“Dear sir, I am.”
The story is told that The Times of London at one point early in the 1900s posed this question to several prominent authors: “What’s wrong with the world today?” The well-known author G.K. Chesterton is said to have responded with a one-sentence essay: Dear Sir, I am. Before we dive into the problems of our marriage, our children, our church, our community or our work, are we willing to come to grips with the worst problem in all of those things?
Our approach in all of those things listed above can be examined similarly, but we must never pull ourselves out of God’s recipe. We are both the problem, and by His grace entrusted with the solution.
The chart below (Cool, Calm & Collected) gives a visual of the difference between what I’ll describe as a true religion and a false religion. Both prominently state “God’s got me.” But as the texts teach us, there can be dramatically different results. In summary, if we aren’t depending on the Lord in all we do, we may be more agnostic than we think. We may say that God is sovereign and trust Him to work out all the details, but are we in communion with him through the process? That’s the deeply personal question we must ask ourselves. James 2:19 says it this way, “You believe there is a God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.”
Matthew 7:21-23 says “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
See, it’s not about what we do for the Lord. These people were doing far greater wonders than I’ve ever done, and what does Jesus say? “I never knew you.” He goes even further and says they practice “lawlessness.” Sheesh! So what is lawfulness? See Matthew 22:36-40.
In the opposite direction, John 10:3-9 says “…The sheep listen to [The Shepherd’s] voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. …Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture.”
Jesus is in absolute and sovereign control in the believers life, but the evidence of our trust in that is demonstrated by our obedience to follow His plan rather than our own. There lies a huge difference between a true religion and a false religion. Not only is he the voice we listen to and follow, but he is also the gate in which we come and go. Meaning, we find our salvation (prize) and our value (purpose) in Jesus alone. Am I living that way? Does my prayer life communicate that?
We can say “God’s got me.” We can all be cool, calm & collected. But we can also have dramatically different beliefs.