10 Shekels and a shirt...

An excerpt from an awesome sermon I listened to, tonight by Paris Reidhead:

“What impressed you most about America?” He said, “The great things Americans can accomplish without God.” And he had accomplished a great deal, admittedly, without God. Now he wanted something, power to accomplish his ends even further. I said, “No, no. You are going...you are sitting behind the wheel and you are saying, ‘Give me power so I can go.’ You won’t work. You have got to slide over.” But I knew that rascal because I knew me. I said, “No, it will never do. You have got to

get in the back seat.”And I could see him leaning over and grabbing the wheel. “No,” I said, “It will never do in the back seat.” I said, “Before God will do anything from you do you know what you have got to do?” He said, “What?” I said, “You have got to get out of the car, take the keys around, open up the trunk lid, hand the keys to the Lord Jesus, get in the trunk, slam the lid down, whisper through the keyhole, ‘Lord, look. Fill her up with anything you want and you drive. It is up to you from now on.’”

I love this analogy. The Carrie Underwood song was wrong. Simply handing over the steering wheel of our lives to Jesus Christ isn't enough. Paris Reidhead points out that it isn't enough to merely get out of Christ's way. He insists that going further, we not only need to take ourselves out of the way but put ourselves as far away from control as possible. Removing the temptation of trying to take back control, putting ourselves in the trunk helps to make this decision permanent.

Loved this sermon!

Justin