Getting It Directly From The Source

There are few things in life more distasteful than trying to buy a new car from the dealership. It is an experience fraught with lies, deception, subterfuge, and malice. And that’s just what I bring to the whole charade.

You see the dealership’s job is to provide me with a car while extracting from me as much money as they possibly can. My job is to drive away with more car than they want to give me while forking over the least amount of money possible. It is basically an exercise in organized thievery where both parties are trying to act as the perpetrator while hoping not to end up as the victim.

There is one advantage I’ve discovered I have: I can walk away and the dealership cannot.

Inevitably, towards the end of this rumble, they send in the closer: He’s the guy whose job is to extract the last possible nickel out of the buyer and get the signature on the dotted line. When I was younger, I didn’t understand why I had to work with Bubba the sales-flunky for hours on end to wear him down, only to have them send in the first string for round two. Well, now I do. So, the first thing I tell Bubba to do is to get the closer or risk losing his commission. Then I give the closer my best offer and either the deal gets done or I walk away. Simple as that. Surprising how I never get all the way off the lot . . .

Dealing directly with the source is always the best way. The Apostle Paul agrees with me:

The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ (the descendant) came, inheriting the promises and distributing them to us. Obviously this law was not a firsthand encounter with God. It was arranged by angelic messengers through a middleman, Moses. But if there is a middleman as there was at Sinai, then the people are not dealing directly with God, are they? But the original promise is the direct blessing of God, received by faith. If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time. Galatians 3:19-22 The Message

The Good News of “The Message” of Jesus is that we now get to deal directly with the source. We no longer need to struggle to live by a list of rules we cannot. We now live by faith. We now see that it’s impossible to attain a level of purity that would please God through our own actions; we know that the only way to get there is through the actions of Jesus on our behalf. We’ve gone strait to the source and He lifted a huge weight off our shoulders.

Don’t hassle with the struggle to be what you cannot. Go directly to the source who gives you the blessing of God simply because you have faith in Him.