2 Samuel 12 The consequences of sin

The year before this chapter begins, David had sinned against the Lord. He's seen Bathsheba naked and did not take his thoughts or imagination captive. Instead he dwelled on the thoughts of lust and let his imagination run wild with them. Next, he used his position of authority to get Bathsheba into his house and have sex with her. When she became pregnant and his scheme began to fall apart, he then used his authority (which the Lord had given him) to have her husband killed. During all this time he was also sinning by not taking his sinful thoughts captive and replacing them with God's truth. Plus he was continually trying to hide his sin instead of confessing it and repenting because he didn't want to stop. He now had a false god and idol. He had placed fulfilling his lust above God, showing that he loved himself, more then he loved God.

David must have been happy during that past year though right? I mean after all he got to play with Bathsheba during that time and that's what he'd wanted, right? Wrong! Psalm 32 and 51 tell us a little of how he felt during that year: Psalm 32:3–4 —When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. *For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Selah * He was being disciplined by the Lord during that year as the Lord wanted to bring him to repentance and that discipline began as soon as he refused to take that first thought captive! He eventually became sick and weak, unable to do the things he normally did due to his illness. He was sick at heart as well as his body for he knew he was living in sin. Yet, he still wouldn't give it up or confess it, and he still continued to sin, to hide it and then to sin more by having her husband killed. He lost his joy, he was no longer a good witness for the Lord, and his power. The Lord wasn't going to answer his prayers when he was doing this, that's for sure! He probably became short with people, snapping at the least little thing, as well as grumpy until he became downright depressed.

Strange isn't it. He got what he wanted, even though he knew it was a sin, and yet instead of being happy, he winds up depressed! We see that the Lord gave David more then enough time to confess and repent of his sin on his own...over a year, but still he refused, so the Lord sent the prophet Nathan to him with a message.

Nathan pretended he was telling David about a case that needed to be judged, though he never said that. He just let David think so, and told him about a rich man who had badly used a poor man by taking the poor man's one and only ewe. David got very angry when he heard what the man had done and said that the man should be put to death for it, and should have to pay back what he'd taken 4 times over. Although angry, he was still being fair because that's what God's law calls for in such a situation. Isn't it funny how easy it is to see other people's sins and judge them, but how hard it is to see our own at times?

It was then that Nathan revealed to David that he was the man he had been talking about. Nathan then told him what God said about it: that He'd given David all he had, made him King, given him power and authority and all the women and servants he had, made him victorious over all his enemies, etc. and still David took another man's only wife and then had him killed. He then told David what his sin would cost him. I'm sure David was totally stunned, but to his credit, he finally stopped hiding, didn't try to make any excuses, and immediately confessed, agreeing that he had indeed sinned against the Lord.

At that point, Nathan assured David that the Lord would allow him to live even though the death sentence was what the law called for for what he'd done. However, there were severe consequences for his sin which would still come to pass. Those consequences, all of which the Lord had told him, began as soon as Nathan left that day. One of my commentaries explains this better then I can so I'll simply quote what it says:

God was ready to forgive David’s sins, but He could not prevent those sins from “bringing forth death” (James 1:15). God’s grace forgives, but God’s government must allow sinners to reap what they sow. Psalm 99:8: "you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds." “He shall restore fourfold!” David had declared punishment concerning the man in Nathan’s story, so God accepted his sentence. The sword never did depart from David’s household: the baby died; Absalomkilled Amnon, who had ruined Tamar (both men are David's sons and Tamar is his daughter); then Joab killed Absalom (2 Sam 18:9–17); and Adonijah (David's son) was slain by Benaiah (1 Kings 2:24–25). Fourfold! Add to these trials the awful ruin of Tamar, the shameful treatment of David’s wives by his son Absalom (2 Sam 12:11; 2 Sam 16:20–23), plus the rebellion of Absalom, and you can see that David paid dearly for a few moments of lustful pleasure. He sowed lust and reaped the same; he sowed murder and reaped murders, for “whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7). Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines

We often console ourselves thinking, "Well, David's sins were awful so that's probably why there were such terrible consequences". The problem with that kind of thinking is that God considers all sin the same. It doesn't matter if it's telling a little white lie, not studying His Word, cheating, or killing someone. The consequences of all sin is death. I'm not saying that if we tell a little white lie that someone in our family is going to die-not at all! God is always just. What I'm saying though is that we tend to make our own sins seem very little, especially in comparison to what David did. Yet David's first sin was that he simply didn't take his thoughts captive and replace them with God's Truth. How often do we do that??? And we usually think we get away with it too, don't we? But we never do. Never. Not because God is mean - far from it! But because God is righteous and just and fair and mostly because He loves us and wants what is best for us. It's always easy for us to say the way we've been treated isn't fair, but if someone were to do the same thing to us, we certainly wouldn't want them to get off the hook.

The consequences of David's sins lasted the for the rest of his life and the lives of his children. Again, not because God's mean, but simply because that's what sin does. It's done that since the very first sin. Look at how long the consequences of Adam's sin has lasted... it's still going on! I have looked back on my own life and can honestly say that I can see how my own sins, even "little sins" have affected my children and are still affecting them. It's another aspect of sin that we often choose to ignore and not think about. Especially if the sin is something we want to do like David did. But our sins affect our children and other people as well. It is not just us that is affected by them. Everyone pays when someone sins. That's why God hates sin so much. He hates to see us hurt. He loves us. Think how we as parents feel when we know someone or something is hurting our child - we'll do anything to stop it! We hate it! Well, that's a small taste of how God feels toward all sin because He knows far better then we do, just how horribly sin hurts us, His children whom He loves.

He knows we are enslaved to and by sin and because He loves us and hates how it hurts us, He was even willing to come and die so we could finally be free from it. And so we are, just as David was freed when God forgave his sins. Yet the consequences of those sin continued just as ours do. God will not stop the law of gravity because someone was stupid enough to think they could fly off their roof. Nor will he stop the consequences of our sins because if He did, there would be nothing to stop us from continuing to sin. God's grace forgives us, but His government must allow us to reap what we have sown, even though it hurts Him as much as us.

The Lord shows us something else that's very important in this story that we often overlook. Often when we sin, especially if we think it's a "terrible sin" like I'm sure David did, we then decide that He can no longer use us, that we're no good to Him anymore. We'll spend hours, days, months, sometimes years, thinking about what a horrible thing we did and how bad we were and "now God can't use us". But that too is a lie that needs to be taken captive and replaced with the truth God shows us here. Because after David confessed and repented, God did indeed use him and bless him. He even sent Nathan back to him to assure him that he was being blessed.

After the child that had been conceived in sin had died, God caused Bathsheba to become pregnant again, with another son. This time she gave birth to a boy they named Solomon. The Lord sent Nathan to tell David that He loved this child and of course David knew that the child had been given him by the Lord as all children are. Next the Lord gave David yet another victory over his enemies and another crown.

We see that as soon as David had confessed and repented of his sin, although there would be consequences from the sin, his relationship with the Lord was completely restored. This is shown in more detail in psalms 32 and 51. It's very true of all of us as well. When we're forgiven, God promises to never bring our sin up to us or anyone else, not even Himself, ever again, and to never use it against us. What an awesome God we serve! When we're forgiven, God restores us to our previous place of service and our relationship with Him is repaired. We once again have the joy of our salvation. So we must never allow Satan to trick us into thinking that we've gone too far or that we can't be used by the Lord anymore etc. Where sin abounds, grace abounds more!

Of course there's much much more in this chapter then what I've shown here, but this will have to do for now. Please read 2 Samuel 12 and then read psalm 32 and psalm 51. When reading the psalms see if you can see what David lost and how he felt during his year of sin and what he gained and how he felt when he finally confessed and repented of his sin. The reason being that his experience is one we all share when we sin, regardless of what our sin is. If there's any portion of the psalms or of 2 Samuel 12 that you'd like to discuss, I'll be happy to do so.

 

LiveJournal Tags: 2 Samuel 12,Confession,consequences of sin,forgiveness,grace,guilt,mercy,psalm 32,psalm 51,reaping and sowing,repentance,sowing and reaping

A relationship with God 2

Even after realizing that God was always with me, I remember how at 1st I badly wanted someone to teach me His Word. I read and studied it on my own every day, but I was just sure I was missing more then I was getting. I'd read the verses that tell us that God is our teacher, but felt that I just wasn't smart enough or something for Him to be able to get through to me. I told myself that I didn't doubt God, but instead doubted myself. I didn't realize at the time just how sinful that thought was, as I didn't follow it through to it's logical conclusion - I'm more powerful then God and smarter then He is since I can prevent Him from doing what He says He will. Praise God that He is a merciful, loving God and understands us much better then we understand ourselves and doesn't treat us as our sins deserve.

I even prayed, asking God to send me a teacher, but He didn't - at least not for quite awhile. Instead, He showed me that He really was teaching me. I thought the way He reassured me was pretty neat too as it combined another thing I was unsure of still. Since I was still getting to know Him, I was also struggling with how to tell the difference between His Voice and my own thoughts.

Each day I spent time reading His Word and talking to Him about what I was reading. I'd comment on it, ask Him questions about it etc. When I asked Him questions, sometimes it would make me think of another verse, either right away, or later on. When that happened, just in case it was the Lord leading me, I'd go to that scripture and read there for a bit. What amazed me was that it always pertained to whatever it was He was teaching me about, even when I didn't think so at first. Being stubborn however, I thought maybe it was just a coincidence. Then other things would happen. When I was able to go to church, it was as though someone had been spying on my time with the Lord each day and had told the Pastor what I'd learned from the Lord, and especially anything I was questioning whether or not it was from the Lord! It was like the pastor was talking directly to me!

By the way, when I studied with Him, all I had at the time was my bible. Bruce did buy me a Strong's Concordance but I couldn't use it as it was too heavy for me to hold due to my disability and the surgery I'd had. So I had no commentaries or anything at all except my Bible and my God.

Other weird things started happening besides seeming like the pastor was talking to me. Someone might call or stop by and out of the blue, they'd bring up the very subject or scriptures I was studying and tell me that their pastor had told them something neat about it and then proceed to tell me exactly what the Lord had been teaching me that week!

As time went by and I became more and more used to strange things like that happening to confirm that the Lord was indeed teaching me. I would like to point out though that I knew the Lord was causing them to happen because I'd prayed about it and He knew I needed reassurance. He was answering my prayers. That was another area of my life that had changed. Instead of having a time of prayer and then not praying again unless there was an emergency or something like that, until the next days prayer time came, I was now praying all the time. Not "formal" prayers, but simply talking to Him. It just grew out of our study time. Since I talked to Him while I was studying, it just seemed natural to continue to talk to Him throughout the rest of the day, so I did.

What truly amazed me was that I seemed to be somehow more in tune with the Lord, and as time went by, that seemed to get stronger and stronger. Often the Lord would warn me before something happened so I could pray about it before hand. It was actually kind of spooky the first few times it happened, but eventually just felt normal. It didn't even occur to me that anything different was happening until I overheard Bruce tell one of his friends that he should ask me to pray about it for him because God always answered my prayers right away. I heard the friend start to laugh and then Bruce told him that He was really serious and began to give him examples. I hadn't even been aware that Bruce had paid any attention to those things, but he had. Hearing him tell his friend about them is what made me realize just how much had changed in my life.

I no longer doubted that God was teaching me. I knew He was! I talked to Him constantly and it didn't occur to me to doubt if He was listening, not after all the times He'd shown me He was by having the pastor talk about something there was no way He could have known about! And because I talked to Him all the time and listened for Him too, it didn't occur to me to wonder when He'd answer anything I prayed about. I simply knew He would answer me. If the answer wasn't immediate, then I knew there was a good reason for that and He'd answer when the time was right. I realized too that the Lord had somehow become my friend. A real friend. Yet there was a difference between our friendship and say my friendship with another person. In our friendship, there was never any doubt about who was in charge or who was Lord and who was servant. At the same time though, there was a love there that filled and still fills every part of me. God has continued to show me ever since then, that there is no area of my life that He doesn't want to be an intimate part of; there's nothing I can't talk to Him about.

I've discovered that God is the greatest teacher anyone can have. Since that beginning, the Lord has blessed me with a huge bible library full of commentaries, and every kind of theological book you can think of. It's truly awesome! There is no one He cannot teach! It's really wonderful to have a living, growing relationship with Him too. Another great thing about it is that He wants to have this kind of relationship with everyone. There's nothing magical about it either. All you have to do is ask!

Job 36:22 —“God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? *

A Relationship With God

When I first got hurt and became disabled, I had no idea just how much my life would change. When I found out that I wasn't going to get better, I fought it. When I was told I couldn't work anymore, I fought it. I failed at both anyway, as my doctors knew I would and more importantly, as the Lord knew I would. See, I didn't just turn to doctors, I turned to the Lord as well, and even He had told me that part of my life was over. Done. Finished. He had something new planned for me. Well, I didn't want something new. I liked my life the way it was, thank you very much. So I alternately fought with Him and repented, making myself even more miserable. Finally, I came to accept it. I grieved for a time, which is normal, and then got about trying to discover what my new life would be.

One of the hardest parts of my new life was loneliness. I was used to being active and being around other people, including friends. Now I couldn't leave the house except occasionally on a weekend if Bruce took me grocery shopping. I guess I expected that I'd still have all my friends, but it didn't work out that way. Oh they came by to see me at first, but their visits got fewer and further between as time went by, until finally they stopped altogether. They still had lives and were busy, I didn't and so I got left behind. That really hurt. I understood they didn't mean to hurt me, but it still hurt, and I was still lonely. Then, one day, the Lord opened my eyes to a scripture as I was studying that morning. It was, Hebrews 13:5–6 —Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” *So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” *

I remember reading it, and it was like a sudden tide of emotions swept over me as I really understood that God was really with me -right then and there, and that He'd never leave me. I remember having a good cry - and it was a good cry because it was joyful tears for a change instead of those from self pity.

He showed me through that scripture and then many more that day as we continued, that He was always there with me and had even promised He wouldn't leave me. That He also lived within me and you can't get much closer then that! He reminded me of what we were doing right then -fellowshipping as some would call it; or simply being friends and having a good time talking with each other like any good friends would.

I suddenly understood that I'd had that all along, but had been so focused on my own self pity for the things I had been focusing on that I didn't have, that I'd missed the most important thing that I did have! The Lord!

I'd also been telling myself that I no longer had any purpose, which of course added to my self pity and feelings of loneliness. The Lord showed me that I was wrong again and I did have purpose but that I was looking in the wrong direction. I was looking at only myself and what pleased me, what I wanted. He gently reminded me that I had been created to do good works which He Himself had already prepared for me. (Ephesians 2:10) I didn't need to go looking for them because He knew what they were and He would lead me to them as I followed Him each day. My job, my purpose, was to bear fruit for Him but again, I didn't need to concern myself with the how's, when's, and where's of it. All I had to concern myself with was making sure that I remained in Him and in His Word each day. (John 15, especially John 15:5–8)

That wasn't a problem since I was now really enjoying my fellowship with Him each day. I used to think of it as my bible study and prayer time, but once I realized that what it was really about was fellowshipping with Him, my whole attitude toward it changed. Really, so did my life, because how could I be lonely when I had my very best friend right there with me all day long to fellowship with?

From that time on I rarely felt lonely again. Oh once in while the old self pity would rise up in my mind, but the Lord taught me to take those thoughts captive and replace them with the Truth that I wasn't alone at all. All I had to do was open my eyes to the truth of His presence and then enjoy it. It was my choice. I could ignore Him or I could start talking to Him and enjoying being with Him. I chose to enjoy being with Him. He's been my constant companion for the last 13 and and a half years now.

I can honestly say that He's never left me and is always ready to listen to whatever I want to talk about or whatever's on my mind. He's also more then ready to talk back to me through His Word and in other ways as well. It really is a two way relationship, not a monologue. It's not pretend. I'm not talking to myself. There have been times that I've asked Him to send me some human company - not because I wasn't enjoying my time with Him, but simply because I also wanted to have contact with others. He understood that as well of course, and always sent someone when I asked. Sometimes He'd even send someone before I got around to asking . I can't imagine going back to living the way I did before, where I just spent X amount of time studying, and X amount of time praying and then went about my business. Now He's always a part of my conscious mind, so I'm always talking to Him and listening to Him, He's part of everything I do. I don't go about my day and try to find time to "spend time with Him" because I spend all my waking hours with Him.

I hope this helps someone else who might be feeling lonely or unsure how to have a relationship with the Lord. It's the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me, and it gets better every year as I our relationship strengthens and gets closer.

 

LiveJournal Tags: companion,friend,god,Hebrews 13:5–6,holy spirit,jesus,John 15,love,relationship,support

The Hall of Faith part 2

Reading about people in the Hall of Faith is always encouraging. It also helps us because it tells us exactly what faith is. Heb 11:1–2 —Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. *This is what the ancients were commended for. * Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we don't see..... What do we hope for? Really?

If we're honest, don't we hope our children will grow up and be productive, responsible citizens that make us proud of them? Don't we hope for grandchildren to love and cherish? Don't we hope for things like enough money to pay the bills or go on vacation, or to buy a car? For food, new clothes, a new computer or Kindle Fire, or maybe a piano or motorcycle? Perhaps a great Christmas for our kids or grandkids, or a godly loving spouse for our child. We hope we can pay our taxes, have a better president, health care, less pain, better health, a good paying job that we actually like, and all kinds of things don't we?

In fact, that very same false teaching we discussed before, the prosperity gospel even encourages us to hope for those things and "claim" them, saying that God will then give them to us. But if we look at the folks in the Hall of fame, what did they hope for? Did they "claim" things like that? No! Does God ever encourage us to? No, He tells us the opposite. Not only did they not hope for or claim things like that, some even left those kind of things behind for God. So once again the Bible shows us how false that kind of teaching is.

We like to know where we're going and what we're going to do, and yet these folks often didn't know those things and some of them that did know, knew they were going into some pretty scary places. What would make someone do that? Only one thing really....love. It reminds me of Ruth who loved her mother in law so much that she gave up literally everything in order to go with her back to Israel. A place she didn't know at all, that was full of strange customs and strange people. Because she loved Naomi though, she went and wound up falling in love with God and Boaz and becoming the ancestor of our Lord.

But how did she learn to love God and how did she know what to be sure of so she could hope for it? In her case, her mother in law, her husband (that died) and later Boaz taught her about Him. Not only did they teach her in words, but their lives taught her as well. Once she got to Israel, I'm sure many of the people she met and became friends with also taught her both with their lives and with words. Naomi would have known the scriptures since childhood as would her sons and of course Boaz, and would have taught her those.

