Strings

Picture this: a string... that shouldn't be too difficult, right? Being a college student, it's the simple things that make a difference (like fresh laundry, good food, days off, etc.)

Being a musician at heart and somewhat by hand, I love stringed instruments. Salvation is pictured by strings. The Gospel is that we are strings. By ourselves, we have little or no worth. Our significance is based purely on the fact that we are created by God. God's creation and our significance cannot be separated! Thankfully, Christ didn't just create us though. We were created for a purpose, a reason for living. Christ created us so that we would worship Him. Ever since the Fall, we have struggled with wanting to worship Him and ourselves, but one day the struggle will end! The design has been created, is being sustained, and will be restored!

Our lives are like strings in the sense that we are also strapped. As creation, because of Adam, we are naturally bound to where we don't belong. Picture a string strapped onto the wrong instrument. It just doesn't work too well. Similarly, we were once trapped in sin. We belonged to a master who controlled our lives; we were our own masters.

But praise God the story doesn't end there! Everything happens according to His design, so even though we did and do mess up, God still shows grace! God frees His children from captivity, so the string is loosed from the wrong instrument. We are indeed free from sin, but again praise God the story doesn't end there! God still shows grace.

We are not simply free from one instrument and loosed into the air. Rather, we were bound, are loosed so that we can be bound once more.

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:12-14).

One last thought: It is when the strings are pressed in various places that beautiful music comes out and if our lives are strings, what does that mean for the trials we face? And with that question, I recommend James chapter 1.

Making pens and making a difference!

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