Scripture reading: 1 John 4:7
When one allows oneself to be used by a devil for his own purpose, and contrary to the Spirit of God within one’s own being, then the submission is unholy and not ordained of God. In order that the reader might understand the degree of which I speak, let me tell you a story.
There was a sister, whose husband wanted her to go to the bar with him and his friends, who spent their time drinking and dancing. She was advised by certain “shepherds” that she should obey her husband and go. I advised that she should tell him in love that her Lord will not allow her to do so. She obeyed the “shepherds” and went with him, and she thought she would preach to them as they drank. She tried to speak about the Lord to them, but soon everybody kept far away from her, and she became the laughing-stock of the party. Husband and wife were living in a strained atmosphere, and so the wife came back to me for advice.
I told her to pray until she lost all feeling of animosity for her husband, then to approach him in love and to show him her love, then to explain to him the reason she will never go back with him to any more parties. He submitted to the Spirit in which she approached him, and told her he was sorry for the embarrassment he caused her, and promised never to ask her to go again. This was not the end of the story. Some months after, he accepted Jesus as his personal Savior, and the other stage of the battle began – where the woman was more advanced in the things of the Lord than the man, and had to coax him along the path of righteousness, while at the same time being in submission to him.
God cannot agree with submission unto sin.
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God” (1 John 4:7).
(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 68-69)
Thought for today: God cannot agree with submission unto sin.
Sonlight Devotional 