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No Comments Deliverance
When I was a young man I thought that I was a decent human being. The Bible says there is none good, no not one. That truth has become a settled matter in my mind. I am a sinner and I need a savior.
Each one of us grows up with different experiences and much of who we are comes from our background. My dad would tell of the things he experienced and it wasn’t till later in life I appreciated who he was and understood a little of what made him tick. Childhood abuse, leaving school in the third grade because of threatened abuse, being forced to join the union with a gun to his head, these are things that shaped the way he responded to his world. He was hard to know in an intimate way. Though he had much to be angry about, he never got angry. I wish I could say the same thing.
We all suffer from the weakness of the flesh. As men, we all suffer from the bondage of sex. Sex is a relentless master and makes men do the most wicked things. I’ve heard it preached from the pulpit that sex is this wonderful thing and admittedly it is pleasurable but it is a selfish act and much of it is for the self.
So my father, like all men, had this desire for sex. He was popular with the girls and they would call him even after he was married. His relationship with God made him a faithful husband, but my mom in frustration told him she thought the only reason he married her was for sex. Certainly, it was somewhat true. They had nine children (six 9f them lived). He fathered his last child at fifty-six years old. Men get lonely but they need sex.
We all have differing degrees of sinfulness but we are all sinners. None of us escape being a slave to lust. Sin doesn’t always appear to be as nasty as it is. My wife was at the hospital before her dad died. The cry of his heart was: “God, deliver me from this wicked body”. Now that I’m older I too just want to be delivered from this body. My weakness overwhelms me many times; my need for a savior is self-evident. I need Jesus Christ.
My dad was born on May 5, 1903; happy birthday dad! He’s been gone eighteen years. Knowing what I know now makes me more understanding of him and others. I just wish he were here to talk with one more time.