Unfortunately for us though, that's rare to find now days. But then the Lord told us it would be. God warned us it would be like this. That false teachers and false prophets would abound and lead many astray from Him and those who weren't led astray that way, would desire the world more then Him and so would have false teachers that would preach the world's ways instead of His ways. Reading 2 Timothy 3:1-9 gives us a good picture of many Christians in our day. None of them love the Lord. None of them have faith or can be sure of what they hope for, because the things they hope for are like the things I mentioned above. While the people in the hall of fame hoped for the Lord, not to free them from political enemies like the Jew's of Jesus' time, not to give them money or fame or power, or prestige. Not even to get good spouses for their children or whatever. I'm not saying they didn't want their children to marry well or anything like that, I'm saying those weren't things they hoped for. Those were things they did their best about and just went on with their lives because they knew the best was yet to come.

How do we love the Lord with all our hearts, minds and strength, with a love so strong it makes us long to be with Him? I'm afraid that some aren't going to like the answer, but the truth is, it's through studying His Word with Him daily. It's through His Word and talking to Him that we learn about Him; that we learn who He really is, what He's like. It's how our love for Him grows. See, first He loves us and pours His love into our hearts so that we can have the capacity to love Him. Then, as we study His Word with Him, that love for Him grows and expands. It changes us too.

It's similar to a human relationship. If you were to meet someone and fall in love with them and then never see them again, or talk to them or hear from them again, eventually your love would grow cold and die. I've thought of it this way: An abused child rarely knows or understands what love is. They have to be gently and carefully shown and taught about true love for quite a while before they begin to understand it and react to it in any way other then distrust. Aren't we all really abused children? Not by our parents necessarily, but by Satan, our own flesh and the world? Our choice then is to remain abused children, reacting to everyone and everything in our lives out of that abuse; or to latch on to God and His love for us and learn what true love really is; and then eventually to react to everyone and everything in our lives out of that true love.

That's really how the whole world is isn't it? A world full of abused children, continuing to abuse each other, except for the few who've been truly saved and are being gently shown and taught each day by God about His love through His Word. As they learn, they're changed, and become more and more like Him. The more they learn about Him, and His love, the more their love for Him grows. Because they are being taught by Him from His Word, they know that what they're learning is True and that they can be sure of it.

As we learn about Him from the old and new testament, our love becomes so strong that we can even rejoice when going through trials and hard times, just like those in the Hall of faith. This is why Peter says, 1 Peter 1:8–9 —Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, *for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. *

Part of the problem in our world is that the world teaches us lies even about love itself, so that we don't even know what love really is until God begins to teach us from His Word. That's also why He wants us to study His Word and not someone else's word. Someone else may teach us what the world says, like the prosperity people do, but if we study His Word daily, we'll discover the truth not only about Him but about love as well. If we're to have faith, then we must study His Word for that's where faith comes from: Rom 10:17 —Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. * and we know too that without faith, we can't please Him, which makes it even more important to do.

I guess we should also touch more on what faith really is for there is more then one kind of faith, but there is only one kind that saves. When Jesus tells us to "believe", He's telling us to trust Him. That's what's lacking in other kinds of faith. Demons believe and know He is God and they even submit to His Word when He speaks to them, and do so faster then we do for the most part. When we believe and trust Him though, then and only then, are we changed - our lives are changed. That's the kind of faith that saves. That's why Jesus told us to look and see what kind of fruit the person's life showed to determine if they were saved or not. We're frequently told that we were saved to do good works and that God prepared those works for us before creation even. So we see that the works themselves don't save us, it's our faith that saves us and the works or the "fruit" is the evidence of our salvation. It helped me to understand it by realizing that dead faith only touched the mind or intellect and demonic faith touched the mind and emotions, but true faith involves all of us. It touches our minds, our hearts and our wills. True, saving faith leads to obedience which results in good works. By "good works" I don't mean just helping out in a soup kitchen and feeding the poor, although that's certainly one, but works can include many things. The first thing we do in obedience is start studying His Word with Him regularly. (well, that's usually the first thing) Another is being baptized in obedience to Him. Each sin we repent from (meaning we stop doing it) is a "good work", and so on.

Many people seem to have the wrong idea of what studying with Him daily entails. It does not mean that you have to have commentaries or dictionaries or other theology books. It does not mean that you must spend hours every day studying. ALL you need is God and a bible. That's it. As for time spent, that's best determined by each individual and the Lord. It can be 15 minutes if that's really all you have or a half an hour a day, or more. There simply is no "right amount of time" to spend studying with Him. As far as how to study with Him and what that means, it simply means reading your bible and while you're reading it, talking to Him about what you're reading. Asking Him questions, making comments, etc. Just as though the two of you were sitting and reading together - because, in reality, you are! You'll be amazed at how much and how quickly you're learn that way. There simply is no better teacher then the Lord. After all, it IS His Word I honestly didn't have anything other then the Lord and my bible for many years when I started studying with Him either.

I can guarantee you that if we do that, our love for the Lord will grow and grow until we too will truly long for the Lord. When we get to that point, the unsaved sit up and take notice. Because then we're not concerned so much about the things of this world. They mean very little to us and seem to mean even less with each passing day. We'll no longer grieve as the unsaved do either for we'll be sure of what we hope and long for. And we won't be at all afraid of death, not even of pain before death. We'll be like children who've been promised some fantastic gift if we'll let the doctor give us a shot. Our minds won't be on the injection, we'll be excitedly thinking of finally seeing our Lord! And when someone asks us what we hope for, the very first thing that will come to our minds will be being with our Lord, for we'll know that there simply isn't anything or anyone that could possibly be better then that. We'll realize that His love is so fantastic, so amazing, and so far surpasses anything or even anyone this world could offer, that we can't imagine considering anything else. Yes, Heaven is going to be great and I know that the Lord is preparing things so wonderful for us that we can't even begin to imagine them. But you know what? I know that's true, because I know that's just how my Lord is, and while I know I'll enjoy all He's preparing for us, that's really secondary to finally being with Him.

Knowing Him and His love, has changed me radically and I still have much to learn of both. The way of faith - being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (trust) - is the way of victory, peace, assurance, joy and endurance.
Yep. I'm homesick. I want my Daddy!

Let me quote the parts from Hebrews that are especially about all this, but I'd also suggest studying the whole chapter with the Lord when you have time. You won't regret it!

