Living By Design and Not By Default - Part One

Sometimes it's comforting to know that even the Apostle Paul said that he finds himself doing the very things he knows he shouldn't, and the things he knows he should be doing, he often neglects. If the very person who admonished us to, "put on the new man", found himself occasionally defaulting to his B.C. (before Christ) thoughts and patterns, there may still be hope for us all!

How many times do we find ourselves engaged in the same behaviors, thoughts and patterns that reflect our old man, our old nature or our old way of doing things? For whatever reason, despite our best efforts, it would appear that we have been programmed with this default setting that seems to bypass what we know in our heart is right. We wind up engaging in activities we know are wrong, yet we do them anyways. 

I know many Christians who have struggled with certain areas of their lives for so long that they eventually end up adopting a passive attitude towards God altogether, simply resolving themselves to the idea that true freedom will never be experienced on this side of eternity. More often than not, they've thrown the baby out with the bath water before they ever really understood the Father-heart of God. 

I do believe that God gave gifts unto men (apostles, prophets, pastors, evangelists, teachers, etc.) but unfortunately this issue is uniquely symptomatic of people who depend on a person to facilitate their personal encounters and relationship with God. Those "in the world" often assume that all church-going people are merely mindless zombies, who blindly follow anyone standing behind a pulpit, wearing a nice suit. Sometimes the very reason people don't go to church at all (Or believe in God for that matter) is because at some point in time, they visited a church where the packaging just didn't appeal to them. 

We've become a culture that claims that we're in search of truth, only we're careful to include the caveat that whatever truth we find needs to cater to our personal tastes and preferences. The "Inconvenient Truth" (pun intended) is that not all truth will actually be convenient, or cater to our personal preferences. 

When I was growing up, I thought it was very inconvenient that I had to ask my parents for permission every time I wanted to go spend the night at a friend's house. However, the more inconvenient thing would've been to not ask them, do it anyways and get a woopin when I got home! (Prepare for paradigm shift in your thinking. Starting in 3...2...1...) Did you know that consequences for your actions whether spiritually, physically or mentally don't magically disappear just because you're all grown up and you've moved out of your parents house? 

People have been making it up as they go along for years, but the end remains the same. Destruction. Ruin. Defeat. Any good parent provides rules and boundaries for their kids, not because they have a god complex, but because they care for their children and want what's best for them. The world we're currently living in is merely a byproduct of raising a generation with no concept of self-control. 

Could it be that God is the same? Could it be that God has guidelines and perimeters set up for His children because He knows what we need more than we do? What if we don't like His rules any more than we liked not being able to spend the night at a friends house whenever we wanted to? Whether we realize it or not, what we think, say and do are constantly revealing what we believe to be true about God. Our checkbook, the words of our mouth, the condition of our body and how we treat our spouses or those in authority are a genuine reflection of what our beliefs really mean to us.

Part Two Coming Soon!