Are You One Of God’s Dependents?

Illus: I heard about a letter that was sent to a taxpayer from the IRS: "I'm afraid we can't allow you to deduct last year's tax as a bad investment."

Illus: Much has been said about paying taxes:

• April is always a difficult month for Americans. Even if your ship comes in, the IRS is right there to help you unload it.

• Someone said, “If you think nobody knows you're alive... try filing your income tax late!”

• Someone else said the IRS is a place that says, "Watch your step" going in, and "Watch your language" going out.

One man said, “The IRS is a pain in the neck, and some people have an even lower opinion of them.”

• A man walked into the tax collector's office and sat down and smiled at everyone. "May I help you?" said the clerk in charge. "No," said the man. "I just wanted to meet the people I have been working for all these years."

• Another man said that April 15th should be called TAXGIVING DAY.

• One taxpayer received a strongly worded "second notice" that his taxes were overdue. Hastening to the collector's office, he paid his bill, saying apologetically that he had overlooked the first notice. "Oh," confided the collector with a smile, “We don't send out first notices. We have found that the second notices are more effective."

• Birth-control pills are deductible, but only if they don't work.

Every year when we fill out our tax returns we have to report how many dependents we have to the IRS. This can be confusing when we have so many single parents and both of them are claiming the children as their dependents.

Illus: Speaking of confusion, it reminds me of a black man, who said:

• When I was born...I was BLACK

• When I grew up...I was BLACK

• When I am sick...I am BLACK

• When I go out in the sun...I am BLACK

• When I go out in the cold...I am BLACK

• When I die...I am BLACK

BUT YOU WHITE FOLK …

• When you are born...You are PINK

• When you grow up...You are WHITE

• When you are sick...You are GREEN

• When you go out in the sun...You are RED

• When you go out in the cold...You are BLUE

• When you die...You turn PURPLE

…and you have the nerve to call me "COLORED"!

It takes a lot of nerve to fill out tax returns because we never know what we might be getting ourselves into with the IRS.

But one of the things we have to report are the people who are in our household that can not provide for themselves and are DEPENDING on us to provide for them.

This brings to mind that we are the children of God, and we are totally dependent upon God the Father.

Have you noticed how our PHYSICAL LIFE is similar to our SPIRITUAL LIFE? For example:

• When we are first born, we recognize how totally dependent we are upon our parents. We are dependent upon them for everything.

• When we start to grow and we become a teenager, all of a sudden we KNOW EVERYTHING and we do not feel the need to depend on anyone for anything!

• When we start to mature and we can start to do for ourselves, we begin to recognize that we have to depend on God the Father for that which we can not do.

But the sad thing about this progression of growth is that most folks grow into their SPIRITUAL teens and no one can tell them anything. THEY KNOW IT ALL!

Illus: (Humor) Have you noticed that the national day of prayer is in the same month that teens graduate from high school? There is a reason for that!

As a child of God, do you recognize that you are one of God’s dependents? We need to learn to DEPEND on Him. Now that is not to say God does not want us to do what we can do for ourselves. No parent would want their child to be this way, and God the Father certainly does not want us to be this way.

Illus: There once was a man who very adamantly believed in living by faith. He believed that, so long as he prayed in Jesus’ name, believing in faith, God would provide his need, he would receive whatever he asked for. One day he stood up in church and declared that from that day forward, he was trusting God to supply all his needs. He quit his job as a high-ranking official in a fairly large company and moved into a dingy little house on the rougher side of town.

• The first night he prayed very fervently for God to send him some food, because he was beginning to get hungry.