FOR YOUR OWN GOOD!
Thursday in the Fifth Week of Easter
My dear encountered couple:
Jesus wants us to know that all he ever told us was for our own good. “All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete.” Sound like what parents say to their children when they discipline them. “This is for your own good.” An awful lot of children don’t seem to believe that. They think their parents are just trying to keep them from doing those “fun” things that would really make them happy. Do maybe many of us think that way in regard to God?
Have you ever had thoughts that the 10 Commandments are merely restrictions on your happiness? That all the things Jesus taught were just to keep you from having fun? We are children of God, aren’t we; and God is our Father. Do we ever act like childish children and think that God doesn’t really care about us when he says, “Do this!” and “Don’t do that!”
I hope you and I have gotten far enough along in life to know, and be convinced, that all our heavenly Father and Jesus ever told us was truly for our best. But let me ask this:
Do you ever sin? Do I? If our answer is, “Yes, sometimes,” that seems to mean we don’t really believe quite strongly enough yet that what God tells us is really best for us.
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you,” Jesus said. “You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and live in his love. All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete.”
Do we really believe that?
