Johnhwilburn.org

My pet dog Vincy (short for Vincentian) has always been a ferocious guard dog. I wrote yesterday about how seriously he takes protecting the yard.

Then a few months ago a strange thing happened….

Vincy decided he wanted to be an inside dog.

I’m not really sure why it happened, but he decided to spend the majority of his time inside of the house. Vincy would walk into the house while on his lead, and continue stretching it farther. Eventually he could almost get to the kitchen table!

I was hesitant about letting him off the lead because Vincy is a fairly aggressive dog. His fighting other dogs, or of course biting people would create a serious problem for me! Last Monday I finally decided to let him off the lead as an experiment, and on Tuesday set up some galvanized to make sure he couldn’t jump from my yard into the road.

Since that time I haven’t had one problem!

Well he did fight one dog, but I’m pretty sure the dog had it coming 🙂

He usually just stays on the porch in his normal spot while I’m gone, and won’t even come off the porch till I call him. Why does Vincy obey me so well? Because the privileges of being inside the house are much greater than than the privileges of being outside.

See there are things you get inside you don’t get as an outside dog:

1. You can lay in front of the fan
2. Your within easy reach of any food that may be “accidentally” dropped
3. And yes, you occasionally get to sleep in the bed

Vincy in his nature is still a vicious attack dog, but he submits and obeys because being inside is much better than outside.

That’s just like the motivation of God’s Grace for our lives

Through Christ we receive every privilege that belongs to God’s children. Including a home in heaven, and glorified body. The blessings of heaven are far greater than this world could ever try to offer us.

So like Vincy I submit to the call of God and fight my sin-nature in the power of the Spirit. Because life in Christ is always sweeter than in the world.