A Bad Hair Day

John 17:9-17

God never promised to keep His kids from a bad hair day!  But somehow we who are His have brought the worlds system into our theology; we believe wrongly that God has promised us a free pass from problems common to man.  One example that stays in my memory is a friend from high school died of cancer, and a person who is a Christian told me, something is just not right about this and the implication was that God made a mistake. 

You do not want a God who would let even a sparrow or a hair of your head fall and not be aware of it.  How did we allow such foolishness to become part of our belief system?  Could it be that the enemy of our soul, the one who Jesus said this about, has taken us captive; “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10 ESV)  And if your flesh is like mine you want everything, in fact, only a person out of their mind would not want God’s blessing on their life.  And I believe with all my heart that we must look to Jesus to provide the life He has promised us.  Does that include, no pain, no failures, no sickness, and does this life of abundance mean all that our hearts desire, and is it being the winner of the mega lottery of stuff? 

If that is your theology, it is not what God has stated in His written word, but the sad news is, that belief permeates many in the church.  We need a filter so that we look to the Father’s face, or as Jesus told us in John 15:7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” 

The question is how did we go from abiding to such a wrong belief system?  I believe we stopped reading and asking the Spirit of truth to give us understanding of that truth.  We depend on a teacher or preacher to feed us, and we do not ask the Holy Spirit to teach us, and to guide us into all truth.  So our first mistake was to allow a man to become the voice of truth, and in doing so we stopped trusting in the true vine for our resources.  Next, we allow someone else to teach our children in Sunday school, and because we were not abiding in the vine our children saw less and less of Christ living His life in our daily walk.  We also let the government’s school system teach our children and did not get involved in what they were learning.  We never stopped to ask, would my child be taught the ways of God in a system that will not allow His name to be used?

I hope you read this Scripture in John 17:11-17, “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

The one that was lost was not referring to just a physical death, but a spiritual death, and the abundance that Jesus is referring to is peace and joy in the middle of your worst “hair day.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice