Hi Terry;
I'm in complete agreement with you.
Obedience is important. But I feel compelled to tell you 2 stories and
this is the first one.
It is from Donald Miller in Blue
Like Jazz. His pastor, Rick, became a Christian when he was nineteen
and began to "choose purity over sin, and for a while he did well, but
soon he found that he wanted to party with his friends, or he wanted to
have sex with his girlfriend, and from time to time he would fail at
his moral efforts. Rick tells me that those were the most depressing
moments of his life, because he felt that he was failing the God who
had saved him.
"My pastor was anguished by an
inability to control his desires. He felt that he had been given this
new life, this key to heaven and yet couldn't obey Jesus in return. So
one evening he got on his knees and told God he was sorry. He told God
how much he wished he could be good and obedient. He then sat on the
edge of his bed and swallowed enough muscle relaxants and sleeping
pills to kill three people. He lay down in a fetal position and waited
to die."
Now Terry, believe me when I say
Donald Miller, his pastor Rick and I all agree that obedience is an
aspect of being Christian.
Anyway, Miller continues the story.
"Rick tells me that as he lay there in his bed waiting to die, he heard
God say to him, "Your life is not your own, but you have been bought
with a price," and at this point he felt a certain peace. Rick told me
he understood, cognitively as well as emotionally, that his role in his
relationship with God was to humbly receive God's unconditional love."
"My pastor, of course, is still
alive, a miracle he cannot explain. Before he could save himself, he
drifted into sleep, but he woke the next morning with ample energy, as
if he had never swallowed the pills at all."
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