On multiple occasions I’ve
watched a slight built woman walking her muscular dog in the park. Actually,
she’s not walking him, he’s walking her. She leans back against his pull and even with a sturdy harness and heavy duty leash he drags her along going where
he wants to go. One day they were close to the bike path and when he approached
I asked if he was friendly. She said, “Oh yes, he’s my service dog!” It occurs to
me this dog illustrates the actions of many believers today. We call ourselves
servants and refer to Jesus as our Master…and yet we strain to drag and pull the
Lord to every tree, bush and friendly face we see. The psalmist wrote, “Since
you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me” (Psalm
3:18 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----That is a very lucid analogy. Overcoming the chaotic hubbub of evil in life, righteousness must bring everything into peaceful unity. But that peaceful unity must begin within the heart and mind first.
-----I’ve heard say often that you can tell when you are in the Lord’s will by the peace in your heart that you will have regarding your decision. But the Lord’s Word has a different take on that matter, “…remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to go after wantonly.” (Num 15:39b) What makes someone’s heart peaceful is not necessarily it’s similarity with the Word of the Lord. What makes a heart peaceful is the circumstances of its surroundings attesting to the beliefs of its core. So, whatever circumstances have made the heart’s core of belief will certainly attest to those beliefs. This is why Islam, the religion of faith, so eagerly brings a sword for the world’s neck. Since attestation must enter a mind through the heart’s own ability to perceive, deception lies close at hand through the “piece in your heart” theory, because the heart itself grinds the very lenses through which the mind perceives.
-----Jesus knew the Word of the Lord well, and His desire was, more than anyone else’s, to follow that Word. Yet what the Word of the Lord was leading Him into that night in the Garden of Gethsemane brought blood into His sweat. Peace does not turn your sweat to blood. It obviously was not a peace in His heart which assured Him that going quietly onto the cross was God’s will. It was the knowledge of God’s will He had through constructing His heart of God’s Word which assured Him. “ I have laid up Thy Word in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.” (Ps 119:11) The heart which recognizes God’s will is not the heart which measures by peacefulness, it is the heart which measures itself by God’s Word.
-----Those white tassel’s with a lone blue thread to which Ray Vander Laan has referred a few times in your recent Sunday school lessons now become a little relevant. “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Speak to the people of Israel, and bid them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put upon the tassel of each corner a cord of blue; and it shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to go after wantonly.’” (Num 15:37-39) The tassel is a reminder that the Word of God is the balance for measuring between right and wrong, not your own feelings or observations. And like just wearing that tassel does nothing for a person’s ability to distinguish what is the will of the Lord, neither does just feeling peace in the heart. If one desires to know the will of the Lord, then one must work hard to know His Word. And the more one is determined to know God’s will in his life, the harder he must work to know God’s Word. For it is the acknowledgement of God’s Word which makes the heart peaceful. And better knowledge of His Word will more clearly illuminate His will for any given situation.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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