The other day, a guy in a truck blew a stop sign, pulled right in front of me, and sped down the road.  I was super annoyed and wished all kinds of misfortune on him (“LET HIM GET PULLED OVER, LORD!”).

Seconds later, I thought about my reaction and judgments.  The driver was reckless and had no regard for me.  Wasn’t my annoyance understandable and acceptable?  I asked the Lord.

The Lord said, “Which nature was annoyed?  My divine nature or your fallen nature?” The Lord’s questions reframed the whole scenario.  I was looking through the lens of good and evil.  Who was right, who was wrong?  My reactions and judgments were acceptable if I was right (at least in my mind).  This is how we roll.  We justify a whole lot of our actions and reactions based on the knowledge of good and evil.

But the Lord wasn’t using that lens.  He was asking about the source of my reactions and judgments.  That’s what really counts to Him.  God looks at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). That which issues from the fallen nature is fallen, no matter how good it looks, no matter what our justification.  That which issues from the divine nature is divine, regardless of how it looks.  Or as Jesus said, “Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

Every Christian is born of the Spirit.  Paul says, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).  If I’m born of the Spirit, the Spirit can be the source of my actions and reactions.  As I grow spiritually, more of who I am and what I do sources from the Spirit, less from the flesh.

This is the hope Christians enjoy.  I pray to see things though the Lord’s eyes more and more.  And I pray more of my actions and reactions will source from Christ, not myself.