with love, meet her needs and cherish her. This is a role model of God’s protective authority and is the catalyst to have a successful marriage. God uses the institution of marriage as an example of His nourishing and cherishing love for the church.
Ephesians 6 goes on to tell children to obey their parents and honor their father and mother and for fathers to provoke not their children to wrath…”but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
God uses the institution of a family as an example of His nurturing love.  Submitting to parents’ authority is an example of God’s protective authority.  According to the bible a father’s place in the home is to bring their children up in the reproof of the Lord.  Families are being destroyed from a lack of godly men who raise their children. The worldly view of a man's role is that he should provide financially for his family, but he doesn’t need to be very engaged with home life.  Our society has gone array with fathers not being a part of the family or fathers who lack spiritual leadership and women taking on the role of sole leadership and exclusively teaching and disciplining their children.  This is both unwise and unbiblical. As a result our homes are very weak and the enemy finds it very easy to destroy our families through divorce, rebellion, addictions, and child abuse. Most bible verses about teaching children is addressed to fathers.
Proverbs 4:1-5 is an example: “Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention and gain understanding. I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching. When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender, and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said, "Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live."
Ephesians 6:5 – 6  “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart;”
Submitting to God’s authority as shown in the example of a servant being obedient to their master as unto Christ is characterized by doing the will of God from the heart. When we submit to authority whether it be our husband, our parents, our government and other leaders, we are obeying and serving the Lord. When we fail to submit to authorities and rebel against them we cause division to the vision that is ordained by that authority. Our society has long been feeling the effects of rebelling against God’s authority. Marriages are crumbling, families and churches are dividing, there is war and chaos, sin is running rampant and there is violence and disruption of peace and unity.
Adam and Eve are a perfect example of not being obedient to what God commanded.  After God made Adam this is what God told him,
Genesis 2:16 – 17 “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
This was not a request from God. It very clearly states that the LORD God commanded the man to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Later the ten commandments were given to Moses to give to God’s people. They were not the ten suggestions or the ten rules to be voted in by a governing body. They were a tutor to teach us that we were sinners in need of a Savior.     
Today we have the Word of God and Holy Spirit to give us revelation to what God commands. God gave Adam specific instructions and Adam had direct communication and revelation from God regarding what he was not supposed to eat and what would happen if he did.
When you read the account of Eve talking with the serpent, it sounds like she got what God said from Adam, or second hand instead of from God.
Genesis 3:2 – 3 “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
She was correct when she said that God hath said ye shall not eat of it. She adds to the command by saying neither shall ye touch it. This sounds like what a person says when they have been told something by another person. Perhaps it is easier to be deceived when you don’t have revelation from God, but needless to say she disobeyed God and then she gave some to her husband and he ate it fully knowing that he was disobeying God.
Thus the first sin was committed.  Adam and Eve disobeyed the Holy Righetous God and their punishment was death. “For the wages of sin is death”.
The core definition of sin can be found in 1 John 3:4 “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”
Lawlessness is failing to submit to the authority of God. The Greek meaning of lawlessness is anomia; meaning rejection of the law or will of God and the substitution of the will of self.
Matthew 24:12 – 13  “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
When reading these verses from Matthew we may think the iniquity or sin that shall abound applies to society and only nonChristians, but Jesus was talking about the church. We can know this by examining the Greek meaning of love used here. This is the agape’ type of love that comes from the Holy Spirit to believers.  To prove that Jesus was talking to the church, this same Greek word is used again in
John 13:34  “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”
This is the same love that is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus said the world cannot receive. This love is found only in those who have received Jesus Christ as their Savior.
John 14:17 “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
Another verse that brings this point across is:
Romans 5:5 “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”
True grace is given to empower us to want to serve the Lord and be able to obey what God demands of us. The Hebrew writer tells us about this grace to enable us to serve God.
Hebrews 12:28 “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:”
Many people profess to be Christians. Churches are filled with people who claim to be saved yet disobey God. Jesus told us in the following bible verse that only those who do the will of God His Father will enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 7:21  “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”
To those who practice lawlessness and live in sin Jesus says, 
Matthew 7:23  “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Matthew 24:13  “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
To endure the race Jesus is talking about, you must first have begun the race; another proof that Jesus was talking to believers.
James 1:22  “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”
We must hear the Word of God and learn to love truth enough to obey and take action by submitting unto God’s will and we are enabled to love and obey only by the grace of God that empowers us.
Many are deceived into thinking that if they love good preaching and teaching and go to church that is all they need to do. They are easily deceived into thinking that if they say they are saved, go to church yet live in sin they will still attain salvation.
2 Timothy 3:1 – 4   “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.  For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;”
We may think of perilous times as times of outward disasters, but all of the things this text is referring to is corruption that is within a person. What these traits have in common is people fulfilling their own lusts instead of fulfilling God’s will and are lovers of themselves instead of loving and fearing God. When people do not love or fear God they will not love or honor authority or other people. We must passionately love and desire God’s will more than any comfort in our own lives. When we submit to God’s authority and the earthly authority that has been ordained by God for our lives, we are putting ourselves in the safest place possible. Through the redemptive power of our Savior Jesus Christ we have fellowship with God and we will want to serve and obey Him.  We will still suffer the consequences of living in a fallen world. Sin ravages us all and will continue to do so until all is delivered up in to the Father’s hands. By obeying the authoritative Word of God through the inspiration and empowering of the Holy Spirit we will enjoy peace and harmony that comes from living a life with God’s protective authority .

 All Past Devotionals Can Be Read Here by Clicking on the Titles

              God's Protective Authority

             When Church Hurts

             Gossip Within the Church           
       

               Love and Joy Perfected
 

               Have You Prayed for Your Pastor Today?
 

              Servitude with Humility
 

              Leaning on God and His Understanding
 

            The Journey of Forgiveness
 

            Behold the Lamb of God
 

           God's Desire for all to Come to Repentance

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