Unrepented Series

We can criticize these people until we realize that we are them. We ask God for signs all the time. We ask Him to prove Himself to us. God if you take away my pain I will do this. God if you will get me this job, this raise, this winning lottery ticket than I will devote my life to you. God if you make me feel better, if you comfort me than I will praise you. God if you let this girl or that boy like me than I will go to church every week. When we try to use our faith to barter with God we are asking Him for a sign. What we are doing is making happiness our idol and putting it on the throne of our heart. We turn to God not because He is God but because we think He can magically grant us a perfect and happy life. We are using Him. We are asking Jesus to run for the office of our Lord. Make me some campaign promises, have the best deal and I will vote for you. Jesus doesn’t need your votes because His kingdom is not a democracy.

So often we are trying to set the bar of what Jesus needs to do for us to believe Him or to follow Him. Jesus calls that evil. It is evil to try to get Jesus to do things for us by withholding our faith or our lives from Him. There is only one appropriate way to respond to God. When you hear the Word of God you repent. You turn away from your life, from your self, from your plans, and you turn to God.

Lk 11:33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Lk 11:34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. Lk 11:35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Lk 11:36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”

Your eyes are the lamp of the body. Obviously they don’t produce light your eyes are the vehicle in which light enters your body. When you have light you put it up on a stand so everyone can see it. You lift light up so you can see. Jesus is light but when He stands right in front of His people they try to put Him out. Their eyes are bad. They are looking at light and missing it because they are wearing blinders.

When I was a student at Ozark we were class one day and the power in building went out. Well I had to go to the bathroom. Now the bathrooms on the floor I was on didn’t have any windows. The hallway and the classrooms did so you still see just fine but the bathroom was pitch black. Well I managed to get in and find my way because when the door opened I could see enough of the room to maneuver as it closed. The part I didn’t consider was getting back out. The last thing I wanted to do was fumble around in the dark and start crashing into urinals. So I had a brilliant idea. I went to back wall which I knew was furthest from the toilets and a straight shot to the door to get out. It was pitch black in the room so I closed my eyes and running my hands along the wall ran towards the door. Now what I didn’t remember was that long the wall their was a mounted coat rack at exactly my eye level. If I had just kept my eyes open I might have seen it with the light shinning under the door. Instead I caught a metal bar in the eye and full speed. When I hit it, it leveled me. I went back to class looking like I had been punched in the face. Having been in the darkness it made sense to close my eyes as some means of protection but it didn’t really work out.