Nothing beats being plugged in. It makes for power and forward progress.
In a seminary missions class, Herbert Jackson told how, as a new missionary, he was assigned a car that would not start without a push. After pondering his problem, he devised a plan. He went to the school near his home, got permission to take some children out of class, and had them push his car off. As he made his rounds, he would either park on a hill or leave the engine running. He used this ingenious procedure for two years.
Ill health forced the Jackson family to leave, and a new missionary came to that station. When Jackson proudly began to explain his arrangement for getting the car started, the new man began looking under the hood. Before the explanation was complete, the new missionary interrupted, "Why, Dr. Jackson, I believe the only trouble is this loose cable." He gave the cable a twist, stepped into the car, pushed the switch, and to Jackson's astonishment, the engine roared to life. For two years needless trouble had become routine. The power was there all the time. Only a loose connection kept Jackson from putting that power to work.
J.B. Phillips paraphrases Ephesians l:19-20, "How tremendous is the power available to us who believe in God." When we make firm our connection with God, his life and power flow through us.
Ernest B. Beevers.
There is loose cable that is oft times neglected in our lives too - its our failure to enjoy Christ. We have so much to enjoy in our beautiful world, people, fun times, and activities; but oh to include him, to yearn after him, to treasure his worth - it's a loose cable we can daily neglect.
His is a call to himself. He was perfect - peerless in life; we - shapen in sin. Were he not to come, die, and renew our lives, we would know misery unending. This keystone passage is succinct in its recipe to help us blunt the old life with its pull and passions and find Christ's one - way charter to new, restored life and character.
Luke 14:25-33 NIV
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’ “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Knowing how carefully he was being watched by the followers of Moses, the Pharisees; Christ, on spending time with these false friends, intent on muzzling him, turned to the crowd and spoke these words. His was the ragamuffin message of a culture warrior in the minds of both Pharisee and careless listeners, alike.
His message simply was to pursue and enjoy him, to inculcate his values, to imitate him and model as others reproduce his life.
Our love for him must be an all encompassing one- a love that loves mother, father, brother, sister; but when love for mother, father, brother, or sister encroaches on our ability to make the moral decisions he desires, ours is to live to be approved by Him. His worth must be our priority and provide us the ability to aspire to the high, moral plains he desires us to call home (Colorado is on my mind). When the cross beam was lifted in ancient times, the one lifting it was on a one-way road to death. So as we commit to intimately know him, there's is a death that will take place in us-a death that will take us away from what others may venture to call life. We're to wrap ourselves into his life, to have him formed in us, to prize his devotion to his Father's will-his eyes only for our eternal welfare, his blood given to the last drop.
Enjoying him is an earmark of those committed to reflecting his unalloyed character. There is no following him apart from being dumbstruck and pulled in by his giving life. As living with him draws us in and makes us prize him above all; our love for him will lead to our loving less anything, one, or choice which pulls at our first call, which is to him. Yes, to live is Christ and to die to those passions, which subvert our enjoyment of him is gain.
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