Cry 7: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

Read Luke 23:44-49

 

 

People are often curious about what happens at the moment of death. The short answer is our spirit departs from our body.

 

Some spirits enter paradise. According to 2 Corinthians 5:8, they are absent from the body and present with the Lord. Others go to a place of eternal darkness where they experience weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12, 13:41-42). Jesus's spirit was getting ready to leave His earthly body and return to His Father in heaven. At that moment, He fully yielded Himself to His Father.

 

Submission to the Father at the moment of death was not difficult for Jesus because He had learned submission throughout His life and ministry. Philippians 2:8 says, "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death―even death on a cross!" Hours before He went to the cross, Jesus agonized in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, "Not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:39). 

 

Dallas Willard calls submission a spiritual discipline we must learn as we relate to one another in the body of Christ. In his book The Spirit of the Disciplines, he writes, "The highest level of fellowship―involving humility, complete honesty, transparency, and at times confession and restitution―is sustained by the discipline of submission." 

 

Submission does not come naturally to us. But if we learn submission throughout our lives, like Jesus, we can more easily submit to the Father when He calls us home.

 

Reflect

 

Why is submission difficult for us to practice as a spiritual discipline? How is God asking you to submit to Him today? 

 

Pray

 

Father, I am like a wild stallion at heart. I want to run free and on my own. But please help me prepare for death, whenever that moment comes, by learning to submit to You better. Amen.

 

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