Written by His
Grace,
Kevin K. O’Connor
Main Thought: To
examine the realization that we all serve something or somebody, why not the
One from which all things exist?
Me, a slave?
Don't you know that when you
offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one
whom you obey–whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to
obedience, which leads to righteousness?
(Whole Chapter: In context: )
You
have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Whole
Chapter: In context: )
So, what are we pursuing
today? Is it wealth, health, knowledge, prestige, fame, or is it nothing at
all. It seems like there are many choices to pursue in this world. As we walk
up to checkout stands in supermarkets we’ll notice magazine covers full of
people chasing most of these. It seems though that we won’t see many covers
showing those who have learned that all of these things do not equal life and have
instead given themselves over to poverty. And as unpleasing as it is to look
upon those who have given up on chasing after the ambitions of this life, it
seems that these have the greatest potential to hearing Christ speak His Life
and Love into their hearts. We need to learn that each and every one of us is a
slave to something in this life. Whether it’s our ego through the accumulation
of things or appearance, or to depravity through abandoning ourselves to our
own poverty. Even life itself compels us to eat and to stay clear of pain.
Unfortunately, many people don’t realize that they are slaves to someone or
something whether they like it or not and so miss out on the greatest joys of
life and that is abandoning ourselves to knowing and loving God’s Son, Jesus
Christ.
The freest person is one who
realizes their purpose in life and lives it to the fullest. It seems that the
door to our heart is our mind. The purpose of a door though is to take us
somewhere else. Many people have gotten hung up on the door of knowledge and
revelation and can’t seem to get past it into the joys of living from the heart
and not the head. Faith can go where reasoning can never travel. Not blind
faith, but a faith that has listened to God’s Truth and allowed that truth to reach
into their innermost being, a faith that has been birthed in the heart and
caused a change of being and not just an accumulation of knowledge. It seems
that the pride of knowledge is the one thing satan was
able to use to get Adam and Eve to sin. Genesis
3:1-6 1 Now the serpent was more crafty
than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman,
"Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the
trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You
must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you
must not touch it, or you will die.' " 4
"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5
"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you
will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 When the woman saw
that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also
desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to
her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Notice verse 5 where he
uses the temptation of knowing more and then in verse 6 where she is drawn to
give into the temptation because of its physical appearance and the increase of
knowledge.
A carnal walk with Christ is
one where we’ve never allowed our walk to grow into a love relationship with
Jesus but instead we’ve learned how to appear as one of His through our walk
and our talk and not our love. The knowledge of God’s Word was never meant to
stay in the doorway of our minds but was to make it all the way down into our
hearts where it can transform us into His image. Our pride and selfish ways has
made us think that we can obtain something by understanding it. We even carry
this thinking into our relationship with God Who is not to be put into a box of
our limited minds and understanding. But that doesn’t seem to stop us from
trying and so we’ll grow into some religious know-it-alls who know a lot of
scripture but little of Christ. The fire of passion seems to grow through being
together. Many of us though would rather hold Him at a distance while we try
and cram our heads full of the knowledge of Who He Is and thus white wash our
need to know Him with a desire to know about Him. Thus when we can say that
we’ve kept all of the commandments, we haven’t grown any closer to Him than
without the head knowledge, only now, we’re handicapped because of own pride.
No wonder Christ said we must die before we can live. I tell you the truth, unless
a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (Whole Chapter: In context: ) and another verse
is For whoever wants to save
his life[ 16:25 The Greek word means either life or soul; also in verse 26.]
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. (Whole Chapter: In context: )
We are experts at feeding our
pride through the accumulation of things. Why is it that we think that our
importance increases with our knowledge or our possessions? Our Lord’s feelings
on those who will labor for themselves are as follows;
Luke 12:16-21
16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a
certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself,
'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' 18"Then
he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger
ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll
say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.
Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ' 20"But
God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from
you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' 21"This is
how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward
God." Have you ever given a gift from the depths of your heart only
to see the one receiving it look right past you to the gift and miss you
entirely? Wow! That really hurts and how it must hurt the heart of our Heavenly
Father to be Himself and give to us freely and then see His gifts become our
heart’s desire and passion and not Him. Oh that God would teach us how to
hunger and thirst for Him and not the things of Him. So, instead of realizing
that we can be slaves of God which gives way to joy beyond description, we
settle for those things that make our pride swell but does little for our
character.
Our makeup was made to serve,
in fact, it seems that we’re happiest when we’re caring more for the welfare of
others than for our own. The greatest servant though is one who has learned to
serve through the Love of God. If we give all we have to the poor and have not
love than it profits us nothing; 1 Corinthians
13:1-3 1If I speak in the tongues[1] of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith
that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I
possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[2]
but have not love, I gain nothing. Please note in the preceding
scripture reference that it’s very possible to have all of the outward actions
without the inward relationship with Him. So, you can have a “Godly acting
life” without knowing Him but you can’t have a “God loving relationship” and
live as though you don’t know Him. A simple illustration of this is as follows;
you can have a container with no liquid inside but you can’t have a volume of
liquid with no container in which to hold it. Unfortunately, we as people born
with our own prideful and sinful nature find it easier to carry around an empty
container to show off to others and only we ourselves know that it’s
empty.
Our hearts need to realize
there’s a greater existence than what our eyes and minds can comprehend and
learn how to live life unto Him from which all life exists so that our actions
to others will have eternal significance. The joy of esteeming others more
highly than our selves will have its rewards even if we haven’t grown to the
point to see that our first passion should be to Christ and then from Him
outward. The rings of a bull’s eye
target take their reference around the bull’s eye and not vice versa. Christ
may have spoken in parables about many things but there is one thing He didn’t,
and that is the first and greatest commandment around which all others find
their reference. I’d rather be the poorest person in the world with the
knowledge of man, as long as I’m rich with the knowledge of Christ my redeemer
– knowledge that is relationship from the heart. I’d rather surrender my life
to the One Who emptied Himself out for me than for the one that has rebelled
from the One who made him (satan) and would like the whole world forced into
serving him.
We all need to decide who we
will serve, ourselves and its foul sinful nature, or the One Who emptied
Himself out for us because He loves us; Philippians
2:3-8 3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but
in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than
themselves.4 Look not every man on his own things, but every
man also on the things of others. 5 Let this mind be in you,
which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. I for one choose to surrender my life my all to the One who
emptied Himself out for me. He came the first time as the Lamb of God to empty
Himself out that we could see His Heart of Love. The next time he comes He will
return as the Lion of Judah to judge those of this world who hardened their
hearts within their sin to serve only themselves. To serve the One Who loved the greatest is the greatest joy this life can
afford.
Come Quickly King of kings
and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ our Redeemer!
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