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| “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” |
| —John 8:31b |
How do you react when you learn something quite remarkable? Life-changing information is hard for us to ignore. When someone offers insight that can revolutionize our entire lives, we tend to grab onto that information and hold on to it tightly. Please let me illustrate this reality:
When I began working at a radio station back in 1959, one of my first jobs was to edit safe driving public service announcements. Various state and local police officers would come to the studio and record short scripts provided by the American Automobile Association (AAA). I would then add an opening and closing that had been prerecorded by one of our announcers.
To complete this task, I would take the reel-to-reel tape, place it on an aluminum splicing block, cut the tape with a razor blade, and splice the sections together with special splicing tape. It was very tedious and time-consuming work.
In this age of digitized audio, I can perform such a task by electronically cutting and splicing on a computer screen that shows the waveform of the audio, in much the same way that someone cuts and pastes paragraphs using a word processor.
Once someone taught me this new way of doing an old task, it revolutionized that small part of my life. I now “hold on” to a new way of living—at least as far as editing audio files is concerned.
Now, imagine what we might do if someone offered us a total makeover for every aspect of our lives. If this was attractive to us, we surely would hold on to this new way of living.
The Lord Jesus Christ has offered each of us a new way of living, in fact, a whole new life. Through his birth, life, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension, our sins have been forgiven and by way of God’s amazing love for us, we have become transformed. A whole new way of living has opened up before us.
The only thing Jesus asks of us is obedience to His will and to His written Word. Notice what Jesus says in John 8:31-32:
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Holding on to Jesus’ teaching, resting in the life-transforming reality of His mercy, grace, and love—with the help of the Holy Spirit —seems like a very wise way to live our totally new life.
Let’s launch off into this new day with a mindset of obedience. Let’s hold on tightly to Jesus’ teaching and watch our transformed lives unfold before our very eyes. We will surely experience lives set free by God’s truth.
Based on a blog originally posted on Tuesday, November 10, 2015
