We Ultimately Get What We Ultimately Pursue
August 29, 2015 § Leave a comment
Whatever we are after in this life, we eventually end up with for the prize. We can know God and enjoy Him forever, or we end up with ourselves, by ourselves. So what, more accurately who, are we pursuing?
When the Creator offered us Himself to enjoy, Eve and Adam chose their own pursuit. Ever since, God has been once again offering Himself, the sacrifice of His own Son Jesus to redeem us from the sin we chose instead. Specifically, the just penalty of our sin, but in a sense, to save us from ourselves.
Autonomy is an important part of self-ruling government and a society free of coercion, but the idolatry (emphasis on the “I”) of autonomy (pronounced autono-ME) is where we imagine ourselves independent of our Creator, a cancer in mankind’s history. Over what was God’s, we have elevated our own name at Babel(1), our own intellect in the Enlightenment, our own accomplishments in the Titanic, our own rights above the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, and our own sexual autonomy and fluid personal identity in the current moral revolution. In the pursuit of unlimited sexual freedom, we have made our own rules for free love, have redefined marriage, and tried to anchor our very identity in the shallow pond of sexual expression. We’ve unhinged race from genetic reality and gender from biological sex(2). We are removing gender labels from toy aisles and bathrooms (to “avoid confusion”) and letting our children decide their own gender. Even species may be up for negotiation soon, as one Washington couple wants to raise their child “to self-identify with whatever species it thinks it actually is.”(3)
God is gracious even in His judgment, because even lost souls end up with what they’ve always wanted: themselves, all by themselves. Hell will be filled with those who spend this life in pursuit of themselves and ultimately get what they’ve pursued in the next. Heaven will be filled with those who pursue God through belief in Jesus Christ. If we set our sights on Him here, we have eternity with Him. Likewise, setting our sights on others—loving God and neighbor in that order—means we will not be worshiping alone in Heaven.
Have you discovered your idolatry of autonomy? There’a better Way. Take the next exit and turn around. Repent of the worship of self and put your faith in Christ, who offers us Himself instead.
“We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)
1) Genesis 11:4
2) http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/washington-state-couple-chooses-to-raise-their-child-species-less-1.2514853
3) http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423136/rachel-dolezal-caitlyn-jenner-race-gender
God&Neighbor 
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