The Stick

Week Thirty-Three, 2019

By Florida Senator John Grant, Retired

But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds. Psalm 73:28

It’s a term I learned when I was in pilot training. The saying “You have the stick” is used when one pilot in the cockpit turns over control of the plane to another in the cockpit. The word stick is used to describe the yolks that control the aircraft. It is a holdover from early flying days when piloting the plane was done by moving a stick that came up from the floor.

It is all encompassing. It controls the pitch, the roll and the yaw. That means that it has the total control of up and down, left and right and roll to change direction. In other words, the stick and whomever operates it controls every movement. So when one pilot says to another, “you now have total control.”

There is a spiritual parallel here. Natural man goes through life in total control of every movement and direction. We are built that way. But, when we become a Christian, we surrender total life control to Christ, who then points us in the right direction.

When we let go, something magical happens. We give God room to work running our lives. Our call is to be obedient. Turning your life over to God means turning your own will over to Him and this means you have to put your own interests behind the interests of God. Paul wrote that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24) for it was as if “our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Rom 6:6).

If we are truly submitting to God this means we are dying to ourselves. That is we are dying to our own desires, wants, and passions of the flesh and turning our lives over to God for Him to use for His purposes and for His glory for nothing else matters in this life than to do the will of God.

You might ask “is this good” because surrender means defeat, but with a total surrender to God, it is a victory. If you want a change in your life, if you want forgiveness and peace and joy that you’ve never known before, God demands total surrender. He becomes the Lord and the ruler of your life.

You must now make Jesus the Lord over your life. Jesus must now become both your Lord and Savior, not just your Savior.

Remember to give him “the stick” of your life.

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SOMETIMES TRUE STORIES

A guy looked at my Harley and said, “I wonder how many people could have been fed for the money that motorcycle cost.” I replied, “I am not sure, it fed a lot of families in Milwaukee Wisconsin who built it, it fed the people who make the tires, it fed the people who made the components that went into it, it fed the people in the copper mine who mined the copper for the wires, it fed people in Decatur Il. at Caterpillar who make the trucks that haul the copper ore, I guess I really don’t know how many people it fed.”

That is the difference between capitalism and welfare mentality. When you buy something, you put money in people’s pockets and give them dignity for their skills. When you give someone something for nothing, you rob them of their dignity and self worth. Capitalism is freely giving your money in exchange for something of value, Socialism is taking your money against your will and shoving something down your throat that you never asked for.

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• Anesthesia was used during childbirth for the first time in 1847. After giving birth, the mother named her child Anaesthesia.

• Before legally buying a mouse trip in California, a person must first buy a hunting license.

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QUOTES YOU CAN USE

The biggest lie the church ever told is that you can win souls with entertainment. Charles Spurgeon

Every name has a future story.

If it is to be it flows from me.

Where focus goes, energy goes. – What is your focus?

Learn – Earn – Return

It’s much easier to distract ourselves from our own faults by sitting here and pointing out the faults in other people, but let me be honest with you about how God’s Son is manifested in my own life.

Your Sin Will Never Affect God’s Love for You, but It Will Affect God’s Use of You.

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