Hebrews 11:9–10 —By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. *For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. *

Hebrews 11:13–16 —All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. *People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. *If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. *Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. *

 

LiveJournal Tags: belief,emotions,faith,god,heart,heaven,jesus,knowledge,love,mind,New Jerusalem,rapture,strength,trust,understanding

The Hall of Faith

Hebrews 11 is often called "the hall of faith" and is one of my favorite chapters, especially when I need encouragement. It reminds me of so very much.

One of the first things it reminds me of is that God has set us apart from the rest of this world. It's more then that though. While it's quite true that God has called us to be separate from the world, we obviously still have to live in it. In Hebrews 11:13–16, as in other places, He tells us how we're to do that, what our frame of mind is to be. After all, we grow up used to thinking of this earth as our home and we know that the only way to change a habit is to replace it with a different one. Here God tells us what we're to replace that habit of thinking with.

Instead of thinking of this world as our home, we're to consider Heaven, New Jerusalem, our home. He says that we're not only to think of it as our home, but we're to "long for it". That chapter in Hebrews shows us more then 16 different people who longed for their real home instead of some great mansion on earth, and some of the terrible hardships they suffered while they were here.

Now that doesn't exactly sound comforting does it? The hardships part I mean. But it really is in a couple of ways. First, it confirms for us that people of faith (for that's what these people are commended for) DO go through horrible hardships. It lets us know that the prosperity gospel's teaching that hardships are caused by lack of faith is way off base. Therefore we don't have to wonder or worry that our own faith is lacking because of the hardships we go through. I haven't seen or heard of a single prosperity preacher who's faith was anywhere near that of any of the folks named in this chapter, and yet they hold themselves up as examples. God's Word doesn't lie though, we know we can trust it, and His Word tells us that no matter how much faith you have, hardships, trials, sickness, death, and sorrow, will come your way. It's quite a comfort and very freeing to know that according to God, these things don't happen to us because of lack of faith.

There's another lesson in these hardships they faced for us too. We notice that it wasn't the hardships that caused them to yearn after their heavenly Home. That surprised me at first, but if you read it carefully, and you study the OT that tells about each of them, you find that they all yearned for their real homes before there was any hardship to cause it. So they weren't just longing to escape their troubles here and that's a major thing to consider. If they weren't longing for that, then what were they longing for that Home for?

The only way I know of to determine things like that, besides studying their lives, is to ask myself, why I'd get homesick at times when I was away from home as a child. That was easy...I wasn't longing for the house, or my toys, I wanted my Mom and Dad! And that, my friends, is what these folks were longing for: they longed for their heavenly Father and their Savior. "Home" was where He was!
There is a danger here that we need to be aware of though. I've heard of orphans who would feel "homesick" although they'd never had a real home that they could remember. What they were really homesick for was what for them was an "ideal" of what they thought home would be like-generally the opposite of what they'd experienced and usually not anything like the reality of what even the best homes are like. There are abused women who are heartbroken when their husband who's been abusing them leaves them. They think it's because they love their husband and he doesn't love them anymore, but he never did really love them, so why all of a sudden are the heart broken? It's because they no longer have the chance of the dream of the ideal marriage with them that they wanted. It's the dream or ideal that's gone; the reality certainly isn't worth being heartbroken over. There's a real danger of that with the Lord too.

We need to be sure that we're like those people who are mentioned in the hall of faith, that we truly love the Lord and not just our idea of who He is. You see, our ideas won't hold up under the pressure of severe trials, hardship and disappointment, but the real Lord will. We need to be sure that our faith and love is for the Lord and that we know Him well.

When we look at the people in the hall of faith, we see that they didn't even get what was promised and yet they still loved Him and their faith was still strong. That's the kind of love and faith we need to have. When they longed for their real Home and for the Lord, it wasn't for some pie in the sky made up mansion they'd dreamed up, but they longed to be with the God of Israel, who they knew well and thought of with great love.

It always reminds me of Daniel's 3 friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when the King threatened to throw them in the furnace. They told him that while their God could save them, that they would worship Him and only Him, even if He chose not to save them! Now that's faith! More, that's love! And that's the kind of faith and love all the people mentioned in the hall of faith had. Daniel and his friends were really still kids when this happened. They were perhaps around 18 years old. Can you imagine an 18 year old today that would love the Lord and trust Him that much?

When we compare our lives to those in the Hall of faith, we often don't see the love, faith, joy or hope demonstrated in our own lives. When we look at ourselves and at others at church, we often don't see many who obviously truly long to be with the Lord, and don't know anything about New Jerusalem or Heaven. How can that be when we have an even greater reason for it then they did?

That's actually a sign of the times we live in. I don't say that to excuse it, for it's still inexcusable, but only as a fact that the Lord knew this would happen before He returned. Thankfully there is a "cure" for it though. I'll talk about all this in my next post.

 

LiveJournal Tags: emotions,faith,god,heart,jesus,knowledge,love,mind,strength,understanding

Another Great Lesson from the Book of 1 Samuel

I wanted to share what I learned today from 1 Samuel 27. First some background is needed though. In previous chapters, including the last one, we see that Saul is King in Israel, but God has rejected him and chosen David to be King. Strangely though, God didn't make Saul step down immediately. He let him continue to rule. David wound up serving in the palace playing music to rid Saul of an evil spirit the Lord had sent to harass him. David also served in the army and was an excellent officer and fighting man. Because Saul was sinful and didn't live for God, he became more and more jealous of David and kept trying to kill him. Over and over in the last few chapters we see Saul attempting to kill David (16 times!) and God miraculously intervening to save David (and generally making Saul look foolish). We also see constant prophecies that David will be King and rule with God's blessing and even see God Himself telling David that more then once. That's where the previous chapter ends.

At the beginning of chapter 27, we're given quite a shock. You'd expect David to be praising God still for all the ways He'd saved him and all the great things He'd given him and done for him during this time. After all, he'd just been blessed by Saul, the very person who'd been trying to kill him! Instead though, David was depressed! I couldn't believe it when I read that, and then realized that's often how it happens though. After we've been through a stressful time, even though we came out on top, if we don't take our thoughts captive, we'll often become depressed. Look at how this chapter begins:

1 Samuel 27:1 —But David thought to himself, “One of these days I will be destroyed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel, and I will slip out of his hand.” *

David knew better than that! I kept wanting to yell at him to wake up and smell the coffee. On top of that, God had told him to stay in Judah! So after all this time of being obedient to the Lord, of always asking the Lord before he did anything, he lets his feelings rule him and as usual, that leads him into sin. The very next verse tells us that he goes right ahead and carries out his plan. He doesn't talk to the Lord about it or ask any of his trusted advisers either. When he gets there, of course, he has to lie, otherwise the philistine king would have killed him. And he has to continue to lie to him the whole time he's there.

