"Given License"

 "And this will we do, if God permit." (Hebrews 6:3 KJV)

  "Look here, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what your life will be tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog - it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that." Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it." (James 4:13-17 NLT)

 This is really not changing gears, because there is something more important than doctrine and knowing about basic principles of salvation and the afterlife; the main thing we must practice is obedience and doing what God wants us to do. Otherwise, we are just playing church and pretending that we really are following Jesus, our Lord and Savior. 

 Here is where this makes better sense, if you really want to get right down to it. And don't think for a moment that I have some kind of ability to do anything, because my life is far from perfect! There is this thing called accountability, where God will only give you the ability to go forward, once you have been listening to His commands. Otherwise, you will be stuck in the corner, like a dunce; or worse, you will hang down your head and move on, back into the world. 

 I know that is a little harsh and probably more than I should have said, but in the real world, those who walk away from the Lord, do so because they either don't get their way, or they just thought following Jesus was going to be all about peace and happiness. This is not a picnic or an easy road; as a matter of fact, this road is hard, because when we get beat up, we get to express joy in the midst of it! 

 That might seem simple enough to do, if you have the right attitude and enough trust in God; but there are a lot of brothers and sisters that will walk away from the Lord, just because they had some sort of death or disaster in the family. The rain falls on the good and the bad; we all have a fragile body that is subject to death; the big difference is that we who believe and know where we are going, deal with the situation by drawing closer to God...

"My dear brothers and sisters, if someone among you wanders away from the truth and is brought back, you can be sure that whoever brings the sinner back will save that person from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins." (James 5:19-20 NLT)