Have It His Way

This is Brother Mark. I've titled today's message "Have It His Way."

As the one and only Creator, God owns the creation...which is to say He owns everything, absolutely EVERYTHING...He fully owns this world and all that is in it. He fully owns every being, both in this physical realm and in what is to us the unseen spiritual realm. 

He made it all, He owns it all, He alone gets to decide what to do with it and what He wants to get out of it. He has His reasons for making it all. Whether anyone likes it or not, that's just the way it is. So get used to it. 

If you don't like His reasons or His expectations, that's too bad. Get over yourself. People can rant and rave all they want, and they often do. He gives people that freedom...but it doesn't change anything. He is still Creator, Owner, Ruler, Judge, and Jury. He alone gets to pass Sentence. He gets to have His own way. He gets to fulfill His own plans and purposes for making us. He doesn't answer to you or to me. We answer to Him. We are here for His purposes, not the other way around.

Most people have a very human-centric view of God. They say "His role in this world is to make sure I have a pleasant life. Why, if He doesn't give me a pleasant life, I just may find a different god or choose to believe there is NO God."

Now, He gives you the freedom for now to make that choice and go down that path, but He also will make sure that you will face the consequences of it.

The fact is that He made us to satisfy His own heart and to give Himself more to love. He wants to take you, holy and pure, into eternity with Him, but He won't force you to choose Him. He won't force you to be transformed by Him.

People say all kinds of bad things about God. He's cruel, He's unfair, He's mean and hateful. But frankly, it doesn't matter what anyone says or thinks. God is still on His throne as Creator and absolute Owner.

Scripture tells us that "There is none righteous, no not even one, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", Romans 3:10 and 23. That whole section of Romans 3 is a powerful statement about mankind's falleness.

He knows we can't fix ourselves or put ourselves into right relationship with Him through our own efforts. Sin and falling short of His glory runs much deeper than your actions or thoughts. Sin and falling short is an integral part of humanity's contaminated essence. You cannot escape it or work your way out of that contamination. 

On your own, you cannot fix it. That's why you cannot establish a right relationship with God through your own efforts. Right standing with God is not the result of what you do or don't do.

Ah, but Jesus! Father God alone gives us the one and only way to achieve a right relationship with Himself. He did it by giving His Son Jesus to bear your judgement, your condemnation, and your punishment. You must give up any idea of doing enough to fix your broken relationship with God. 

You must ask for His forgiveness and simply accept that Jesus paid your price in full. You must then yield to Him and the transforming work He will do in you from the inside out.

Luke 14 records this part of Jesus' teaching:

Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:  “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 

And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

This may sound odd, but it is so very true. To be on the path to eternity with God is a free gift through Jesus. You can't earn it, you can't buy it, so admit your failures and give up trying to earn His favor.

What Jesus did for you is a free gift, it costs you nothing. But being on that path as a Jesus follower will also cost you everything because He will leave nothing unchanged. It sounds like a paradox, but it's not. 

Trust Him. It's so worth it. It costs you nothing while costing you everything. God is into full change, not just partial. He will exchange everything that is wrong in you for everything that is infinitely better. 

Now, that's a good deal. Whether anyone likes it or not, that's just the way it is.