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Will Rogers was
a well-known, homespun-type philosopher and he once said,
”Ever. if you are on the right path, you will still get run
over if you just sit there.” This ties in with another saying,
”If you are not on the way, you are in the way.”
We place a great
deal of emphasis on being on that straight and narrow path
that leads to life everlasting, but it is important that we
are actually moving forward on that path.
We have all experienced
the frustration of finding a car in the fast lane moving along
at a slow pace. Many times these drivers cause accidents because
they are in the way, and it is possible to be given a ticket
for obstructing traffic by going too slow in the fast lane.
We are now trying
to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, ”I am the way,
the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but
by me.” David declared, ”I will run the way of thy commandments.”
Since Jesus is
the way, and he said for us to follow him and David tells
us to ”run the way of thy commandments,” it goes without saying
that we are on the move. Jesus told us that ”if ye love me,
keep my commandments” and this involves moving and doing.
The world is certainly
on the move but they are going in the wrong direction. As
Jesus said, ”Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction
and many there be which go in thereat.” The world is actually
in the fast lane on the road to destruction. Hopefully, we
have long ago taken the off ramp from the world and turned
up that ”narrow way that leads to life.” Jesus said that few
are on the narrow way, so we are not concerned with the traffic
snarls that embroil the world.
Just the same,
we should not simply sit in the middle of the road and be
in the way. How many have blocked the path of others who are
endeavoring to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and made it difficult
for them by being in the way on the way?
Paul speaks of
those who put ”a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in
his brother’s way.”
Jeremiah tells
us about those who inquired of him ”that the Lord thy God
may shew us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that
we may do.” Unfortunately, they said the right words but did
not mean what they said and did not walk and do the thing
that the Lord commanded.
We take great
comfort in the fact that we can say with David of old, ”I
have chosen the way of truth” but now it is time for us to
”run the way of God’s commandments,” beseeching Him to ”teach
me 0 Lord the way of thy statutes: and I shall keep it unto
the end.”
Jeremiah, speaking
on the Lord’s behalf, tells us to ”ask for the old paths,
where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find
rest for your souls.”
If we ask, we
shall find the ”good way;” if we seek it we will find it.
We seek it and find it by doing our Bible readings as God
instructed Joshua when He said to him, ”This book of the law
shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate
therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according
to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy
way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
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