What happened to our hero? To our man who loves the Lord? First, he listened to his feelings and didn't check to see if those feelings agreed with what God had told him. Second, he didn't pray and tell the Lord what he was feeling and ask Him what he should do. Before he'd been in constant communication with the lord and now all of a sudden (or so it seems to us) that stops. That's generally true of us too when we get depressed. We stop reading His Word, studying it and we stop talking to Him too.

Third, he stopped serving God and began to serve himself. Again just like we do when we start feeling sorry for ourselves, isn't it? Fourth, he didn't take his thoughts, feelings and imagination captive and replace them with the Truth. He also focused on "what might have happened in the past" and "what could happen" instead of "what was true right then.

Fifth, when he looked at the past, he focused on only the bad things, he didn't look at the great many good things that had happened, or at any of the great or miraculous things God had done for him. Really, both this and the "fourth" thing both go along with serving ourselves rather then God. When we serve God, our focus is on Him. We see His Hand in everything and know that everything is working for our good. When we serve ourselves though, the focus changes to us and we become self-centered, and often either full of self pity or selfishness. When it gets really bad, we'll even often blame God for the bad and conveniently forget the good or else act like we deserved the good for some reason -as though we'd earned it.

(please know, that when I say "we", I'm really thinking about myself and how I act and have acted in the past. I use "we" only because I know others often have the same problems I've had or have.)

Next, David did something else we shouldn't do when we're in that kind of frame of mind....he made an important decision, and worse, he made it without God. I can't begin to count the times I've done that as well in my life, and looking back, I can see all the previous steps were there as well. This particular episode of David's life, lasted for about 16 months, so it was a significant chapter in his life. I'm so grateful the Lord included this in His Word to teach us. I always learn so much about myself when studying with Him.

When this chapter ends, David is still in this frame of mind and still not communicating with God. We'll discover later that David pays for his sins when the city he's living in with all his men and all his and their wives and children are attacked when they're away and their families are taken captive. Thankfully, instead of becoming yet more depressed, this finally gets David's attention and he turns back to the Lord and he immediately begins talking to Him and asking for help again. I won't give away what all happens as that's for another time. I just wanted to share what I'd learned about how our feelings can betray us and mislead us if we heed them without checking to see if they're in agreement with God's Word.

 

LiveJournal Tags: 1 Samuel 27,bible,blessngs,david,depression,discipline,emotions,fear,feelings,God centered,imaginations,Philistines,scripture,self centered,self control,self pity,selfish,taking thoughts captive,thoughts

Our trials with other people and our future

I wanted to share with you something the Lord reminded me about during my study time today. I was studying in 1 Samuel 21 and continuing about David and all the troubles and trials he went through.

We know that the Lord has plans for our future - both our future here in this world as well as for our eternal future. God doesn't decide, "this person's going to do this, and that person's going to do that". He chooses our futures based on the talents and desires He gives us and then He prepares us for that future. Nothing happens in our lives that is an "accident". God knows in advance what's going to happen, what choices people are going to make, both good and bad that will affect us. So He uses those things to prepare us for the wonderful future He has planned for us. This includes everything that happens to us even before we're saved, for God knows who belongs to Him and doesn't waste time waiting on us to finally make our decision. (Thank You Lord!)

We can be absolutely sure then that no matter what is happening to us, that the Lord is using it to prepare us for that wonderful future. That's partly what His Word is talking about when it says that all things will work together for our good. We can also know that everything is also being used to help us become more and more like Christ.

Then why aren't people more like Christ as they get older and go through more in their lives? Simply because most people don't realize this and they fight against it. Obviously, the unsaved don't know about it and they're not going to actively try to cooperate with what God is using the situation for. Instead they'll fight against it. Of course God know this too and will use that as well. If they are one of His children, they'll eventually be saved and will begin to grow more like Christ. They'll also develop their talents and gain desires that will lead them in the direction the Lord has planned for them.

What is amazing to me is that even though most of us fight God and refuse to cooperate with Him, even so, His Will is done and we will still eventually develop those talents, desires and characteristics needed for the future the Lord's planned for us. I imagine it takes a lot longer then it would if we had cooperated with Him, but either way, it happens.

One of the biggest things He has to teach us is of course to trust Him. That's a lesson He works with us on all our lives, over and over again in many different ways and situations, to grow our faith and trust.

What does this have to do with trials and problems in our lives? Well one of the things we tend to do constantly is to trust other people instead of God or at least in addition to God. So He is constantly having to show us and remind us that other people are going to constantly let us down, or even purposely mislead us -even those we love and those who love us. They can't help it any more then we can help letting other people down sometimes. It's all that nasty sin nature which makes it "normal" for us to do that. It's only because of God's Grace and help that we who are saved can overcome that ourselves.

Often when our problems or trials are being caused because other people have hurt us somehow, it's because the Lord is teaching us or reminding us that we can only trust Him, not ourselves and not other people. Think about it. When something "bad" happens, what's our first reaction usually? Is it to immediately go to prayer and ask the Lord how to handle it and what to do? Or is to to "figure things out for ourselves" or to ask a friend or a "professional" for advice? I have to admit that for me it's often to figure it out myself or ask someone else for advice.

But, I'm getting better! It's only taken the Lord 57 years to get me to come to Him first sometimes. My prayer is that before I turn 58, it will be ALL the time!

Hezekiah is a wonderful example of this! The story is in 2 Kings 18 and 19 for those who'd like to read it. Hezekiah was only 29 when this trial I'm speaking of began - the King of Assyria attacked them and was very good at psychological warfare. He knew all the right things to say to cause the people and King Hezekiah to doubt God, but Hezekiah held firm to his faith. He even had one of his commanders stand up after they had Judah under siege and announce to them that God wouldn't save them and that God had even told them to come and capture them! He sent Hezekiah a letter basically telling him the same thing and telling him what awful things would happen to him and the people if they didn't surrender right away.

