Bumper Pushing

Let us imagine that someone presents you with a brand new car as a gift which for illustration purposes we will say represents your new life in Christ. Now you do the most unusual thing, you get behind the car and begin to push. Why would you do that? Because when you look around you see all the other Christians are pushing their car so you follow their example. Because you are a new Christian you are so happy you start pushing your car and begin telling everyone “isn’t this great.” After awhile you begin to wear down but another Christian says to you, "what you need to do is bear down more and use leverage," so you try that for awhile. Then another Christian tells you what you need to do is turn around and push the bumper with your legs and so you try that for a time but no matter what you do after a time you begin to wear down and you begin to think this is hard.

Then one day you go to a meeting about bumper pushing. The speaker is very interesting and presents some new ideas on bumper pushing so you leave all fired up and are determined to push on that bumper better that ever and for a while you do. Then one day you just can’t push it anymore and you stop. Another Christian sees you and yells over to you, “don’t give up man, you can do it I know you can, don’t you know how much Jesus loved you so that you could have the opportunity to live for Him?” Now you feel guilty for stopping, so you start pushing again but there is no joy in it like there was at first.

Then one day another Christian pulls up beside you who is sitting inside their car and they see you pushing. So they stop and get out and ask what is the problem; no problem I’m just pushing my car, praise God that I have one to push. Pushing your car? Why in the world are you pushing? Because I love God, don’t you? Of course I love the Lord but that still doesn’t explain why you’re pushing the car. Well that is what you do; look around everyone else is doing the same thing. Why we are some of the best bumper pushing Christian you will ever find. So he looks around in disbelief and says, stop pushing, come here I want to show you something. So he goes around to your car opens the hood and says look do see that? So you look and you see this glowing power source of some kind, what is it? That is what makes the car run come around here and get inside and set down. See that key there, it is called faith, see that pedal that is called grace, see that steering wheel it is called obedience. Now what you do is turn the key and press on that peddle and steer.

I believe, and this come from my own personal experience in living the Christian life; that so many times we do not understand the old covenant and the new covenant as we should. Though we are under the new covenant we live like we are under the old covenant.  In very simple terms the old covenant was governed by the law but the new covenant is governed by grace. Both are very important and play a significant part in understanding our relationship with God. However, if they are misunderstood our relationship with the Lord can become on in which we are be pushing on the outside bumper instead of driving from the inside.  Like the law of gravity and aerodynamics must be understood if you want to fly so law and grace must be understood if you want to soar for God.

The new covenant is what we live under, “this cup” Jesus said is the new covenant in my blood. The new covenant was promised by God. It is a covenant in which he forgives our sins and makes us righteous. God promised, “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33. Through our relationship in Christ God promised to make us mighty oaks of righteousness, Isaiah 61:3.

I don’t know how to stress this enough, what God promised was an internal working on our heart that flows to an outward life, “I will write my law on their hearts.” That is so unlike the philosophies and religions of man where external forces are brought to bear upon man to change him. But as we saw in our last blog, "The Doo Doo Catapult" external force does not work in our relationships with each other, so why would we think it will work in our relationship with the Lord?