New Wineskins
Is God giving you exactly what you ‘want’? Hopefully the answer to that is ‘no.’ Now, we ‘want’ lots of things. Usually all of them are narcissistic and self-serving. We want lots of money. We want to be famous. We want to be successful. We want to be beautiful or handsome. We want to have the bodies of the people on the airbrushed magazine covers. Secretly, we fantasize about the people on the magazine covers and think not so holy thoughts about them.
If we got exactly what we ‘wanted,’ exactly what our sin-infected, morally-depraved hearts wanted, most of us would slide into a pleasure-driven self-centered abyss with us at the center of our universe. I know this with my young kids. If I gave them exactly what they wanted, they would only eat candy and play video games while never showering and dropping out of school. That’s what they ‘want.’
In Romans 1, we see the ultimate punishment of God spelled out against humanity. That punishment is removing his hand and giving us exactly what we ‘want.’ Three times it says that God “gave them over,” meaning He gave us exactly what we ‘wanted,’ and we’ve suffered the consequences of our own depraved decisions.
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. Romans 1:18-19, 24, 26, 28
Stop for a moment and thank God for not giving you everything that you ‘want.’
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