05.22.08

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. - John 10:27-28 NKJV.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” - John 8:12 NKJV.

Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” - Luke 9:23-24 NKJV.

With the huge popularity of satellite navigational systems have come a few problems. The problems result from some of the imperfections in the systems including some minor details. Apparently, one of those minor details is knowing the difference between a highway and a river! Most of us would consider that to be an important thing to know. I think at least one taxi driver in England would certainly agree with that. The taxi driver was closely following the directions of the Sat Nav system, and when directed to turn into the River Nar, followed those instructions. Thankfully, it is a small river, and they were able to easily rescue the driver and a local farmer using a tractor pulled the vehicle out of the river the next day.

Early in my adult life I had a lot of problems. I was very selfish, lazy, easily became angered, kept making the wrong decisions which created tensions in my marriage and there were other problems…. The biggest problem that I had was that I was spiritually lost. My spiritual navigational system was still uninstalled and inoperable. Because of that, I kept running into rivers full of problems, and at times it looked as though my life would never find the right way.

Everything in my life began to change from the moment that I prayed to receive Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. All my problems did not immediately disappear; however, course corrections were being made. It took a year and a half and great trauma in my marriage before I began to pray regularly, faithfully every day. It took almost eight years before we were in church on a regular basis. It took ten years before I was reading and studying the Bible as I should. Along the way my problems (selfishness, laziness, anger, lying, making unwise decisions, and other problems) began to disappear from my life. Along the way I found that my problems were being replaced with joy, peace, love, and meaning in life.

If your life is out of whack, out of synch, and you have all kinds of problems like I have mentioned there is only One who can lead you out of the mess. Only by following Jesus can you find the right way for your life. Some of you have known Jesus for many years, but your life is still a mess. If that is your situation, and you are sitting in the middle of a river of problems you need to brush the dust off of your Bible and recheck the instructions. God has the directions that you need for your life. So, what do you need to do? Here’s what Jesus says, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”