The other day, a young teenager said to
me, I'm free to do as I like.
And that young teenager got the shock of
his life when I replied, Indeed you are.
I could not agree more.
You have spoken a truth.
You have stated a fact.
You are absolutely free to do as you
like.
Now the fact is that we are all
created, all of us.
Every man, every woman, every person living has
been created with free moral agency.
I say, I am free to do as
I like.
Absolutely.
I can be a bum.
I am free to be a drunkard.
I am free to sell my body in
prostitution.
I am so free that the very destiny
of my own soul is in my hands.
I am also free to do as I
ought.
A disciplined self is a self of power.
And when we learn that glorious truth, when
that fact becomes very real to our hearts
and real in our thinking and in our
living, it will be one of the greatest
secrets of life that we could possibly learn.
A disciplined self is a self of power.
An aviator told me that every moment while
he is in the air he has to
obey the laws of aviation.
Just one moment's disobedience or carelessness.
Only one moment, that's all that it takes.
Just one moment of carelessness and the great
machine would be wrecked.
Whenever there's a plane crash, the very first
thing they look for in making their investigation
is for carelessness.
Or for someone who might have disobeyed some
law that governed the flight of that plane.
There can be no moral holidays while in
the air.
The obedience must be complete or the mastery
will not be complete.
Listen to me just a moment.
Life is a restless, disruptive thing until we
give ourselves to something beyond ourselves.
Until we obey something ultimate and obey it
supremely.
Otherwise, life will be like a brush heap
instead of a tree.
A brush heap has no central organizing principle
and thus it is a decaying mass destined
to the dust.
A tree, on the other hand, has an
organizing principle and its branches fit into that
principle.
And hence, a tree is a growing organism
destined to the skies.
Now, Paul says, in God's Word, in Him
we live and move and have our being.
We do live.
We do move in God for He is
the inescapable.
But we can only deny Him with the
very powers that He gives us.
And it's just like that.
The infidel, the skeptic, can only deny God
with the very powers that God has given
to that man.
Remember, God is the inescapable.
And every man lives and every human being
moves in God.
But watch something.
We do not all have our being in
Him.
We live on the surface roots.
The taproot has not gone down deep into
God.
We do not have our being in Him.
And we will never have our being in
God until we accept His Son as our
Savior.
And He becomes the branch and we the
vine.
The self, then, does not know its master.
As long as we do not have our
being in God, even though we move and
live in Him, but so long as we
do not have our being in God, the
self, our true self, does not know its
master.
And the self without its master is the
self as a servant to itself and becomes
its own slave.
And that's the reason that men and women
get themselves in such jams and such awful
messes.
You want to know something?
People blame God for a lot of things
that God has nothing to do with whatsoever.
They brought all their troubles on themselves.
They were free to do as they liked,
absolutely free to do as they pleased, as
they liked, and they did it.
They were a servant to themselves, did as
they pleased, and then they didn't like what
they did.
When God is not your master, when you
do not have your being in Him, then
you become God.
Self must be disciplined.
One must give oneself to a power greater
than himself.
The self must be disciplined to die.
It must die in order to live.
That is why at the very center of
the Christian religion is a cross.
At the very heart of our faith is
a cross.
You must die and be buried in order
to experience a resurrection into freedom and into
the fullness of life.
It is then that you will see that
you are not free to do as you
like, but as you ought.
Pause a moment.
The cross is a symbol of death.
When Jesus spoke the following, Whosoever will come
after me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me.
He was speaking of a death to that
one as an individual.
Even as the master himself, surrendering his will
to that of the father, cried, Nevertheless, not
my will but thine be done.
Even the son himself was not mastered by
himself, but he was mastered by the will
of his father.
Therefore, when I take up my cross, I
surrender my will, my sins, my weaknesses, my
very life to him to such an extent
that I completely abide in him.
Then, for the very first time, I know
what it means to live and move and
have my very being in him.
Life is no longer a restless, disrupted thing.
It has meaning.
It has purpose.
There is a plan, a divine plan for
my life.
There is no defeat, for God cannot be
defeated.
There can be no failure, for God cannot
fail.
There can be no death, for Jesus himself
said, I am the resurrection and the life.
I move, I live, I have my being
in him.
Through his death and resurrection, Jesus not only
removed the penalty of sin, but the very
power of sin, and has enabled me as
a frail creature of the dust to live
as I ought through his power and person.
Ah, beloved, life with Christ is the only
life to live.
There is assurance.
There is God underneath all the uncertainties of
human existence.
And so, I rest in God.