Do You Suppose...

Many times we hear about giving our lives totally to Jesus, and it kind of follows that we might fall into that trap of laying back and waiting for Jesus to work us like some bad automaton from a cartoon. "I'm all yours, Lord. You take it from here!" But, if the Lord wanted servants of that type, He could certainly create as many as He wanted at anytime that He wanted. The Lord would not need us at all. In creating you and me with a will to choose, the Lord must have wanted something else. Yes, He does want us to believe in His Son, and to choose life over eternal destruction, but does the choice end there? When the minister gets up on Sunday morning and tells me to wait on the Lord's direction, am I to do nothing until that direction arrives? Will the Lord's guiding hand be like the hand of the puppeteer?

We fear that sort of direction, so of course we are going to resist it. The decades that slavery existed in the United States are a great national shame, though not one of us was alive at that time. We fear the return of that so much that we often react badly to any hint of racism. Again, if God wanted mindless slaves, He could have kept slavery around and put you and me under it. Instead, the new life in Christ speaks of freedom, joy, love, and hope. None of these are compatible with slaves or automatons. Do you suppose that God wants us to love Him without any force or compulsion?

In the morning, I sit down to write. If I do it because I think I must, then the first feeling will be one of rebellion. If I throw up my hands and tell God that it's His devotional to type, then nothing happens. Paul was guided by the Lord in writing his epistles, but he still wrote them. Moses was guided by the Lord, but he still walked the miles across the wilderness. I think that God will not direct my writing if my fingers are in my pockets. Do you suppose that God wants me to write some words of praise just because I want to? Feelings may not be the best guide for us to go by, but it just feels better to praise God spontaneously of my own free will than to feel an obligation. I would much rather a song of joy break forth in me than to be forced upon me. Can there be any true joy in reading God's word if I am forced to do it every day for a length of time set by another? The life of faith is so much better when my heart is changed to a 'want to' from a 'have to'. That is why we need to be reborn in Christ.

Enjoy the day in the freedom Christ brings!
Bucky