Good morning,
As
human beings, from birth to death bed, we treasure the idea of being in
charge of our lives. As newborns, we do our best to get our parents
attention to have them meet our needs. The older we grow, the more
skilled we become at trying to control our personal worlds. Our human
nature has been programed by sin to see ourselves as the judge of what
is good and what is bad, and any kind of challenge to that idea is seen
as a threat to our life and happiness. We naturally learn to resent the
control we have to give up to stay alive. The older we get the more we
lose control of our dream to be the one in charge. The fact that we
have been given life and kept alive by someone outside of us is foreign
to our thinking. The Bible, on the other hand, makes it very clear that
the reason we are here, and the outcome for our being here, is based on
the authority of the God of creation. The God of the Bible is the one
who gives us life so that we can choose to love and obey, or hate and
rebel against the ultimate authority figure and stay in charge of our
life for our own benefit.
The Good News of the Gospel in the
Bible is that our creator loves us deeply. The ultimate authority that
he has is in place for our good and not for our destruction. God offers
us the choice of eternal life if we will trust his plan for our
salvation from the judgment that comes to those who refuse his love and
direction. Jesus was very clear when he said “ If you love me, keep my
commandments.” (John 14: 15) Satan does his best to corrupt our
conscience, our religious forms of worship and our civil governments and
use them to keep us under the control of his rules and standards. Once
we accept that God’s rules are more important than any other set of
rules, we can begin, with the Holy Spirit’s direction, to relate to any
other man made set of rules. May the Lord give us his wisdom and loving
strength to know when God’s rules must be followed at any cost.
Matthew 28:18 Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.
Romans 13:1
Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes
from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by
God.
Roy Wisner
