Aversion to Instructions

Ephesians 4:32

How much do you remember, do you recall the many lessons that your mother and dad attempted to teach you, do you recall the times you took a shortcut on their instructions and it seemed to not change the outcome?  Looking back on my life, it seems to be a life centered on forgetting instructions or trying to cut corners, and as I reflect on the lessons I remembered, most came at a price because of my aversion to instructions.  I was about six when I first saw an older boy riding his bike and he was not using his hands.  Now that was the coolest thing I had ever seen, and I began to try it with no big crashes, and that led to bigger and more enterprising attempts as no hands and no feet, but my sister could do that, so was that really cool?  I remember telling mother that I was going to stand on the bike seat and remove my hands from the handlebars, and she said, “Do not do that, you will kill yourself.”  But I did it, and I almost killed myself, it was one of those “monkey blood” moments, I was bleeding from head to toe, but for seconds I was almost standing on that seat.

How often do you recall the great price it cost the Father to redeem you out of the control of sin?  As I read this verse, these thoughts came into my mind, why are we not kind to everyone we meet, could it be that we Christians have forgotten the kindness of our Father.  This verse instructs us to be tenderhearted; that means that we should be quick to show compassion and sympathy to other people.  It also teaches us to forgive one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us, but is it true that even in the church many who go by the name of Christ do not do these things?

It seems to me that we forget our hopeless, deprived, empty way of life before we came into a relationship with Christ and were adopted by the Father.  If that is true, what is the danger of that actions; being full of self, being to busy to see the needs of others, and then comes pride and arrogant, and that leads to a life that has little value to heaven or earth. 

This is not a new problem, the apostle Paul addressed this with the church in Corinth, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to same the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1Corinthians 1:26-29)  What a great big God, who is kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving, I was without hope, and He gave me life in all its fullness.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice