Drawn to the Well
In Alabama, any good farmer knows that to keep your cattle or horses from wandering off you’ve got to build a fence. That’s how we do it here, we build fences. But that is not how they do it in Australia… “In Australia, ranches (called stations) are so vast that fences are superfluous. Under these conditions, a farmer has to sink a bore and create a well, a precious water supply in the Outback. It is assumed that livestock, though they will stray, will never roam too far from the well, lest they die. As long as there is a supply of clean water, the livestock will remain close by.”
The Good Sheperd doesn't build a fence around us to keep us from leaving. Instead, God provides us with a positive reason for why we should stay. He uses love, not law, to draw us to Himself.
"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me" (John 10:27).
"But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life" (John 4:14, NLT).
The Broken Xylophone
According to the book of Romans in the NT, sin is not a list of unacceptable behaviors, it’s embedded in our nature. It’s like this: A friend of mine is a pastor who, early in his marriage, started having kids. People in the congregation tried to care for this new family, but one person brought over some toys for his kids that were hand-me-downs. Some hand-me-downs are great. My son is 11 and we have yet to buy him a shirt. It's good not to be the oldest cousin.
But some-hand-me-downs are actually just throw-me-outs, and people who are waste-not-want-nots think churches are beggers-not-choosers, so that’s where they dump their someone’s-treasure that was pretty much just everyone’s-trash.
So, a family gave him hand-me-down toys, one of which was an 8-note xylophone with one of the keys missing. He asked me, “Do they want my kids to grow up tone deaf?” That xylophone was never going to play right. You couldn’t sing do-re-mi with that thing because there was no "fa."
The doctrine of sin isn’t like a xylophone player who isn’t good at it and makes mistakes; it’s like a xylophone player who is missing some keys. No matter how good they might become, they'll never be able to play it exactly right.
So, you and I are not sometimes sinful, we were born broken. Which just tells you how loving Jesus is. No kid at the store is going to pick up the xylophone that's missing keys. You and I are that toy, but Jesus picked us anyway.
He picked us and in his supernatural power, he restores us. But make sure you get this; He restores us because he loves us. He doesn’t love us because we can be restored. He loves us first.
Most of us think it’s the other way around – he’ll love us when he’s done with us. No. He restores us because he loved us first.
"And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10).
The Sex Exposure Calculator
Harry Readhead, reporting for METRO, writes:
A new calculator will tell you how many sexual partners you’ve been indirectly exposed to.
For instance, if you have had nine lovers – that’s the average in the UK – and your other half has had the same, you have been indirectly exposed to 597,870 individuals.
That’s the population of Belfast.
The Sexual Exposure and STI Risk Calculator also tells you your risk of catching gonorrhoea, syphilis and chlamydia.
This adds new meaning to the expression “getting more than you bargained for.” By contrast, only those who follow God’s prescription and wait to become sexually active until they’ve found their life partner, protect themselves from exposure to these diseases. In effect, they reduce that risk to zero percent! What a wonderful gift for a couple to exchange on their wedding day.
But the negative effects of multiple sex partners are not limited to the transmission of STDs. Casual attitudes toward sex tend to be translated into casual attitudes toward marital commitment, which serves to undermine the security and health of the relationship.
Yes, God’s will for marriage requires us to delay our sexual gratifications. But God doesn’t set forth these expectations to harm us. Rather, His desire is to protect us from what He knows would cause us, and our future spouse, harm.
“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love” (John 15:10).