Marching Forth!

The concluding portion of Luke 9  illustrates well how those Jesus calls to follow Him can easily find obstacles to simple obedience.  This is ironic because Jesus is God who knows the hearts and thoughts of all people, has given us all things--including every day on earth which is a gift from His hand--and those He called to immediate obedience excused themselves from this duty because of personal, more pressing concerns.  Is there any being more personal than our God, since He created us according to His divine plans and purposes?  Is He unaware of our responsibilities, seeing every one of them was ordained by Him? People with genuine faith in God do not always immediately yield their will to His.  When God called Moses to go to Egypt and speak to Pharaoh, Moses was 80 years old and full of reasons seen in  Exodus 3-4 it was not a good plan to involve him.  His response to God's revelation in the burning bush was to uncomfortably squirm in doubt an...

In a conversation recently it was brought up how well-meaning people have the idea they must do something to earn God's favour.  At a fundamental level, mankind assumes it falls to us to save ourselves, and our actions carry the most weight of importance.  Because God has created us with the ability to do many things, we naturally rely on ourselves and our own understanding to solve problems and work out a solution.  We imagine we must start doing something, stop doing something or give something to be blessed by God.  We can be depressed by feelings when we fail, and we can be so impressed with our efforts we think God must feel proud of us too. While there are legitimate, big problems in the world, one of the biggest foes a child of God will face in their Christian life is self.  The devil himself pales in comparison to the negative impact of our constantly present, naturally selfish, proud, worldly thinking, habit forming, and insatiable body of flesh we dwel...