BE NOT AS THE MULE

This era of the New Testament is the realisation of God’s vision of the kind of relationship He wants to have with man.

In Heb 8:10,11 He declares, “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”

This is God’s relationship today with every believer who has accepted the substitutionary work of Christ on the Cross. This is the blessed kind of life that the believers of the Old Testament longed for and which their prophets prophesied about (1 Pt 1:10-12). It is a relationship of Fatherhood and sonship, and not of fear and dread. John said, “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God” (1 Jn 3:1) and Paul says we “have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Abba, Father.”

It is therefore unfortunate that some believers are not living in this paradigm. Observe the striking promise of God to us in Ps 32:8,9,

I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I will guide you with my eye.

Be you not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, else they come not near unto you. – Psa 32:9

The LORD says His wish is to guide you with the “eye”; not as one trying to lead a stubborn donkey. Some believers say, “God gave me this sickness to HUMBLE me”, or “God made me lose everything in order to squash my pride”.

This sends me reeling anytime I hear this. If you obviously know you’re proud, what have you been waiting for all this while? James 4:10 says “Humble YOURSELVES in the sight of the Lord...” not wait for God to do it for you.

I hear others say, “Him whom God will USE mightily, God will HURT deeply”. Really? They speak as though God is like our African (and Caribbean) deities who enjoy inflicting pain on their priests before they can function as their spokesmen.

Are you a mule or a son? Do you need a kick from God to obey Him or a word? When God wants you to stop, does He just tell you, or do you need Him to break your legs first?

Beloved, God wants to lead us with His eye and not with a stick. We’re sons and daughters, not horses and mules.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus Name.

GREG ELKAN