The farmer’s dog was mourning woefully as his neighbor walked up and asked him, “Why is that dog carrying on like that?” The farmer replied in an expressionless tone, “He’s layin’ on a rake.” You might say, “Well, why doesn’t the stupid dog get up and move instead of just lay there in misery!?!” The fact is that sometimes we will continue in misery rather than put out the effort to change. With that, we end up mourning woefully to all those around us because we are “layin’ on the rake” and we won’t take hold of ourselves to have a change of mind. If we are miserable in any area of life, if we are uncomfortable in any way, now is the time to have a change of mind. Now is the time to step up to the plate and take full responsibility for our attitudes and our life. Until we do that, we will just be like the dog laying on the rake mourning in misery for whatever life doles out to us.
Jesus let us know that we don’t have to lay around in misery. He said the time has come that the good things of the kingdom of God are now within our grasp. We can now have change for a new life in which there is peace, freedom, joy, healing, health, and purpose. We can now have assurance of being with God in heaven for eternity. He told us how to get this new life in the kingdom, in which God rules. “Repent…and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). In other words, “Change your mind and the way you look at things and what you believe. Give yourself to believe the good news of what Jesus has accomplished for you. His blood that he shed for you on the cross, is the one and only thing that makes you righteous in God’s sight. The thirty nine lashes that tore his body open with a barbed whip at the hands of a Roman soldier, was to provide healing for your sick body. The mental torture of sin, of separation from God, and the taunts of the devil that overwhelmed his mind, was taken to provide peace to your troubled mind. Embrace what Jesus did for you with all your heart and live by that word of God, following Jesus. We don’t have to lay in misery due to the gouging prongs of life. We can embrace what Christ has done for us and rise up in him with change and a new life. Get off the rake!
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