Rod & Rose

A sea captain was charged with treason and was chained to the mast, where he would remain for the rest of the voyage. He was replaced by a new captain who took over the helm. As the ship sailed on, the chained captain continued to bark out orders to the men, just as he had always done. Some of the crew members were inclined to follow his orders because that’s what they had always done. When the chained captain shouted, they instinctively sprang into action, obeying the commands of a condemned man.

The other men knew they were no longer under the old captain’s authority. Their allegiance belonged to the new captain, so they responded only to his commands. These sailors knew the chained captain was sentenced to die when the ship reached port; his power was broken. For the rest of the crossing, the condemned captain could do nothing more than spew empty threats.

Satan is chained and he is scheduled for execution, and our new Captain is at the helm of our ship. Our allegiance is to our Captain who broke the chains that bound us because he has set us free to live life the way we were designed to live it. When God determines it’s over, the chained captain will be silenced, and we will enter into the eternal life for which we are being prepared. In the meantime, there is no need to listen to the terminally condemned captain, let alone do what he says.

If you have not committed your life to God, you are being brainwashed by the diabolical god of this world. I realize that sounds harsh and possibly judgmental, but I can’t think of a reason to soften the reality of something so eternally important. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). If this is true for you, you are going through the motions of life, but you are being held captive by the condemned captain, marching to his orders.

Unfortunately, those of us Jesus ransomed often behave as if we are still under Satan’s spell. Satan’s best shot with a true Christ follower is to create the illusion of power and control in his or her life. He even masquerades as a lion. “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8 NLT). But Jesus is the true Lion—the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5). Satan can only pretend to be a lion. Does Satan’s roar bring to mind the bellows of the chained sea captain?

~excerpt from Holy Libido

Our second nature came equipped with hot buttons. We all have them. When these buttons are pressed, an eruption of indignation lets loose. It’s an explosion of renegade neurons firing wildly in our heads. All of our buttons are linked to our self-serving or self-protective tendencies in one way or another. They remind us of the ways we’re conformed to the world.

One of these standard equipment buttons is the button of our rights. We have the right to be happy. We have the right to be loved and respected. We have the right to a short line at the grocery store. We have the right to an unobstructed traffic lane. We have the right to spout our indignant opinion. And we have the right to be wrong, without having to admit we’re wrong. We even have the right to protect our rights. When this hair-trigger button is pressed and our rights are “violated,” we can go from zero to livid—from sane to insane—in a neurological flash.

As Christ followers, our rights become secondary to what is right from God’s perspective. In fact, we need seriously to question whether or not we still have any rights at all. Based on God’s Word, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). So, in essence, I’m a dead man. What rights does a dead man have?

When I look at situations from God’s vantage point, I learn that my most godly right is the right to waive my rights. Or possibly that should read the right to waive my phantom rights. The default mode of my second nature is to stake my claim, defend my ground, and set the world straight, but when I am in the flow of God’s way, these things no longer make sense.

Satan wants to bind us up in our phantom rights—the rights we no longer have. He smirks at the things we cling to, like our grudge-encased right to judge, for instance. Or even our right to be hurt, or offended. We are tempted to react according to the gospel of our own selfish ambitions. After all, it’s our second nature.

Every day, all day long, we are confronted with decision points…will I do what I feel like doing, or will I submit my way to the guidance of God’s Spirit at work within me? These opportunities are forks in our path, and we will choose to go one way or the other.

Christ followers accept the Father’s teaching with the same unquestioning trust a child displays when he believes what he’s told by his dad. My son Derick illustrated this principle to me in a way that has always stuck in my mind. I was attending Purdue University at the time, and I lived with my family in a mobile home park near the campus in West Lafayette. Whenever I got an opportunity, I enjoyed hanging out with my young sons, Derick and Aaron.

During one these special times we were wobbling a Frisbee back and forth between us when somehow it landed on the top of the trailer. So I did what any safety-conscious dad would do. Rather than boosting Aaron up, who was lighter, I decided on Derick, because he was older—about five years old. Aaron was two, and my better judgment told me he was a tad too young to be on the roof alone.

As I boosted Derick up onto the roof to retrieve the Frisbee, I reminded him to be careful. That’s what good dads do. I didn’t want him to learn from experience what it felt like to fall from that height. Derick tossed the Frisbee to me, and then asked how he should get down. I told him to jump. As soon as the words—or rather word—left my lips, he was in the air, headed in my direction.

I didn’t think about it at the time, but afterward I wondered how much more free-flowing my life would be if I was as trusting of my heavenly Daddy as Derick was of me at that moment. At the time I was just focused on catching him. He was in the air, and the only thing between him and the concrete pad was me.

There’s no need for a Christ follower with the mind of a trusting child to understand why it’s safe to trust. We just do. And we don’t need evidence to prove what God has told us. Our faith is never bolstered by studies and discoveries that prove by science that the impossible may be explained by scientific knowledge.

(Excerpt from Holy Libido)