What did Hezekiah do? At 29 years old, he was more spiritually mature then I am at 57! He didn't hesitate even for a second. After reading the letter, he immediately went to the Temple and spread the letter out before the Lord and prayed to Him about it, asking Him to deliver them and what he should do! Can you believe it???? What a fantastic role model for us! (In answer, the Lord sent Isaiah to him to tell him what would happen and how He would deliver them) I've got to share with you how the Lord did it too, check this out: 2 Kings 19:35 —That night the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! * The Lord rewarded Hezekiah for his faith and for coming to Him instead of trying to figure things out for himself or getting advice from others first.

Hezekiah didn't react to any of the verbal threats or to the letter. If you read the story, He even told the people not to react to them, to literally "say nothing" when they were taunted. He went to the Lord for directions and help and received them. The Lord absolutely loves it when we ask Him for help and He loves it even more when we trust Him to deliver us and to use the situation for our good. When we cooperate with Him, then we can move toward that wonderful future He has for us much more quickly, as we become the people He created us to be.

It's difficult for us because we tend to live by sight rather then by faith, so when we see and hear someone or many people lying about us or a loved one, or saying things that hurt us in some way, or cheating us, or whatever the situation is, we forget all about the Lord and just strike back. We "stand up for our rights", not realizing that often in the process we're negating all that the Lord is trying to teach us and show us. Forgetting that He told us to "love them" unconditionally, and sacrificially; forgetting that He tells us to put their needs before our own. Or, perhaps I should say "I do things like that" and not "we". Like I said though, little by little I'm learning and I really am getting better. While it's often still my first instinct to react in those ways, I'm now often able to prevent myself from going beyond the first thought and turn and do things God's way instead. Someday I hope to be able to always react to people who I feel are hurting me or attacking me somehow, the way He wants me to. I know from His Word that's one of the things He tries to develop in each of us so that we will become more like Jesus and be ready to fulfill the role He has for our future.

Jeremiah 29:11–13 —For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. *Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. *You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. *

 

LiveJournal Tags: david,Deliverance,future,god,Hezekiah,hope,isaiah,Jeremiah 29:11–13,purpose,scripture,trials,troubles

Why do we persist in thinking discernment is a feeling?

From the time I was saved, I've heard people talk about discerning things and almost always it was related to how they felt about something or someone. Since I heard this so much and from so many different people, I accepted it as true. After all, all those christians couldn't be wrong could they??? It turned out that they were though, and I was just plain shocked!
As I studied God's Word, He taught me about discernment, and I discovered it has absolutely nothing to do with our feelings. That makes a lot of sense to me now as I know the Lord tells us that we're not to trust our feelings. But at first, it didn't make sense as I didn't realize that. I kept thinking, "well, if it doesn't involve our feelings, then how do we tell?" Of course the Lord gave me His answer from His Word, and His answer was, "from His Word" Sorry for the pun, but I couldn't resist. In other words, we discern whether or not someone or something is right, true, etc, not by our feelings, but by the Word of God.
Over and over the Lord tells us that we're to trust only His Word. We are not to trust our own philosophies, ideas, and especially not our feelings. I wondered why we weren't to trust those things and again found the answer in His Word. He tells us that when Adam sinned, his mind and heart, or in other terms, his thoughts and feelings, became corrupted by sin, just as everything else did, and this is passed down to us as well. I don't mean that it's passed down genetically, and I probably shouldn't use that term at all. What God says is that sin itself corrupted the thoughts and feelings of Adam and Eve and continues to corrupt the feelings and thoughts of all people since then. That's why we must have the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us God's Truth. That's why we cannot understand God's Word without the Holy Spirit, because our minds are corrupt, depraved, as are our feelings.
So if discernment doesn't involve our feelings, what is it and how do we get it? Does it just happen like magic, all of a sudden when we're saved? That's the way most folks seem to think it happens, but it doesn't.
Simply put, discernment is the ability to think scripturally, or biblically, which includes the ability to determine if something is or is not of the Lord. There are literally dozens of scriptures that talk about this, but the one that I think nails it down the best is this: Hebrews 5:14 —But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. * This is talking about God's Word and how we should study it constantly and regularly. It's saying that those people who do study His Word regularly, by constant involvement with His Word, literally are training themselves to be discerning. This isn't talking about reading the bible, but studying it, because as you continue reading, he says "lets leave the elementary teachings and go on to maturity". He's berating them for not studying the Word, saying that because they haven't done so, they're still babies in the faith and they need to get busy so they can become mature and discern the truth for themselves.
In our day however, discernment has become thought of as more like something psychic or maybe some kind of mystical awareness. This is of course another of Satan's lies to keep God's people from the truth, for the last thing Satan wants is for us to study God's Word! And he's done a good job of keeping many from it too. After all, why should they study if they already have this magical discernment? I understand now of course that the discernment that many talk about isn't discernment at all. Or at least it's not biblical discernment.
But what about the gift of discernment? Yes, God does give some people the extra gift of discernment to be used for the benefit of the body of Christ, but even though it is a gift, and not something we teach ourselves through constant use, it's a gift He gives to those who are mature already and have normal discernment already. The gift itself wouldn't help someone who wasn't mature since they wouldn't know what to do with it. Giving it to someone who wasn't spiritually mature, would be like a parent giving a two year old a book of matches to play with. We know our Father isn't irresponsible like that, so we know He wouldn't do that. If they weren't spiritually mature already, they wouldn't know how to operate their gift.
There's a couple of great examples of this gift in action in the bible. There's the time Paul used this gift when a girl who supposedly predicted the future was following him around and telling everyone that he was there to tell them about God and how to be saved. Paul recognized that it was a lying spirit, a demon and cast it out of her. Another time is when Peter exercised this gift and determined that Ananias and Sapphira were lying about the money they'd given to the church. In both of those cases, as in all cases of discernment, they did not follow their feelings or senses. They followed the Word of God. They knew what God's Word said, and recognized various things in each instance that were at odds with God's Word. Therefore they knew that these people were not acting according to the Word and needed to be put in their place. To examine the scriptures, and test the spirits, does not mean to check and see how you feel about something. (Acts 17:11; 1 John 4:1)
What I've come to realize over the years is that it's the world that wants us to rely on our emotions and on our own thought processes and judgment, while God constantly tells us not do so, but to instead rely on His Wisdom from His Word and the authority of His Word. I guess I've come to see myself more and more like a child. I used to be proud of my intelligence back when I got saved, but now I could care less about it because I realize it's not worth two cents unless it's being guided by the Lord and His Word.

