"Sarge"
Director NCFP
49 posts
Sep 29, 2011
9:36 AM
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Have you ever heard the expression, “Easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission?” I’ll bet you have. The first time I ever heard it was shortly after we moved to Minnesota in 1982. I’d never heard it before then. What does it mean that it is “easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission?” It means that I’m going to do something and I don’t want to ask permission from those in authority. I’m just going to go ahead and do it. If someone questions me about it, I will say I am sorry to avoid consequences. Why don’t I want to ask permission from those in authority? There may be peripheral reasons but the primary reason is because those in authority may not give me permission to do what I want to do and I just want to do it.
“Easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission” is the thinking of a rebel, the excuse of one who does not want to come under authority. It not only rebels against authority but it also devalues forgiveness, doesn’t it? It turns genuine asking for forgiveness that flows from a broken heart into the pseudo-forgiveness of cheap words. Cheap words are empty words.
What’s a better approach to take than the headstrong, rebellious approach I’ve just described? Ask permission of the one in authority before acting. That’s humble. That’s submissive. When we are humble and submissive we are promised God’s grace and exaltation (1 Peter 5:5, 6). God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Proud rebels find themselves fighting God! Yes, the person in authority may not agree with you or give you permission to do what you want but the larger question is, “Do you really trust God to work through those He has placed in authority?”
Men in the purity ministry struggle with authority. Many have had authority figures such as fathers, pastors, teachers, and coaches who were inconsistent, capricious, demanding, abusive, or unfair. They have developed a mindset that those in authority cannot be trusted because they are “not out for my best interests.” Their thinking is, “if I want the job done right I have to do it myself.” Satan uses the wounds of the past to fuel the inner rebel. In Purity Platoon men learn that their sergeants can be trusted and that submission to those in authority is a good and godly thing. They consider Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8-emph. mine).
Submission is allowing God to work for my good through those He has placed over me.
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