Your Not The Boss Of My Life

Luke 4:18,19 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

I was driving the other day with a friends sons, Asher age 7 and Jude age 6, riding in the back seat. “We wrote a song,” they told me. I asked them to sing it for me. “Your not the boss of my life.” I laughed and asked them who the song was about. I was thinking it might have been directed at their parents. “Satan,” was their reply. “Your not the boss of my life.” They then continued with the next line. “I’m so happy, your the boss of my life.” Again I had to ask, so who is this line about. “God, Jesus,” was their answer. I asked them to sing the song to me again. Throughout the rest of the day their song kept playing in my mind, their bold and in your face statement, “Satan, your not the boss of my life!”

Jesus was tempted by the devil for 40 days in the wilderness. Jesus overcame the devil by relying on the Holy Spirit for strength, he said to Satan, “You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” In the words of Jude and Asher, “Your not the boss of my life. God I’m so happy your the boss of my life.”

I have had the opportunity to see the life transforming power of Jesus in the lives of many young people and their victory over drugs and alcohol. They have been released, no longer held captive by drugs and alcohol. They would be the first to tell you it is not through their own efforts but only by their reliance on God and the power he brings. As in step 3 of the Twelve Step Recovery Program, “We made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God.” They made God the boss of their lives. In so doing, God has given them the power of the Holy Spirit, and the strength to say to Satan, “You’re not the boss of my life.”

“Good News to the poor! The oppressed will be set free.”  Jesus touches lives and he heals broken people. Isaiah 50:10,11 Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his
servant? If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God. But watch out, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires. This is the reward you will receive from me: You will soon fall down in great torment.” Asher and Jude trust in the Lord and proclaim, “Your (Satan) not the boss of my life, I’m so happy your (God) the boss of my life!” The words of these young boys have been ministering to me the past couple days, I pray they will also minister to you.

Walk With Jesus

Romans 6:1 “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness? vs 15 “So since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does this mean we can go on sinning?”

Recently I was talking with a young eleven year old girl (Hannah) and her mother about Jesus and the subject of sin came up. I said some people believe you can become a Christian and still live a sinful lifestyle, living no different from the world around us. Hannah said, “That doesn’t make sense. Asking Jesus into your heart is like a contract, you sign it by asking Him into our hearts. That (living a sinful lifestyle) would be like breaking the contract.” For Hannah it is a simple concept, when we choose Jesus, we should live like he did. We should try our best to live a life apart from sin.”

The Apostle Paul agrees with Hannah, his answer to the question, Does this mean we can go on sinning?  “Of course not! Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master? You can choose sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God and receive his approval.” Romans 6:15,16  A great question and a simple answer, “Of course not!” Yet it is a truth that challenges us.  Our culture says everything is ok. Just do it. A hit song aimed at teenagers encourages them to have sex “Let’s go all the way tonight. Don’t have any regrets just love, you can dance until you die, “You and I, we’ll be young forever.” It is a horrible message a lie. Yet we also send a misleading message, a lie when we tell people only of the love of Jesus. “Just accept Jesus into your heart, and your golden, good to go. Jesus loves you and you will live with Him forever.” It is a tempting lie, we don’t want to offend people, we don’t want to turn them off. So we don’t tell them the truth. We tell them only half the gospel, some call it cheap grace. Jude vs 4 says this, “I say this because some godless people have wormed their way in among you, saying that God’s forgiveness allows us to live immoral lives. The fate of such people was determined long ago, for they have turned against our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

I will end with the chorus and two verse’s of a song titled, New Way To Live by Joel Hanson. Chorus “Arise there’s a new way to live, thought we were living but that’s not what we’ve been, we’ve been breathing out, we’ve been breathing in, but the question remains have we ever truly lived--verse-there’s more than one way a man can lose his life, might have a heart beat, but nothing left inside, he prayed a prayer maybe bent a knee, but he never walked with Jesus, and he never got free. Chorus again then verse--arise little girl Jesus said, take my hand and get out of your bed, come to life, you’ve been fast asleep, come and live, come and follow me.”