To Encourage You

1 Peter 2:13-14 “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God . . .”

God gives each person the opportunity to glorify Him in many ways.  Sometimes those ways are by going to a foreign mission field, feeding the hungry, or adopting a child. However, there are other ways that are much more “ordinary” in nature, things that pop up in life each and every day.  One of those things that glorifies God, because it is His will, is to obey man-made laws.  It can be so tempting to skirt the law, especially if it’s a law that we don’t agree with, one that “nobody ever listens to,” or one that we are pretty sure we can violate but still “get away with it.”  That’s especially true if it involves our pocketbook.  How tempting to do work “under the table” or to misrepresent income that we self-report on our income tax. How tempting to say we paid one price for a vehicle we purchased in a private sale when it comes time to pay the sales tax, while all the while knowing that we actually paid quite a bit more.  And it’s even more tempting when the seller encourages us to go along with it.  I know – because it happened to me once.  But there are lots of other man-made laws that we must deal with from day to day.  If you hunt, you have the game laws, and if you fish and boat, you have the fishing and boating laws.   Whatever the case, it is by knowing and adhering to the laws we are responsible for that we can do the very will of God.  Something to think about if we start to question the will of God for our life.  Often there’s no need to search too hard for what that will is, for God has made it pretty clear for each one of us, as He’s made sure to put it down in black and white.  So often they are simple things where we can make the choice to help ourselves – and grieve the Holy Spirit in the process, or we can obey the Lord in the simple things, which, incredible as it sounds, brings glory to the One Who made us.