June 7 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Submit yourselves therefore to God" (Jas. 4:7).

Devotional

Submission to God's will is a great advance in holiness. And this is mainly and effectually attained through sanctified chastisement. In prosperity, we are so full of self-sufficiency! When the Lord asks our obedience, we instead give him our advice. But when he sends the rod and sanctifies its stroke by the accompanying grace of his Spirit, then we learn what true obedience is.

Our blessed Lord himself was taught in this school. "Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered" (Heb. 5:8). He learned to obey in suffering—to bring his will in suffering into complete submission to his Father's will.

God does not have such obedient children in his family as those who, "pass under the rod" and are thus brought "into the bond of the covenant" (Ezek. 20:37).

Oh, what a high Christian attainment is submission to the will of God! It is the noblest grace attainable upon earth. When our Lord taught his disciples to pray to the Father for the spread of holiness, he embodied the petition in these words, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10). The universal and complete holiness of heaven springs from the universal and complete perfection in which the will of God is done by angels and glorified spirits. To the degree that God's will prevails upon earth, holiness will reign.

And, oh, what a beauteous and blissful world this would be if the will of God were done by every creature! In the new earth, in which righteousness will dwell, it will be so. The harmony of this fallen universe will then be restored, its pristine beauty more than recovered, and God, by his Son and through his Spirit, will reign over and dwell in the midst of a people whose will shall be but the reflection of his own.

To approximate to God's will is to assimilate with God's holiness. What God wills, how God wills, and when God wills defines the rule that should govern all the conduct and limit all the desires of the child of God. The instant the overwhelmed heart is brought into this state, the afflicted believer has planted his feet upon the Rock that is higher than he (Ps. 61:2). All is peace. All is composure. Why? Because all is submission to the will of God. "The Lord reigns" is the truth whose all-commanding, yet gentle, whisper stills the tempest and calms the waves.

In its intense anxiety that God's will might be done, the chastened soul is only breathing after deeper holiness. And every fervent desire to attain holiness is holiness already attained.

O blessed chastening of love that produces the buds, blossoms, and fruits of heaven in this distant and uncongenial world! A richer fruit does not grow within the Paradise of God than holiness. And yet, in the experience of a chastened believer, bleeding under the rod of his heavenly Father, there may be obtained such victories over sin, such purification of heart, such meekness of spirit, such Christ-like conformity, and such a discipline of the will, as to make him richly "share his holiness" (Heb. 12:10).

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Thou art the Potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after thy will
while I am waiting, yielded and still.

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now,
as in thy presence humbly I bow.

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power—all power—surely is thine!
Touch me and heal me, Savior divine!

Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way!
Hold o'er my being absolute sway!
Fill with thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!

(Adelaide A. Pollard, 1902)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.