The other day I was looking through my car trying to find the spare tire (you never know when you are going to need one). I looked in all the normal places, but I failed to see any evidence of a spare. Then it occurred to me, we might have one of those handy-dandy space saver tires (you know the kind that fits neatly in the underbelly of your trunk and is all but invisible) and we did. The first thing that struck me was how small it was, there was an obvious difference in this tire as opposed to the ones that were on there now. Not only the size, but also the width was different. It was so thin, it looked as if it would barely last a mile let alone carry the care for any extended time. However, I wasn't investigating to see the durability of the spare just to find out were it was. A few days later and I had almost forgotten the oddity of the space saver when I began to try and think of something to write for this weeks column; it was then that the lesson of the spare tire came boldly into focus. You see, it is a sad fact of life, but often we treat God like he is a spare tire, something we need to keep around just in case something bad happens.
A spare is something extra, something not needed or not useful at a particular time. God, however, is not a spare! He is the very fiber of our essence, the very thing that holds us together. It is IN HIM - not in ourselves, or in a group of friends and family - that "we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Yet, beyond thinking that God is something we need to keep around just in case of emergency, we try to make God like the space-saver; something that is there to help but almost invisible to the outside world. We want to walk like the world, talk like the world, live like the world, but when things start happening and our worldly tires blow we want to slap God on and ride out the rough spots. This very thing is spoken of in the book of Isaiah: "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach." (Isa. 4:1). We try to be our own person, our own guide, and take the name of Jesus only to remove the reproach of our sin.
When the wages of sin are reckoned and the seeds of sorrow begin to blossom, we begin shouting "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" and for a time we suppress the guilt and the shame. However, we fail to see, or perhaps we are willingly ignorant of the fact that this promise is given to them that "are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."(Romans 8:1) We must not only be in Christ Jesus, buried with him baptism and raised with him by the power of God, but also we must walk after the Spirit. Paul continues to say: "they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit . . the carnal mind is enmity against God . . . So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." (Rom. 8:5,6,7,8). We must not be like the world, we must follow after God. It was Jesus Christ himself that asked the question: "why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46) We are instructed to "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (Rom. 12:1, see also Eph. 1:4 and 5:27) We must follow after God with everything that is in us, we must live our lives for him. After all, "if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." (II Cor. 5:14-15) |
