It's The Law!

Isn't it amazing that here in America the adult population is often considered too stupid to know how to protect themselves. We have silly laws telling us what we can do and what we cannot do. For example, it's just common sense to wear your seatbelt when you're in a moving car. However, we need a law to tell us that we have to do it. Some states require that you wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle. (Although that too is common sense - I have to admit that once I rode without one and it felt great!) Why is it that we cannot be trusted to do what's right or use common sense - especially when it involves protecting ourselves?!? Why does our government feel it's necessary to protect us from ourselves? If we are seriously so stupid that we will injure and kill ourselves - shouldn't that be our perogitive? We generally know what the consequences can be! Survival of the fittest and all that stuff!

Think about it. Our eternal salvation is much more important than anything else that could happen to us in this world - yet God allows us to freely choose to love and worship Him, or to go to hell. If He trusts us, and seriously, sometimes I don't know why He does, why can't we be trusted to make much more simple decisions by ourselves?

This morning in church, as once again the offering buckets were passed among us, I found myself thinking about why we make stupid choices and then make excuses for those choices when we wind up getting hurt. In God's Word He clearly tells us to tithe. By giving Him just 10% of our income, He promises to bless us way above and beyond what we can imagine. But either out of fear or stinginess, so many of us hang onto that 10% as if God can't be trusted with it. Seriously, if you can't trust Him with your money, how can you trust Him with your life?

The mean, fleshly part of me wants to write my pastor a letter and tell him to stop telling us over and over and over again what the Bible says about giving our tithes and offerings. If someone wants to live below where they can, or without the blessings of God on their life - LET THEM! If they want to rob God, LET THEM! If they want to live a life of fear and poverty, LET THEM! If they want to ride in their cars or on their motorcycles without protection, LET THEM! We look around us and see so many people perish because of their own stupidity and lack of knowledge.

But the compassionate part of me, the part of me that is more like God -and more like He wants me to be concedes - persistance. God will never stop loving any of us. He is SO persistant. Even if we choose to die and go to hell, He will still love us. I cannot imagine the pain it brings Him to allow us free will. But He trusts us that much.