[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Wednesday, June 5, 2013

[Paul]

Well folks, I just got back from my Wednesday shift on Baltimore Seniors Radio and, since I had some time to myself, God and you readers, I thought that the daily thought might be appropriate to post here.  So here goes a brief introduction.

Emerson Walker, someone whom I don't know or even know of, wrote an article some years ago for the Gospel Tract Society entitled "Following the Crowd," rendered as follows:

Are you trying to follow the crowd? Trying to be cool? Man, by nature, seems to be seeking someone to follow.  Most of the time it's easier to follow the crowd and just go with the flow, but that isn't the wise thing to do.  The crowd has been wrong most of the time.  When Columbus decided to prove that the world was round, no doubt, the crowd thought he was crazy.  He proved them wrong.  When a man named Fulton started to build a boat that would be powered by steam, the crowd, no doubt, laughed and mocked him and thought it was impossible.  He proved them wrong.  When Henry Ford made his first horseless carriage, he was laughed at, and the crowd said it would never replace the horse for transportation.  Again, they were wrong.  When NASA announced they planned to send a man to the moon, it was said that it would never happen.  It happened.

It has been said that any old dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to travel upstream.  It's the same way when we realize the crowd is going the wrong way.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14, "Enter ye in at the strait gage:  for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

I followed the crowd until I was 33 years old.  All my peers, or most of them, claimed that I was having fun.  When I began thinking for myself, I wondered how I could be having fun when I was in trouble all the time? Was it fun to make a decent wage and still be broke all the time? Fun to get hit in the head with a pistol butt? Fun to be in jail? Fun to try to work with a hangover that should have killed a mule?

I finally got tired of following the crowd and decided to make some decisions that made sense.  I was sick of the life I was leading, and the Lord made a way for my eyes to be opened spiritually.  I learned that what the crowd called fun was merely a temporary feeling to satisfy the lusts of the flesh, but there was still a void inside me that was searching for peace.

When I met Jesus, that void was filled.  I found the solution to my greatest problem, and as the Bible states in Philippians 4:7, I found the peace that "passeth all understanding." I was in my living room when the Lord really began speaking to me.  I told Him that, if he would save my soul, I would do anything He asked me to do.  When I said that, the whole room seemed to light up with a bright light, and I felt two large arms slowly encircle the room as He drew me to His breast.

Did the crowd believe I was a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17)? When I told the people where I worked that I was saved, one man said, "I'll give him a week and he will be back in the bars!" But I was now drinking from a different fountain.  The beer in my refrigerator went down the drain, and I haven't wanted alcoholic drinks since.  Even my wife thought I had cracked up from too much devil's brew until she saw that I was altogether different.  About a week later, she accepted Christ as her Savior, and for the first time we had a home instead of a house.

The crowd had been leading us in the wrong direction, and we dared to stand for the Lord and say no to the crowd and have been doing so ever since.  If you are following the crowd, you need to ask yourself, "Where am I going?" If you decide to follow Christ, you must take a stand and start serving Him.

The same Jesus that changed my life also wants to change your life if you will come to Him and ask Him to forgive you for your sins.

Well, judging merely from the posts I read on the various lists that receive these daily thoughts, none of you "follow the crowd," in the sense that you follow the world's system with its obvious attractions, for which we are glad, and for which we thank God that He has, to varying degrees, put a hedge around our intellects and desires to follow that system.

And now until tomorrow when, Lord willing another daily thought message will come your way, may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last and evil days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul