At church we sing a song called “Lord I Want To Be A Christian In My Heart”, and one of the verses says “I don’t want to be like Judas in my heart, in my heart, I don’t want to be like Judas in my heart.”

Don’t you know the Lord was in control of Judas, too? I remember when I read John 13:26-27, I realized Judas hadn’t meant to betray Jesus during the entire time he walked with Jesus. Because before then, he was following Jesus, and helping His ministry, etc. It looks to me like God used Judas for His purpose, the same way He used other people to accomplish things.

So, back to the question, do you want to be like Judas?

By that I mean, where is your heart, and who are you focusing on? When you do things, what are you thinking about?

Ezekiel 24:25 – “Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters,”

Where the mind goes, the heart follows….

Genesis 6:5 – “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Who are you focusing on? Yourself, or God?

Colossians 1:10 “10That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God [with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition].”

Philippians 2:3 – “Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends] or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself [thinking more highly of one another than you do of yourselves].”

There is the possibility that our Lord is using you for His accomplishments. Hmmm, that goes for me, too. And I don’t want to get lost in all the busyness of trying to accomplish what I want to do, forgetting to ask God what He wants me to do. As my friend reminded me, sometimes we need to remember to “be still and know that He is God.”

Psalm 46:10 – “Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth!”

What can you see about yourself that you actually do to help others? Can you see that you are a “good idea” planter? Do you plant ideas in other’s minds so they can take it and run with it?

Do you “teach others” when they ask your opinions? Do you “refer others” to people who can help them? Or do you “help them” yourself?

Sometimes I feel like a puppet, or a pawn, that someone else is moving, and sometimes I don’t like where I’m going, and get upset, and then I have to repent. One day the Lord reminded me that I’ve been purchased by His blood.

I keep reminding myself of what Paul said in Galatians 5:17 “For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and the [desires of the] Spirit are opposed to the flesh (godless human nature); for these are antagonistic to each other [continually withstanding and in conflict with each other], so that you are not free but are prevented from doing what you desire to do.”

One night I asked my husband “just how free am I?” Think about it. Are we really free? We’re not. Once we give our lives to our Lord, we become a slave to Christ.

1 Corinthians 7:22 – “For he who as a slave was summoned in [to union with] the Lord is a freedman of the Lord, just so he who was free when he was called is a bond servant of Christ (the Messiah).”

Once we decide to follow Jesus, we ask Him into our lives, and then guess what! He purchases us with His own Blood. Yep, He ransoms us from captivity, and instead of being a slave to sin, we become a slave to Jesus Christ. So, we become free from our pain and misery, and a slave to joy and peace and long suffering.

We trade our burdens in for the burden of Jesus and His burden is light.

When we get married, we become a slave to our marriage and also to Jesus, so for the sake of our faith in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, we are even more a slave; not only to our Lord, but to our commitment to our spouse.

So, if you like your freedom, the most you can have is freedom in Christ Jesus. If you get married, you’re cutting out a lot of your freedom, because then you have to do what your spouse says, and if you’re a woman, that means you have to go to the church he goes to, and if you’re a man, that means you have to treat your wife the same way that Jesus treats His Church, and we are His Church.

Do you want the Lord to use you as a pawn to accomplish His means, and then discard you because you are sinful? Read Matthew 7:21-23.

Don’t think the Lord won’t use you, even if you are sinful, because He will. He used many people in the bible to cause circumstances to change according to His big plan for all of us. And guess what!

He still is.