Your relationship with God is your choice
June 30 - July 6, 2024 | Always Peachy Devotionals | Ownership Week 1
Confession time: I love fireworks.
Not just watching them from a distance. I love setting them off. I have many fond memories of (now-illegal) bottle rockets and vibrant smoke bombs and all manner of wonderful whistling, whizzing pyrotechnics. Then I lived with people who had pets, and I got a different perspective on fireworks. Then I met veterans who had seen actual combat and got another completely different perspective.
But that’s the way life is supposed to work. The older you get, the more aware you grow of your responsibilities to others. So where is the disconnect in our culture today? Because it seems to me that several generations have lost the gift of ownership—personal responsibility.
That’s not to say we can’t enjoy fireworks, but what’s wrong with enjoying fireworks in a responsible and respectful way? Can’t we enjoy something we love and demonstrate love and compassion to others who haven’t had our same experience?
Independence Day will be here before you know it. This week even. So I guess my mind is on fireworks, but it’s also on freedom. Freedom is one of the greatest gifts God bestowed on humanity, and make no mistake, freedom comes from God. He created us with free will. He designed us to make our own choices. But free will and independence is a double-edged sword, because without a sense of personal responsibility we will choose to enslave ourselves to lesser masters every time.
We’re human. It’s our nature.
So in this month that celebrates our freedom, I felt led to study ownership. I want to discuss what God says about personal responsibility and how we can learn to live with it in our everyday lives. At the end of the day, the story of God’s Word is about a choice, and it’s a choice no one else can make for you. When time runs out and the end is here, we can’t point fingers at anyone else in our lives and claim they forced us to do something. Each and every one of us will give an individual account for the motivations of our hearts.
So let’s get real, guys. Let’s stop shifting the blame. Let’s stop looking for excuses, no matter how valid they may be. God has given us freedom. It’s time to use it for Him. And that’s what we’re talking about all month long, starting with the most important concept: Personal responsibility in our relationships with God.
Monday – Our sins (Ezekiel 18:20)
Tuesday – Our salvation (Romans 5:18)
Wednesday – Our sanctification (Philippians 2:13)
Thursday – Our Scriptural knowledge (Deuteronomy 29:29)
Friday – Our choices (Joshua 24:15)
What a joy and a privilege to be able to speak about our relationships with God out loud! There are still so many countries where that’s illegal, but even if it weren’t legal here, I’d still do it. This life, our physical existence, is nothing in comparison to the eternity that is to come. Part of my responsibility as a Christ-follower is to share what God has done for me so that everyone will know who He is, to magnify His name, to glorify Him in everything I do.
But even if I didn’t say a word, humanity will still have a responsibility to acknowledge who God is. All of Creation screams His name. The heavens and the earth point to Him as Creator, Designer, Lord of All, and anyone who believes differently is choosing to be willfully ignorant. That’s what we learn in this week’s memory verse, Romans 1:20.
We are without excuse. There’s nothing we can say or do that will offer a reasonable explanation why we refuse to believe in God outside of our own rebellious spirits. But God knows that. He knows us. And that’s why He’s made it so plain, so obvious who He is and how we can be saved.
Isn’t God good? It would be enough if salvation were all He offered, but a life with Him is so much better than the best the world can give us.
Blessings to you all. Keep up the good fight.
Amy
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