When Christopher was 14, he saved up enough money to buy himself a new minibike. He liked to ride it and he often asked me, his mother, if I would like to try it out. I wasn’t very eager, but one summer day there were about a dozen young people at our place, and they were taking turns riding the minibike. Christopher insisted, “Come on, Mom. You take a turn too.”
Now I was used to riding my pedal bike. The brake on my bike was a hand lever right up by the handle grip, so when I squeezed tightly on this brake lever, the bike would stop quickly. But the minibike was altogether different-it was just the opposite. Right beside the handle grip was the lever that controlled the gas, so when you squeezed that lever you went faster instead of stopping.
Becoming a Christian is just the opposite of our old way of life too. First Corinthians 15:22 tells us, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” In Colossians 3:910, it tells us that when we have become a Christian by accepting the Lord Jesus as our Saviour, we “have put off the old man [old nature] with his deeds; and have put on the new man [new nature], which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.”
I hopped on the minibike. As long as I stayed on the driveway things went pretty smoothly, but when I started to ride out across the field, the going got a lot rougher. I got scared, so I automatically squeezed what would have been the brake lever on my bike. The minibike speeded up and started flying over boulders, mowing down saplings, shooting down little hills and over potholes. The faster I went - the tighter I squeezed; the tighter I squeezed - the faster I went!
The young people watching me were having a good laugh at my expense. I was beginning to think things over. You can’t ride a minibike the same way you ride a bicycle, and that’s the way it is in life too. When we become a Christian, our whole way of life is changed. Romans 6:13-14 tells us, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
As I realized the change I needed to make in the handling of the minibike, I let go of my grip on the gas lever . . . and gradually came to a stop.
We need to let go of our hold on our lives too and let God control them. “Our conversation [way of life] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who . . . is able even to subdue all things unto Himself ” (Philippians 3:20-21).
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
ML-02/17/2002