If you watch television you most likely have seen the heartburn medicine commercials that feature a female physician trying to play a violin in a string quartet or a male physician trying to use a jackhammer on a construction project. The physicians are not doing well. The voiceover says, “If you don’t want your doctor doing your job why should you be doing his?” It struck me that many of us are trying to do God’s job. We are trying to save ourselves. And we are lousy at it. Selfishness is embedded so deeply within our being that we make a dozen or so selfish decisions every day without even being aware. Paul was a law-keeper’s law-keeper and he finally cries out, “Who will rescue me from me?”
Romans 7, “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” If Paul couldn’t do it, neither can we.
Many of Jesus’ parables were stories about things people saw every day. The genius behind this was each time they saw those things they were reminded of His teaching. Since most of us see many commercials it would not be surprising if Jesus was physically among us that He would tell parables based on television commercials. I am hoping the next time you see a Nexium advertisement you will remember that Jesus is our savior and we don’t have to do it ourselves.
Written by Roger Bothwell on June 8, 2012
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org