Thoughts to help you depend on Jesus more than yourself!
²⁰  The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. ²¹  But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. Matthew 13:20-21 (NLT2)

Few sights are more depressing than that of a professed Christian defending his supposed rights and bitterly resisting any attempt to violate them. Such a Christian has never accepted the way of the cross. The sweet graces of meekness and humility are unknown to him. He grows every day harder and more acrimonious as he defends his reputation, his rights, his ministry, against his imagined foes.
The only cure for this sort of thing is to die to self and rise with Christ into newness of life. (1)

When I read Tozer’s words, I immediately got defensive.

After all, there are rights, and then, there are our rights.

I can easily apply this to ideas that don’t seem a big deal to me, like masks and shots. People will tell me this ia slippery slope., and I will shrug it off. There are other rights, that I don’t see as such, but are demanded in these days. THen there are rights that we find here in the U.S.A. that are not rights in other places and in other times..

THere is one thing for sure, we demand our rights, and we fear them being taken away. We will do anything to demand them and defend them.

Then Tozer comes in and brings up the cross, where every right was abandoned…. voluntarily abandoned…

Do we have to imitate Jesus in this?

Can’t we just enjoy the ones we have, and when the time comes when they are taken… turn to God for help (read revenge)

We know the answer…

This is the nature of being with Jesus..

Lord, help our attitude when we go about , claiming our rightes were violateeeeed, to see that the only thing we need in life is You. AMEN!

(1) A. W. Tozer, Tozer for the Christian Leader (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015).