All that I am, all that I have - indeed that I am at all - is His.
Everything is placed in my hands for His purposes.
He kindly allows me to use some for my sustenance even my pleasure but it is not mine, it is His.
So when my mind wanders into the probability that what He has given me that what can be taken will be taken and I find myself growing inflamed with keeping it and/or defending it and I am cast down.
It is not my car or my house or my rights or my guns (ouch) - they are all His even to the smallest cell of the body He has given me. I am obligated to use it wisely and well but I don't know that I am obligated to defend it - even if I could.
It was His to give and is still His after the giving. It is never mine. If through some secondary cause, for His purposes, it comes to a place where it is taken, even taken by force of arms or law or both am I to trust Him to leave me with what He would have me steward or am I to meet force (any type of force) with force?
I wonder if I am not to simply trust Him and allow Him to preserve and protect even my life. Indeed the very history of our faith demontrates that there is a time and place where we must stand passive as we are persecuted and oppressed, even robbed by force of arms or force of law.
When they came for Him in the garden one only met force with force. Not only was he foolish but he was wrong and the Lord undid the harm he inflicted. It does, I hope, make one wonder.
We are raised to believe that we have three inalienable rights. Life, liberty and happiness (which was originally property). But I would ask where I am to find my right to any of these in His sovereignty and providence? A right? Then it is not grace or mercy but something the creator God is oblidged to provide and preserve? And what text pray tell gives proof to that?
Paul counted all things as dung compared to the excellency of Christ. But we, do we really count "all things" so?
Ah you will hack away at self-protection or self-preservation? And what convinces you that you can, much less are obligated to preserve your self? Are we not all utterly in His keeping? Is not our very life His to give, to moderate, even to take? Is He not sovereign, holy and good in all that happens in His creation?
He has blessed me with much - and I have much through my own foolishness and flesh. He has allowed it but that does not mitigate my follishness and fleshness. I have much that is there by sin. Much. I can not in good conscience hold that I have a right to keep any of it. To use it for Him is my duty but that duty does not negate His right to take it away.
Job woefully lamented the loss of all He allowed to be taken. Yet we read no claim made against God. Naked Job came and naked he would leave. Even if God took (or allowed to be taken) his very life Job committed himself trustingly to Him. Do we - really?
Many do - when there is no choice. But they simply accept what is happening instead of turning to Him promptly and praise Him for His goodness. Salvation and a cadillac too was once considered cute - but as we have come to elevate that to the level of doctrine is it devastating.
What do we mean by "mine?" I fear we mean something very wrong hearted. I fear we mean "sovereignly mine" not merely mine to serve Him with and through. I know I struggle against that heart dis-ease.
"He who dies with the most toys wins," is a sad statement for a believer to ever come close to making. But even if we never say it, I fear we shout it by our lives. James provides us with an important insight:
James 4:3-4
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. 4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ESV
He's talking to us. He's talking "passions." Not sex, not drugs although those certinly apply. Rather he is talking about us wanting what we want when we want it how we want it FOR OURSELVES. And not what He wants, when He want, how He wants for His glory.
He is talking about me, my, mine, ours. Our passions NOT His passions. Can you see dear ones the dangerous difference? See the confusion - the confounding?
We ask for money to get what we want. We ask for time to use as we want. We ask for health so we can continue to do what we want. Is this asking rightly or amiss?
Pau in Romans 7 writes out his turmoil - the flesh against the Spirit. Which one do we listen to the most. I see few of us (note I said us - that includes me) bewailing and mourning the opportunities we give the our flesh.
Not I but Christ.
Not mine but His.
What's the differentce?
Zip!
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