Sunday, December 4, 2011

DO IT MYSELF

Little Johnny was walking along the railroad tracks when suddenly he got his foot caught under one of the railroad ties. He tried to get it out, but it was really stuck. As he struggled to free his foot, he heard a noise and turned around. To his horror, he saw a train coming.

Panicked, he started to pray, “God, please get my foot out of these tracks, and I’ll stop being bad!” Nothing happened; his foot was still stuck. He looked up to see the train getting closer!

He prayed again, “God, please get my foot out, and I’ll stop swearing and I’ll stop being bad!”

Still nothing. His foot was wedged tight. The train was just seconds away! Little Johnny struggled frantically as the train’s horn blared.

He tried his plea one more time, “God, please, if You get my foot out the tracks, I’ll quit being bad, I’ll stop swearing, AND I’ll stop cheating in my tests!”

Just as the train was about to hit Johnny, his foot broke free and he fell backwards, the train narrowly missing him. He got up, dusted himself off, looked toward heaven, and said, “Thanks anyway God, I got it myself.”

Aren’t we like Johnny? We’re in a spot. We can’t fix the situation. Sheer desperation leads us into a state of panic. Our heads turn left to right in vain search for help. We are deserted. And so we pray, “Lord, help me out of this. You know I’m in a spot right now and my financial resources are depleting. Help me out of this and I promise you, I’ll be a good boy. I’ll even build a church for You. I’ll be faithful to my wife. I’ll spend time with the children. I’ll give money to charity but please, get me out of this situation.”

Then a miracle happens. You’re freed from your problem, but you say, “It’s a good thing I did this and that to pull myself out of trouble.” God is forgotten while all the credit goes to you.

Do you know that God’s major problem with people isn’t about sin? God knows every person is born with it so our sins no longer surprise Him. In fact, He’s even prepared a solution for it way before He made the earth inhabitable. God’s perfect Son died on the cross in our stead and when He became alive again, He secured a path for us to His Father. The only thing we’ve to do now is to believe that Jesus did all that, repent for our sins and let God manage our lives.

So what’s God’s problems? It’s our refusal to do just that. We could have the fatal knack to find every reason not to believe in Jesus. We’re so stubborn, we even think we could be independent of God. Some of us already know that this solution exists but can’t make the jump from knowledge to belief because they don’t want Christ interfering with their lives. Educated and intelligent people want to be masters of their fates and captains of their souls. Their theme song is, “I did it my way.”

There will be a time when he can no longer do it his way. I just hope that at that time the heart would not be too hard to accept Christ. For those who are already in Christ the entire situation is different. No matter how tight the situation is, they let God have His way. They know that no matter what happens, God gets the credit.

Trust in God. You’ll never fail. – F. Kong

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