Warning signs are everywhere, such as “Caution”, “Wrong
way”, Dead End”, “Railroad”. We get away
with ignoring some of them without immediate consequences. But if we ignore all of them, we do so at our
own peril. Many of them I don’t
like. I prefer to pick and choose. As serious as it can be to drive thru a dead
end sign, nothing compares to violating God’s holy, immutable laws. Nothing even comes close.
Like it or not,
believe it or not, you and I entered this worlds with “dictator” written on our
foreheads – no, written on our hearts.
In God’s great patience, He patiently endures our rebellion,
foolishness, and, worst of all, hatred of all that he stands for. By nature I am moody, selfish, prone to
addictions, irresponsible, lustful, and on and on. Those are the visible fruits of a life that
inwardly is something much worse. I want
to run my own life. That’s why I am a
dictator, and an evil one at that.
Nobody, not even the God who made every atom and rules an immeasurable
universe, is going to run my life. Or so I think. He says “the soul that sins shall die.” I think I can possibly tremble for a few
minutes about such a statement, but eventually, I’m going to do what I
want.
Do you think seriously about what the serpent, Satan,
told Eve when he tempted her to eat the fruit and break the one “no-no” that
God had given her and Adam? He told her
she would be like god. Now, the real
God, the only God, had told the first man and woman that they would die when
they ate the fruit. And they did –
immediately. They ran away, hid, and
made clothes for themselves out of fig leaves, hoping to hide the God who was
now their enemy. There was no sorrow for
sin, no plan to confess to God what they had done. Read it again. When God spoke to them, they tried to place
the blame somewhere else – Adam blamed Eve, and she blamed the serpent. The Holy God showed mercy and allowed them to
live physically, but they were quite dead in the way that really mattered. They were spiritually dead. Here’s where you and I come in. We died with them, before we were even
born. Don’t even try arguing the point,
because He has said it is so, and no other opinion matters. Through Adam and Eve came death into the
world for everyone who came after.
Period.
Now, here is the incredible lie that we believe. We think we are alive. We live in self-delusion. We proclaim ourselves masters of our fate, we
boast that we can follow our hearts (which are fully corrupted by our
rebelliousness nature), and we think that we are basically good, and just have
a few faults that drag us down from time to time. We lie to ourselves. Worse, we live a lie before God. Can a man say “I believe in God” and then
turn around and live for himself and give only lip service to God? It happens all the time. So, return to the warnings where we
started. I can warn you about many
things. Just to name a few signs, there
is wastefulness, slothfulness, substance abuse and the corrupt life that goes
along with it, sex outside of marriage, being quick-tempered, jealousy, and
worshipping idols – an idol being anything one puts ahead of God. Do you know what? I stole that list out of the Scriptures. Sin is not hard to find, and God hates
sin.
The list is not without meaning, and neither is a
sign. But a sign’s value is not in what
it is by itself, but what it is pointing to.
I cannot beg you hard enough to do what you must do. What you must do is run to Jesus, bow before
Him, and confess that you, like me, are sinner who needs mercy, and then rise
up prepared to follow Him to the ends of the earth. But I cannot move you, persuade you, or bribe
you to do so. It is the work of the Holy
Spirit that transforms a heart. I pray
daily for you. God bless you and reveal His
wonderful grace to you, Dear Stepdaughter.
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