: Are you CLINGING to Christ?

[Evangelist Sonja Jones]

You are to cling to the Lord your God." – These were Joshua's parting words to wayward Israel, just before his death. (See Joshua 23:8)

 

CLING :

 

"To hold fast to something, as by grasping, sticking, embracing, or winding around".

• As a wet raincoat would CLING to your back.
• As a person on the verge of death would CLING to life.

"To remain attached in thought or practice".

 

"To follow close after, pursue hard; to resist separation".

 

Jesus put it this way: "If anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself… and keep close behind me." (Luke 9:23a – Phillips)

 

CLINGING conveys the sense of desperation: That there is no other viable option.

 

QUESTION: ARE YOU CLINGING TO CHRIST? Or to:

 

Your bank account?

 

Your reputation?

 

Your capabilities?

 

SELF SUFFICIENCY is the arrogant assumption that I can go it alone… without God.

 

CLINGING is the humble acknowledgment that I must be intimately connected to God for life to make sense and to be worth living.

 

In Joshua's admonition to CLING to God he gives this warning:

 

"If you ever go back and CLING to the rest of these nations (i.e. the world and its values)… (they) shall be to you as:

 

A snare and a trap… A whip on your sides… Thorns in your eyes… until you perish from off this good land which the Lord your God has given you." (Joshua 23:12)

 

QUESTION: Are you CLINGING to Christ? Or do you have it so together that you can go it alone? If so, are you willing to pay the price of independence?

 

—Facts of the Matter