June 16, 2006
(Part two)
A “two-sentence recap” of last week’s column might go like this, “People struggle with bondage to things… things like possessions, fears, wants, and ambitions. These things preempt God’s will and work in their lives and all too often so quagmire them that they never step into the open door of God’s mercy and offer of eternal life.”
But why does this happen? What can we be thinking as we make our choice for spiritual death over spiritual life?
First, we are generally not thinking at all… at least not about the spiritual implications of our choices or about the long-term (if not eternal) effect that those choices will have. So filled are our minds with the glitz and glitter of what we want or have, we simply are not engaged in the act of considering that we are making real choices. Do you realize that your resources of time and materials are given to you by God SO THAT you may bring Him glory, bless others, and find in the holy use of them opportunities to experience God?
If you choose instead to squander those resources selfishly, then the choice you have made is to reject God.
Moment-by-moment we live our lives in either one of two ways. Either we make choices with God as our center – our “target” as well as our “source” or we will make those choices with “self” as our center – again, our “target” as well as our “source”. Our over-arching “target” in our choice-making is that which we’re ultimately seeking to exalt and justify. Our “source”, on the other hand, is the well-spring from which we attempt to draw wisdom and moral fortitude to make it through the day.
Of course, if God is in fact our “center”, we then seek to exalt Him in all we say and do. If this is true of us, we are fulfilling our destinies and are accomplishing the purpose for which we were created. In contrast, if I myself am the “center” of my life, then I am seeking to justify myself, secure glories of my own, and lift myself above others, foolishly duped into thinking that I am somehow fulfilling my destiny. Furthermore, if I am my own “center” than I am making decisions that are “right in my own eyes” and disdain God’s wisdom which He communicates to us through the Bible and effects in Christians by His Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 9:16-22, the Rich, Young Man who approaches Jesus evidently has as his center his own self. On the one hand, he recognizes that somehow it isn’t working and that he finds himself unfilled and spiritually bankrupt. But on the other hand, so comfortable is he with the cushioned life he lives with his belongings, that he CHOOSES to retain his “self” as his “center.” When he is confronted with the spiritual fact that only one person at a time can be center of his life, he turns away sad and walks away from Jesus. He leaves behind the open door into salvation that only Jesus could give him.
Accordingly, only one person at a time today can be the center of our lives. We each must choose daily who we’ll have sit enthroned in our hearts. Either God will be there or we will. We can’t have it both ways. In the Christian life, Christ will not agree to being merely your “co-pilot”… He will be nothing less than your pilot. Nor can He be only your “co-regent” – He will be sovereign Lord in your life or He’ll mean nothing to you at all. Anything else is our attempt at being condescending to Almighty God. And that’s something probably none us really wants to do.
So then let us be careful to know an idol in our lives when we see it. And let us watch closely those things that have the capacity to become idols. Are there things in your life that tend to preoccupy your thoughts? Do they distract you from prayer? Do they fog your mind during the day and thwart the open doors that the Lord gives to you to participate in His reaching out to others with His love? Are there activities emanating from misplaced priorities in your life that compete with God’s will for you to be serving in a local church? Stop and reflect on this a moment. We as human beings are prone to distraction and easy prey to idolatry. But consider also what this costs us in the long run. Like the Rich, Young Man, when we tolerate idols in our lives, we are turning away from the only open door we have into real fulfillment. And like the Rich, Young Man, we are rejecting eternal life and its fruit for things that do not last and can only momentarily please us. Like him, we are losing the one thing that made everything we face and suffer in life worthwhile.
Consider also what it costs our Maker and Redeemer. When we turn away from Him, He loses a precious soul. When we walk away from Him, He loses the joy and pleasure of fellowship with us. When we reject Him, directly or subtly in our “putting Him off”, He loses a life for which He gave His own Son’s.
“I know, O LORD, that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps…. This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD Who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares the LORD” (Jeremiah 10:23, 9:24 NIV).
(Thom Mollohan and his family have ministered in southern Ohio the past eleven years. He is the pastor of Pathway Community Church, which meets on Sunday mornings at the Ariel Theatre. He may be reached for comments or questions by email at pastorthom@pathwaygallipolis.com).
