DEPENDENCY

DEPENDENCY

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Genesis KJV 2:9, 15-17 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. … And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Romans ISV 11:32-36 For God has locked all people in the prison of their own disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. O how deep are God's riches, wisdom, and knowledge! How impossible to explain his judgments or to understand his ways! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become his adviser? Who has given him something only to have him pay it back?" For all things are from him, by him, and for him. Glory belongs to him forever! Amen.

  Dependency is a key life issue. Not being able to be totally sufficient to every need, challenge, and desire, we depend others. Central to dependency is faith. Everyone has faith; a set of core beliefs that guides our lifestyle, deciding to whom and what we depend on for sustenance and provision.

  Dependency is for me at the center of the health care debate, not in the details. It’s not that I’m against health care itself. If possible I would see people in most advantageous vigor. (1Thes.5:23) It’s that I’m concerned that our USA track record is one of increasing dependency on government and less on Sovereign Jehovah-Jireh (Gen.22:14 “God will provide”), and that in recent decades such dependency has accelerated.

  Especially troubling to me is the deepened involvement of Christians looking to government to take care of them; in doing so shifting dependency to a humanistic focus distancing from fullness in godliness; a lifestyle deviant from looking to Him for determination in provision.

  Increasingly Christians are less reliant on Jehovah-Jireh, He may of course just provide through government or in some other way, possibly even miraculously. Scripture records and tells of this.

  Christians bypassing God in taking direct route to agency is a risk.

  Beware bureau dependency for it removes us from true 1Thessalonians 5:23 health. Living apart from God’s provision -- His children seriously ail.  

EBB4 (August 19, 2009)