There are things that we believe……usually things that we have believed for a long time…….. things that have served us well. These are part of our code of living. We use them to make important decisions. They define who we are.
But, what if one of these central ideas that we use to run our lives doesn’t jive with the Bible……. what if it doesn’t align with God?
I once heard somebody say that we spend a lot of our prayers trying to recruit God to our side……… and not so much time making sure that we are on his side. In other words we want God to conform to us more than we want to conform to him.
How often do you pray this prayer?
“God….. take over my life and do with it as you please!”
Pretty terrifying…….at least for me.
Let’s look at two hot button issues of the day……abortion rights and gun rights. I chose these two because I want to be sure that both the left and the right are uncomfortable. I want to be sure that everybody’s ox gets gored.
The left wants the right to have an abortion, that is the right to kill your unborn child. The right wants the right to own guns…… which kill thousands of innocent people each year. For perspective, there are about 600,000 abortions each year in the United States and about 13,000 gun related homicides. Guns and abortions are very popular in America. But, how does God feel about this?
And, to get to the point of this post……… why doesn’t the left ask how God feels about killing your child……why doesn’t the right ask how God feels about assault rifles?
We don’t ask because we don’t want to know. We don’t ask because we aren’t interested in conforming ourselves to God. We don’t ask because we are afraid that we are not on God’s side. We don’t ask because we are afraid of what we will find if we look under that rock. Ignorance really is bliss.
But what about the truth? You see, the truth is still out there……even if we ignore it. God is still out there……even when we ignore him.
I am a shooter, a hunter, and a gun owner. I own and shoot assault rifles……and I really enjoy it. But, if I look hard at the heart of God and ask the questions……….will there be abortions in heaven?…….will there be assault rifles in heaven?…………I’d have to answer no.
This makes me uncomfortable and it makes me sad…… because, on at least one important issue in my world, I doubt that I am on God’s side.
That’s not the worst of it. I picked these issues as really big emotional examples. There are no doubt dozens of others that I haven’t really thought about………… and that you haven’t thought about. There are dozens of other rocks that we haven’t looked under.
Maybe we both need to spend a little more time asking……”how does God feel about that?”
Thank God for grace………. I’ll be back next week with something a little lighter.