MAN'S MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION

Mankind is out of control for one very simple reason; mankind has taken control.

Since those dark days of the Garden where Adam and Eve sinned, one may note that their rebellion against God came upon their move to take control of the situation. Control was their first and most immediate move.  Their trust in God dissolved.  At that point man invaded a territory not intended for him.  The transition of a take-over was then completed.

Until we meet Jesus, we are stuck with our own best guesses as to what to do next.

After all of these years, man remains obsessed with control.  Preachers cause church havoc when we must control the workings of the congregation.  Congregations are thwarted and stifled because many of the elders insist upon restricting the church to abide within their narrow perception of what church should be.  Families suffer constant disruption over the same issue as husbands and wives face off.

One might want to note that fear is the culprit behind man's magnificent obsession.  It was with the Original couple...and nothing has changed thus far.

In the Garden, the original tandem sinned and then took over.  They made executive decisions as if it was theirs to make....they would hide.  Furthermore, they determined what men should wear as a well as women.  When approached by God they had answers...their answers....their dim, narrow, restricted, and fear-loaded answers.

It should be no surprise to the spiritually-minded that one trait of the fruit of the Spirit is that of self-control.  I mean, really, of the nine variations listed is this one not a seeming oddity?  Yet, self-control is ushered by the Holy Spirit because we make such a mess of it on our own.

Control is a sin that won't go down easy.  It is such a hard-core impediment that only the Spirit can muster the kind of trait we so desperately need.

But when we think about it, once again God makes perfect sense.  The reason we need the Spirit to yield self-control fruit is because we are so failing at it.  We need self-control to refrain from trying to control people and circumstances.

This is very necessary today.

Man cannot stop our dominating nature.  We want things to go our way.  We insist they go our way in many places or else we will move on to where it does.  Would divorce or church split or contempt or family feud ring a bell for any of you?  Just as Adam and Eve, man still believes we are in the best know.

We are not in the know.  Yet, we are obsessed with convincing ourselves that we are and every time such a conviction comes along, due to our manipulative management, we make a such a mess of things.  This is the fruit of the Garden; not the fruit of the Spirit.

It must occur to us that the reason for the fruit of Holy Spirit of self-control is to help us refrain from issuing our sort of earthy regulation.  We need Him to bear His fruit through us because we are more than lousy at self-control; we are sinful about it.

Spirit fruit of self-control is the opposite of man's.  In it we find He helps us to keep quiet, to refrain from demanding my way or the highway, and to yield to God's daily leadership rather than trusting in our own.  Our own, by the way, is simply an interfering protrusion of what we believe best into the lives of those around us.

Man's magnificent obsession to control how the church goes, as well as what you/I want, is currently detrimental to the life of every congregation; and every individual in it.  We have been groomed by guys like me to do this and don't do that according to our best fleshly ingenuity.  We have given little attention to God's will regarding the Holy Spirit fruit of self-control in us.

May we grow together in the Spirit of Christ.  May we trade our self-control darkness for the Spirit's self-control light.  Upon this transition we will find that our magnificent obsession is to stay out of the way rather than impose our fears in the name of truth and righteousness.

Jesus moves us to a New Garden.  May we take on the new self-control that he has in mind; that of the Holy Spirit.