We know. We all know. We know the word "ought." We may not like it, and we may certainly come up with countless ways to try to avoid its implications, but it doesn't go away. It is inherent in the corporate consciousness of the human race. Inevitably, yet tragically, it is possible for any individual to override the sense in his deepest being of the way he should be. That's because our Creator did not choose to make us robots; rather, He deliberately chose to create us with free wills. We are free to choose: to either believe that His ways are best for us, or that we know better.
There has been no era in history nor any place on the globe where people have not heard the story in one way or another. We read the book or watch the movie. Here comes the interloper, and there sits the victim - blindly unaware of the intruder and his evil intentions. We see the trespasser's sinister manipulations as he gradually encroaches over boundaries into that which is not his to take. It is strangely reminiscent of the snake that silently, relentlessly, stalks its sleeping prey until its slithering coils have smothered its victim - and down it goes behind his jaws into dark and hopeless death. In a similar way, the life we wanted to live is swallowed up.
There are innumerable different scenes and variations on this same theme, but the show goes on - in every generation, in every individual life. An enemy is afoot, and on the prowl. And as a result, things are not the way we want them to be, nor the way we sense that they ought to be. Ah, there is that niggling word "ought" again. Perhaps, after all, there is more to the story than merely the bad guy and the innocent victim. The stage is set. It is our planet. The plot is set. It is conflict - violent conflict - between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness. And whether we are aware of it or not, each and every one of us is a participant in the age-old drama.
No, we don't want disease, and death, and wounded lives and broken hearts. We don't want cruelty, dishonesty and unfaithfulness, assault and abuse. We don't want calamities and disasters and famines, and nature itself groaning in anguish, wanting its realm to be as it somehow knows it should be. But, we do want a certain thing - and that particular desire is a major and key factor in this seemingly out-of-control script. We want to be our own boss, to put ourselves on the throne, trying to force our own Maker to abdicate. That is the hook into us the adversary was looking for - that ramification of his own core desire. And it is the hook that we gave him. He tenaciously latched on to our free-will choice. Unwittingly, we teamed up with our very destroyer - against our best Friend, our Creator, our loving Father. And so the conflict rolls on, and on.
Thankfully - thankfully, thankfully - the conflict's ultimate resolution has already been determined. Yes, the last chapter of this book of the human drama has indeed been written. The battle has been won. What we foolishly gave away has been won back for us, won by a strange battle, a battle of eternal significance and consequence. It was won on a cross. Now, it is in our hands to write our individual conclusions to the story. I am freed now to choose from a renewed heart a new "ought" and thereby recover my stolen inheritance. I ought to be what my God's good purposes made me to be. By the power of His own Son's shed blood, I will be. And may each freed life help other lives be set free!
There are innumerable different scenes and variations on this same theme, but the show goes on - in every generation, in every individual life. An enemy is afoot, and on the prowl. And as a result, things are not the way we want them to be, nor the way we sense that they ought to be. Ah, there is that niggling word "ought" again. Perhaps, after all, there is more to the story than merely the bad guy and the innocent victim. The stage is set. It is our planet. The plot is set. It is conflict - violent conflict - between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness. And whether we are aware of it or not, each and every one of us is a participant in the age-old drama.
No, we don't want disease, and death, and wounded lives and broken hearts. We don't want cruelty, dishonesty and unfaithfulness, assault and abuse. We don't want calamities and disasters and famines, and nature itself groaning in anguish, wanting its realm to be as it somehow knows it should be. But, we do want a certain thing - and that particular desire is a major and key factor in this seemingly out-of-control script. We want to be our own boss, to put ourselves on the throne, trying to force our own Maker to abdicate. That is the hook into us the adversary was looking for - that ramification of his own core desire. And it is the hook that we gave him. He tenaciously latched on to our free-will choice. Unwittingly, we teamed up with our very destroyer - against our best Friend, our Creator, our loving Father. And so the conflict rolls on, and on.
Thankfully - thankfully, thankfully - the conflict's ultimate resolution has already been determined. Yes, the last chapter of this book of the human drama has indeed been written. The battle has been won. What we foolishly gave away has been won back for us, won by a strange battle, a battle of eternal significance and consequence. It was won on a cross. Now, it is in our hands to write our individual conclusions to the story. I am freed now to choose from a renewed heart a new "ought" and thereby recover my stolen inheritance. I ought to be what my God's good purposes made me to be. By the power of His own Son's shed blood, I will be. And may each freed life help other lives be set free!