Henry Ford reportedly liked his cars cheap, reliable, and black.

Cheap, in that in today’s dollars you could buy one for about $7K. In fact every year they were made he sold them for less. You read that right; when new technology made things cheaper for him to make cars he responded by lowering the price. Can you imagine that today?

Reliable, in that once he found one that was perfect (the T) he stuck with it. And black because, well, because black paint was the cheapest and easiest to match when making repairs. Henry liked things simple, consistent, and he decided what people wanted.

Our worship of Christ is a little bit like that. It cost a lot up front, the blood of our Lord, but now salvation is full and free. Reliable? No man comes to the father but through him. And he cannot lie or ever break a promise. Black? Well, in the sense that the way we worship God is simple, and the same for everyone, yes.

What folks have a hard time with is that part about Henry “deciding what people want for them.” While this is bad business for a car maker, it makes a lot of sense for our creator. Our God knows what we need and provides it for us. We grump sometimes because we think we have the “right” to sin. Doesn’t that sound silly? But we are belligerent, and insist like little children that we must touch the hot stove, we like to touch the hot stove, and who are you to tell me touching the hot stove is going to hurt me? To be ornery, and to illustrate how we often rationalize this, I set you up by the turn of phrase to put what is good in a bad light. Henry was right, but his attitude can be looked at wrong!

The reality is we have a LOT of liberty in Christ, just as children probably have toys, pets, books, a zillion other things they could do but they obsess on that stupid hot stove just because you say they can’t touch it. We can work, play, live, love, and do so many good things but when we read we must give up sinful destructive actions we protest we are somehow cheated. Folks reinvent the bible teachings to suit themselves, removing things like obedience, mercy, and forgiveness for others because they are such a bother. Instead you must only believe and you’re saved, they say, because that’s neat and tidy and easy and no one feels like they are having to change or give anything up.

Dumb. But you know Henry’s lesson was not lost on everyone. During WWI when the men (and their work horses) went off to war, women were left to run the farms. Needing some help, many bought these newfangled contraptions called “tractors.” I have been to the farm equipment museum in Nebraska, and the one thing that really strikes you were the clever marketing these machine makers employed. It’s awesome! Because they were selling to ladies, the one thing the most successful companies offered wasn’t always a good price or high quality. It was a rainbow of colors!

Randy