They got over speeds of 90-miles-per-hour on Dallas' busy highways. Television cameras captured the dozen patrol cars chase down the four-door sedan as the suspected drug dealer tried to make his getaway. For over an hour and a half, the chase wound through highways and streets before the suspect met his end, getting t-boned by a pickup in a busy intersection.
For a while, it was must-see TV today.
When it was all over, it occurred to me that we do the same with God. The difference between the Almighty and your local deputy is that God doesn't want to throw you behind bars. He wants to capture your heart and change your life.
Our sin-filled, human nature sends us running at 90-mph in the opposite direction. After all, who really wants to develop a close relationship with the Creator of the universe? Who really wants to discover their full potential by allowing God to transform them into what He designed?
Somewhere along the way, we've allowed Satan to convince us that God wants to "cramp our style." You know the excuses, "If I choose to follow Jesus, I won't be able to drink, smoke and chew, or date girls that do." Somehow we equate what we have without God as freedom. We don't have God telling us what to do.
Sadly, we mislead ourselves on this count. This so-called freedom is in fact slavery to Satan. The things we do in our freedom from God do nothing but destroy our minds, bodies and reputations. This apparent freedome of ours only leads to evil and destruction.
Contrast that with what God offers in Jeremiah 29:11 where God says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." I don't know about you, but my man-made freedom can't do that.
Throw in this consideration, too, that we are all slaves to something -- either God or Satan. I encourage you to read Romans 6. I like the way Paul reasons the results of being a slave to sin or to God, especially in the latter part of that chapter. Paul pulls no punches when he points out that the end result of our sin-filled "freedom" is death, while the end result of following Jesus is eternal life.
So, do you still want to make that getaway from God?
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