Who is driving your car?
Imagine for a moment that you have decided to buy a car. Rather than head off down the London Road to one of the many car dealers, or one of the used car supermarkets at Lakeside, you decide to visit the massive Toomey dealership on Cherry Orchard Way to look at new cars. When you arrive the shining exteriors and technical brilliance of the new cars are hard to resist. You spot one car and it just blows your mind with all of the add-ons it comes with. Parking sensors, DVD player, and electric seats. This car does not just have cup holders – it has a built in coffee machine. Faith Service Worship Vision There may be times when you find it difficult to reconcile God’s truth to your own opinion or worldview, God’s truth is eternal, it does not change, our understanding of the truth does change as we allow God to work in our hearts and minds. These sessions are not about opinion, they are about learning truth, the truth contained in the Bible, together we are going to focus on how we apply God’s truth, black & white in a grey world. To set godly priorities, grow in Christian character and live according to God’s standards so that we are a living witness to others.
Who you believe: Session 1
Ashingdon Elim Bible Study 19 January 2010
The car is amazing, but it has one unalterable deficiency. It will only function if it has an intelligent driver behind the wheel. Without a driver, this car is just something to look at. If you pushed it down a steep hill without a driver behind the wheel, it would careen down the hill, damaging anything in its path until it finally crashes. As humans, we function best when we let God be in the driving seat. Maybe our pride does not like it, but we need to be led and directed in life by having a close connection with our Lord. Every one of us at some time of our life has chosen to shove God out of the driver’s seat. Which of these statements best describes where you are now? q I have given God the wheel and He is driving my life’s car. q God has the wheel, but I have my foot on the brake. q I am behind the wheel and occasionally ask for directions. q I would like to ask God for direction. q I find it best to drive with a blindfold on and fingers in my ears. From childhood, we are taught to “Do it ourselves”. We live our lives with a desire to be independent. Even as Christians we are often guilty of wanting to be the one in control, “Don’t drive me God, I want to drive myself ”. Are there specific situations where you find yourself trying to rationalise a decision or try to handle a problem in your life, without reference to God, God’s Word or God’s will? Someone described trying to live life without God being “as stupid as holding your breath because you are upset you need to breathe”. If we cut ourselves off from the source of divine love and power, it is like cutting a tree off its roots. A car needs a driver; a tree needs roots; we need air and we need God. In the book Joy Unspeakable, Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones quotes the psychiatrist Carl Jung as someone who unexpectedly agreed that we all need God: “Those psychiatrists who are not superficial have come to the conclusion that the vast neurotic misery of the world could be termed a neurosis of emptiness. Men cut themselves from the roots of their being, from God, and then life turns empty, inane, meaningless, without purpose, so when God goes, goal goes, when goal goes, meaning goes, when meaning goes, value goes, and life turns dead in our hands” 1