Friday, February 6, 2009
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My wife and I are some of those psychos that I call marathon drivers. Now I know long-haul truckers have to do it for a living. But sometimes we choose to do it, just because we want to get somewhere quickly. Of course, like most men, I like to be the one driving, sometimes for longer than I should. My wife tells me that our lives start to be in danger from the time I start rubbing my right leg while I'm driving. Apparently, that's the first tip-off of fatigue. She will gently offer to drive and I will, of course, refuse. She offers several other times to drive, when I start doing a Jane Fonda workout at the wheel, when I turn on some obnoxious radio station at full volume, when I open the window to let in the 20-below wind chill. Finally, just before we're just about to become a National Safety Council statistic, I grudgingly pull over to the side of the road. We change seats, and I'm out before she can start up the car again.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Insisting on Driving."
I have a feeling I am not the only one who hates to give up the wheel, even if it's dangerous to keep driving. A lot of us want that control, not just of our vehicle, but of our lives. And no one's going to get our hands off the wheel of our life - including God.
Now maybe you're a very independent person. You've driven your life all these years, and you're not about to relinquish the wheel now. But all these years, the One who created you has been saying, "Isn't it about time you let Me drive?" And while you may have tried to keep God happy by being religious, you have stubbornly tightened your fingers around the wheel.
The truth is we were never created to drive our own life! The Bible makes that very clear when it says in Colossians 1:16 that "all things were created by Him and for Him." Now it's talking about Jesus Christ. You were created by Jesus. You were created for Jesus. And you've had a hole in your heart all these years because you didn't have Jesus. The One who gave you your life is supposed to be running your life. But it may be that you've insisted on being your own god, because whoever's driving your life is who your god really is.
Which leads us to an important warning from God in our word for today from the Word of God. Proverbs 29:1 says, "A man (and it could just as easily be a woman) who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes (or warnings) will suddenly be destroyed without remedy." Now chances are that you've had many warnings in your life that you shouldn't be driving and that you should move over; you should turn the wheel over to the God who made you.
It may be that someone who really loves you has been encouraging you to come to Christ, but you've been too proud to let that happen. Well, that's expensive pride; maybe fatal pride...eternally fatal pride.
At the moment God decides our life is over, your eternity is totally in His hands. And He will care about only one thing: did you give your life to His Son Jesus, who gave His life to die for your sins on the cross. So many of us who have finally turned the wheel over to Him put it off as long as we could only to say now, "Why did I wait so long?" There's such peace and security when He's driving.
Now Jesus is saying it again today, "Let Me drive." If you keep driving, you will ultimately crash. Please, while there's time, let go of the wheel of your life and turn it over to the One who was meant to drive all along. If you'd like to begin this personal relationship with Jesus, what you need to do is tell Him that right now, "Jesus, I've been running my life. I've put You off. I've postponed You. I've ignored You. I've tried to compensate by being religious and good, but none of that will pay for my sin. It took You dying on the cross, and now, Jesus, I'm grabbing You like a drowning person would grab a lifeguard. You are my only hope. I am Yours beginning today."
There's some great information that will help you be sure that you belong to Him at our website. And I would encourage you to go there as soon as you can today at YoursForLife.net. Would you check it out?
Don't let your stubbornness, your pride, cost you Jesus, because that will cost you heaven. You've driven long enough. Why don't you let Him drive the rest of the way?