"So, when do you get to do your thing?" The thought entered my head like a jet arriving on a runway. Whoosh! There it was. Before I could muster my defenses, self-pity started to chew away at me. "Why do you have to be responsible when so many others are not? Why do you have to take care of things for everybody else? Who takes care of you? When do you start to count?" It was an ugly moment. You agree, I hope! Many would not agree with that assessment about those kinds of thoughts. Americans are schooled in self-expression from their infancy because we are convinced that the best life is the one that allows us the most freedom to do what we want to do.
The evidence of our self-love is everywhere. The government is going broke trying to meet our demands that we are cared for from cradle to grave - at the expense of everyone else. Agencies that depend on volunteers to carry out their mission - churches, fire companies, Scouts, etc. - are in crisis as more and more people insist that they have no time to serve. A million or more pregnancies are terminated every year with so-called 'convenience' abortions because a two people who wanted to do what felt good will not recognize the responsibility for the life their actions created. A best-selling 'Christian' book in 2006 carried the revealing title - "Your Best Life Now" which includes advice about gaining positive self-image and choosing what makes you happy.
Jesus Christ's wisdom runs against this current. He is not anti-happiness, but He does insist that the deepest sense of joy is not found in doing our own thing. He says, "When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:10-14, NLT) Go back and read His words again - slowly - and note two choices He tells us to make to find real joy. Yes, they are obedience and loving service! "Give your life away to the point of dying for one another," He says.
Obedience demands deep faith. Saying "yes" to God's will, when everything in us is screaming for unfettered freedom, is hard- sometimes so hard it feels like dying. More than once, I have knelt in secret prayer and cried like a little boy before my Lord. "Jesus, I don't want to do that. You're asking too much. It just doesn't make sense." And I know He understands that prayer because He prayed one that was more eloquent, but which reflected a similar though much more significant conflict. In the Garden, when facing the awful calling of becoming sin for us, bearing our shame and guilt, He cried, "My Father, if it is possible, don’t make me suffer by having me drink from this cup. But do what you want, and not what I want." (Matthew 26:39, CEV) And the Scripture tells us that His obedience brought us salvation and "God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11, NLT)
Today and everyday you and I are presented with two roads, Believer. We can choose our own way - and find some level of happiness in the temporary satisfaction of the demands of Self. But Self has a big appetite that grows when we feed it! It will never be satisfied. We can, by faith and in love, choose the way of the Cross, dying to Self, and embracing the life of Christ. That isn't always expressed in some earthshaking manner. But it always puts God's will over our own. This way is, despite the Devil's whispers and objections, the way to lasting joy and the embrace of the Father.
Pray for faith to accept this word from the Word and take it with you through this day -
"You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:24-28, NIV)
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