Romans 6:16
Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
We all would like to think that we have control over our lives.
We embrace our individuality, claiming our opinions and viewpoints as our own, displaying our intricacies in hopes they will be praised. We have our own sense of style and humor. Even the way we walk and the manner in which we talk is uniquely our own.
It is a great fear that we would lose this individuality, that by disease or accident, we might lose our autonomy and be forced into the position of a care recipient. As we age, we start to check ourselves and those around us for signs that this faculty is slipping. Forgetfulness and occasional slip-ups in our speech come under the microscope as we anxiously watch for signs that our fears are coming to pass.
No one desires to be dressed by another, led by the hand, unable to make their own schedule and decisions.
When our intelligence or viewpoints are questioned, we fiercely defend them. When someone disagrees with us, we take it as an attack on our individuality. Seldom do we ourselves carry out the hard work of empathy, truly listening, and trying to understand others' perspectives, yet we vehemently expect them to extend this grace to us.
The problems in our relationships, homes, churches, and country all boil down to an issue of selfhood.
Though we treasure our individuality to such a high degree, we constantly expose ourselves to influences that serve to enslave us.
We mindlessly scroll through thousands of calls to action: we are invited to despise, ridicule, poke fun at, discount, put down, lift up, support, and approve. We are pulled, in every direction, by a multitude of voices that claim to possess information that requires our immediate attention.
We are presented with actors whose job it is to package raw data into a narrative, advertisements that convince us of our intrinsic flaws, and media that twists and perverts reality, forcing us to have unrealistic expectations for our own lives.
This world is under the temporary stewardship of a wicked person. He is a liar and a murderer, and he desires to destroy with extreme prejudice.
He is the Prince of the Air, that devil who, like a prowling lion, constantly roams seeking someone to devour. He did not see it fit to acknowledge God, and was given over by the same to a reprobate mind, filled with all sorts of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. He is a gossip, slanderer, God-hater, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; he invents ways of doing all sorts of evil. He is on the TV and in the phone. He walks down 5th avenue, and he sits in the newsroom. He plots and schemes, every second of every day, coming up with new and intriguing tactics to steal your attention and lead you down a path whose end is death and destruction. As any skilled manipulator knows, if they were to issue a command, the natural response would be rebellion; he convinces us that it is our own choice to follow. It is our own hand, directed by our own thoughts, that picks up the remote or unlocks the screen. This one action leads to thousands of micro-actions completely out of our control. We hand over the reins and become passengers, taken wherever the influence likes.
How long will you hesitate between two decisions?
If this is the one you want to serve—if he’s the one you trust to lead you by the hand—then follow him. Stop fighting what he stands for and surrender yourself fully. Live it up!
If there remains in you, though, any semblance of godliness, any desire for true and fulfilling life, reject him wholly. Cut off any access he retains in your life, flee from his grip, and turn to The True and Living God!
There remains in this world a light, and those who follow it will never walk in darkness.
He is Jesus, the Messiah. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity. The passionate commitment of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!
The devil comes only to steal and kill and destroy; Jesus has come that you may have life, and have it to the full.
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. His heel, which was struck, was used to crush the head of the enemy. He is the living one. He died, but look—He is alive forever and ever! And He holds the keys of death and the grave.
He will pick you up, turn you around, and place your feet on solid ground!
If anyone is thirsty, He says, "Come to me!" and He will give them living water which will spring up as a well, providing eternal life.
The drink and the food that satan offers will only leave you hungry and thirsty for more. You will eat but not be satisfied; your stomach will still be empty. You will store up but save nothing, because what you save, God will give to the sword. You will plant but not harvest; you will press olives but not use the oil, you will crush grapes but not drink the wine.
The food that Jesus offers, though, is His own body. The drink, His very blood.
Anyone who eats this food and drinks this drink will never hunger, or thirst, or die!
God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.