Driven By Instinct

Read: Jude 17-21

In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.

Jude 18

IN WORD Guidance is always a pressing issue for the Christian. Pick a moment in your life—any moment at all—and it is likely that you have needed guidance on some critical area at that particular moment. We are always in need of direction, and most of us are acutely aware of that need.

The unbeliever, as this passage says, is a slave to instinct and self. Those who do not follow God must follow their own internal logic. And that logic is a mess of distorted perspectives, most often driven by self. The self-guided person will make decisions based on emotional needs, cravings for self-esteem, physical impulses, and present-life planning. There is nothing eternal about their choices, no urge to submit to their Creator, no consistent willingness to put others’ needs ahead of their own desires. Even in their highest moral behavior, they are driven from within, where the Spirit does not dwell.

We, too, often lapse into instinctual decision making. Though we want God’s guidance and ask for it, we often do not wait for it. We make decisions based on what our internal logic tells us. Is that logic guided by the Spirit? Or do we serve our own emotional needs, self-esteem cravings, physical impulses, and present-life interests? We are inhabited by God’s wise, eternal Spirit. But are we driven by Him?

IN DEED When we are driven by our own internal impulses and reasoning, we are settling for second best. Even when those instincts are shaped by years of discipleship, they are still subject to sin and deception. We can use them to God’s glory, but we can’t trust them. They must always be submitted to the guiding mind of God.

We do not need to follow the patterns of this world. We are not left to figure things out on our own. We are not ruled by our base desires, or even by our noble ones. We have not been abandoned to our own moral codes and higher philosophies. We are called to follow our Leader. We must submit our instincts to Him and follow Him diligently.

Let temporal things serve your use, but the eternal be the object of your desire.

—THOMAS À KEMPIS