We are all sheep. We are all led by something or someone. You might say, “I’m no sheep! I follow no one!” I assure you, some belief system or worldview is guiding you and informing you in your decisions. No one acts truly independent.
One evidence of this is our insatiable appetites; our longings, desires and wants. They never stop! These desires prove our dependence, our need. We don’t get to call the shots. We don’t tell our stomachs, “I’m just not going to feed you anymore”, and then expect our bodies to function normally. We don’t decide the order of day and night. We don’t go without oxygen and expect our hearts to keep beating. If, in the material world, we are clearly dependent and are subject to absolute truths, how much more the spiritual need?
Do we think the spiritual is not ordered like the material? Do we think truth is relative in the spiritual?
Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3
The Message translation puts it like this, “You’re blessed when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you, there is more of God and His rule.”
There is another evidence to prove there is truth and order in the spiritual realm. This evidence is our conscience. Is this not evidence that we aren’t in charge? The law is written on every heart of man. Why feel guilt if I’m truly in charge?
Some philosophers have said, this was a product of religion or society making us conform, and that the only way to be free is to break the bonds from this societal and religious oppression. History has proven that this has not worked.
Psalm 2:3 says, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” The psalmist shows here the world hates the law of God, hates righteousness and wants nothing to do with it. The lust for power and control rages all the greater when the conscience has been suppressed and seared. Our conscience acts to restrain evil. It’s a warning system. So we don’t need to cast off the bonds of religion as if they are holding us back from true freedom, it is indeed the opposite. We are slaves to our lusts and wants and it is this that keep us bound in chains and keeps us from experiencing true freedom.
Sin is following and obeying anything other than God. If we stay out of step with God’s order and harmony, we will continue to be slaves to chasing after these wants. It’s exhausting and it robs us of true joy and peace and ultimately the end is our destruction.
As soon as we acknowledge Jesus, our true shepherd and we turn away from our sin, we will find the shackles of that bondage fall off. We will find true freedom and we can finally say, “I shall not want.”
Our insatiable desires are filled up in Him. He meets all our needs and we begin to desire Him and His will more and more. We are finally fulfilled.
Jesus in His great love made a way for us to be set free from this bondage. God, took our sin upon Himself on the cross. Jesus, the spotless lamb of God takes away our sin.
Will you confess and turn? Who or what is your shepherd? And if the Lord is your shepherd, what “wants” have you maybe not surrendered?
“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ” Philippians 3:8
stones from the quarry 