November 22, 2019
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Yeah, my wife was always this way, I'm this way. We're some of those psychos called marathon drivers. Now I know long-haul truckers have to do it for a living. But sometimes, you know, I've been known to choose to do it, just because, well, we wanted to get somewhere quickly. Of course, like most men, I like to be the one driving, sometimes for longer than I should. My wife would always tell me that our lives start to be in danger from the time I would start rubbing my right leg while I'm driving. Now, what does that have to do with it? Apparently, that's the first tip-off I'm going to sleep soon. So she would gently offer to drive and I would, of course, refuse. She'd offer several other times to drive, and then I would start doing a workout at the wheel. And then I would turn on some obnoxious radio station at full volume. Then I would open the window to let in the 20-below wind chill. Finally, just before we're just about to become a National Safety Council statistic, I would grudgingly pull over to the side of the road. We would change seats, and I would be out before we could start the car again.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Insisting on Driving."
I have a feeling I am not the only one who hates to give up the wheel, even if it's dangerous to keep driving. A lot of us want that control, not just of our vehicle, but of our lives. And no one's going to get our hands off the wheel of our life - including God.
Now maybe you're a very independent person. You've driven your life all these years, and you're not about to relinquish the wheel now. But all these years, the One who created you has been saying, "Isn't it about time you let Me drive?" And while you may have tried to keep God happy by being religious, you've stubbornly tightened your fingers around the wheel.
The truth is we were never created to drive our own life! The Bible makes that very clear when it says in Colossians 1:16 that "all things were created by Him and for Him." Now it's talking about Jesus Christ. You were created by Jesus. You were created for Jesus. And you've had a hole in your heart all these years because you didn't have Jesus. The One who gave you your life is supposed to be running your life. But it might be that you've insisted on being your own god, because whoever's driving your life is who your god really is.
Which leads us to an important warning from God in our word for today from the Word of God. Proverbs 29:1 says, "A man (and it could just as easily be a woman) who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes (or warnings) will suddenly be destroyed without remedy." Now chances are that you've had many warnings in your life that you shouldn't be driving and that you should move over; you should turn the wheel over to the God who made you.
It may be that someone who really loves you has been encouraging you to come to Jesus, but you've been too proud to let that happen. Well, that's expensive pride; maybe fatal pride...eternally fatal pride.
At the moment God decides your life is over, your eternity is totally in His hands. And He will care about only one thing: did you give your life to His Son Jesus, who gave His life to die for your sins on the cross? So many of us who have finally turned the wheel over to Him put it off as long as we could only to say now, "Why did I wait so long? This peace, this security, the weight off that I feel in my heart when He's driving!"
Now Jesus is saying it again today, "Let Me drive." If you keep driving, you'll ultimately crash. While there's time, would you let go of the wheel of your life and turn it over to the One who was meant to drive all along. Don't you want to begin this personal love relationship with Jesus?
Well, what you need to do then is tell him right now, "Jesus, I've been running my life. I've been putting You off. I've postponed You. I've ignored You. I've tried to compensate by being good, but none of that will pay for my sin. It took You dying on the cross, Jesus, and I'm grabbing You like a drowning person will grab a lifeguard. You're my only hope." That relationship begins at the point when you do that.
That's what our website is there for, to help guide you on that road to begin that relationship and know you have. Would you go to ANewStory.com.
Please don't let your stubbornness, your pride, cost you Jesus, because that will cost you heaven. You've driven long enough. Why don't you let Him drive the rest of the way?