It Begins With You

Tweet

It’s running at half speed.

There was a woman who was having difficulty with her reasonably new car. She blew it off and ignored it for a few days. This particular day, something seemed to be wrong with it because she was not able to get the car to go above forty miles per hour. She realized that this could be dangerous for many reasons, but mainly when driving on the interstate. Many of the other drivers on the road were not pleased with her driving at forty miles per hour. Some were waving with not all of their fingers up, others shouting not-so-nice things, and a few stares with dagger eyes.

That night when her husband got home from work, she asked him if he did something to the car to prevent her from driving over forty miles per hour. She just knew this was a prank by her husband. He was always accusing her of having a lead foot and going over the speed limit, so naturally, he must have involved. Her husband insisted that he had not done anything to the car, and she was over-reacting.

Finally, she had enough. If her husband wasn’t going to fix her car, she was going to find an auto mechanic who could.

Upon his inspection of the vehicle, the mechanic opened the hood and looked around. He found about a pound of nuts in the vehicle’s intake. A squirrel managed to find a great spot and collect enough nuts for winter eating. After removing the clogged intake, the car was able to perform as designed.

A good lesson.

I know this is a silly story, but there is something for us as believers to learn from this woman’s misfortune. We often need to look under our hood or “check our heart.” Unconfessed sin can clog up our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Charles Spurgeon once said, “You must be divorced from your sin, or you cannot be married to Christ.” As believers, we must get intentional in developing a relationship with Christ through personal devotions, prayer, gospel-centered community, and corporate worship. Far too often, we allow things to clog our intakes, so we are not able to hear what God is saying to us. He uses His Word and other believers to communicate with us. If our hearts are clogged, God’s grace is not flowing through us to others.

What are we to do then?

The items listed above are not boxes to be checked off. As believers, we do them out of the overflow of our love for Jesus Christ. Having a relationship with Jesus takes time and practice. Think about it. Relationships with other people that you wanted to develop took time and practice. Over-time, those relationships grew deeper. The same is true in having a relationship with Jesus.

Incredible news.

Jesus wants to be in a relationship with you. Jesus, being God, made Himself flesh to dwell among His creation. We rebelled against God, and thus became His enemy. Jesus came to rescue, redeem, and restore us so that we could once again commune with God. He showed us that our hearts, clogged with sin need to repent and turn away from our selfish desires and look to God, the author, and creator of our lives.

An unclogged heart is necessary for being a disciple of Jesus Christ, especially when teaching others.

In my next few posts, I hope to challenge parents, on the topic of leading your family from an unclogged relationship with Jesus Christ. I’ll primarily use Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as my primary text for engaging your family with the gospel. I pray these next series of posts will help Christian parents get intentional in discipling their children. My children and your children need to be taught the truth of Scripture throughout everyday living. We have failed them if we only allow the church to teach our children on the weekends. Living out the gospel is not easy; it hurts most of the time. God promises never to leave us nor forsake us. God goes before us and stands behind us. He is on our side and uses fathers and mothers to raise the next generation of His Kingdom-Makers.