 

LiveJournal Tags: 1 John 4:1,Acts 17:11,bible,constant use,disceernment,god,Hebrews 5:14,jesus,maturity,obedience,scripture

oh boy, this really convicted me! 2

As I said in the thread, I used to think that I couldn't ever be an idolater... when I was first saved, I thought idolatry was when you believed in and worshiped some false god like the old roman gods... you know, like Athena, and Zeus. It wasn't until I'd studied God's Word more that I began to understand that it's idolatry whenever you put anything ahead of God in your life. It doesn't mean that we have to pray to someone or something else or even think of them as a "god" in order for it to be idolatry. That really blew me away when He showed me that and changed me quite a bit too. It had to change me because there were a lot of things that I had put before Him without even realizing it. But I wrote about all that in that thread.

The Lord had yet another lesson for me though. One I'd studied before, but certainly hadn't applied it to myself - about adultery -spiritual adultery. I knew that venerating people or objects or dabbling in the occult, was spiritual adultery, and I certainly didn't do that, so I didn't think I had anything to worry about as far as that was concerned. I knew that worshiping idols was also spiritual idolatry but again, I wasn't guilty of that either.

It started to get personal though when I discovered that "friendship with the world" was also considered spiritual adultery. Adultery is something that violates the covenant commitment to our spouse, and spiritual adultery is something that violates our covenant commitment to Christ. Friendship with the world, isn't just doing the things that are very obviously wrong, but it's what we might consider the little things as well. Even when we hang out with unbelievers and just laugh at their coarse jokes, or swear and use foul language like they do, both are friendship with the world. It's when a wife insists on being the head of the home instead of encouraging her husband to do so. It's also when a wife refuses to submit to her husband. It's when we cheat on our taxes, gossip with our neighbors (or about them), It's when we put down others who have hurt us, instead of forgiving them and loving them anyway; it's when we hold a grudge. It's whenever we consistently do things the worlds way instead of God's way. I don't mean when we slip up once in awhile, or even when we're first learning that something is a sin, and we still mess up a lot as we haven't yet completely overcome it. I'm talking about when we do those things habitually. When those things are part of our way of life, of how we live, of who we are. Because when we do that, we're not being faithful to our Husband.

We're committing adultery, because we know our husband has commanded us not to do those things. He's told us that we're brand new people and that we're to put on our new self and get rid of the old one. So when we hang on to our old ways, our old selves, or parts of our old ways or selves, we're committing spiritual adultery.

When we have a strong focus on or drive for material possessions, money, or immaterial ones like beauty, looking or acting young, or just a strong focus on our physical bodies, (like someone who might obsess about losing or gaining weight all the time, or other similar things, those are all ways of committing spiritual adultery. All of those things are putting God at least second in our lives because we spend more time focused on them then we do on Him.

Adultery is something that violates the covenant commitment to our spouse, and spiritual adultery is something that violates our covenant commitment to Christ. So anything that we spend more time on, including time spent thinking about them, then we spend on the Lord is something that we may very well be committing spiritual adultery with. And I had to admit that I could see myself in a number of different things.

I've found as that devotional said, "If we follow Him with our entire being—setting aside all that stands between us and Him—the world will look different." - or at least our little part of it, because we'll be different. Seriously though, everything begins to look different to us, the more we set aside the things that stand between us and the Lord. I doubt if I've found everything in my life that's between me and the Lord, but I'm keeping my eyes open, and I've asked the Lord to show me anything that needs to be removed or put in it's place, and I know He will. He always does when He knows we're serious. It seems like a constant battle sometimes, because as soon as I figure I've got it all under control, bam! Something else shows up and I realize I've allowed something I thought I'd taken care of to creep back in. But like Paul said, all we can do is keep plugging away, doing our best with His help and looking forward to that day when our salvation will finally be complete and we'll no longer have to deal with a sin nature. Come soon Lord!

Matthew 6:24 —“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. *

Ephesians 4:22–24 —You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; *to be made new in the attitude of your minds; *and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. *

Colossians 3:9–10 —Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices *and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. *

John 14:15 —“If you love me, you will obey what I command. *

John 15:10 —If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. *

 

LiveJournal Tags: devotional,Ezekiel 6:1–8:18,idols,bible,god,God first,idolater,idolatry,idolatry today,today,scripture,sin,spiritual adultery

oh boy, this really convicted me!

It Will Eat You Alive

Ezekiel 6:1–8:18

Idolatry eats at our souls. And God puts up with it for only so long.
“And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, set your face to the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them, and you must say, “Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh, thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and to the valleys: ‘Look, I am bringing upon you the sword, and I will destroy your high places, and your altars will be desolate, and your incense altars will be broken, and I will throw down your slain ones before your idols, and I will place the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars’ ” ’ ” (Ezek 6:1–6).

Ezekiel portrays God’s view of the true nature of idolatry and the ramifications of living an idolatrous life. When people put wood and stone, or gadgets and entertainment, before their relationship with Yahweh, they are giving up the most valuable part of themselves.

Today, most people place entertainment above God. We value celebrity more than Jesus. We may deny this, but if we closely examine how we spend our time and money, we find that we love our idols as much as the ancients did.

How can we as Christians be instruments for the changes God wants to bring to the world if we conform ourselves to the expectations of our culture? Where we invest our time, assets, and attention reveals what we care about most. If we give ourselves over to worldly priorities instead of God’s, we deserve the same fate that Yahweh prophesied for the children of Israel in Ezek 6:1–6.

But our good and gracious God wants to redeem us, and we should commit ourselves to seeking His blessing instead of His judgment (John 3:16–17; Rom 8). If we follow Him with our entire being—setting aside all that stands between us and Him—the world will look different. Idolatry will be revealed for what it is: a thief and a glutton, stealing the very lives God has in store for us. If we seek God with all our being, idolatry will hold no power over us. It will die from neglect while our lives take on new vitality as we boldly proclaim the glory of our life-giving God.

What idols stand between you and the life God has for you?

Barry, J. D., & Kruyswijk, R. (2012). Connect the Testaments: A Daily Devotional.

boy this really got to me! Especially when he said, where we invest our time, money and attention reveals what's most important to us. It reminded me of what I wrote in I used to think that I couldn't ever be an idolater... I guess I should go and update that thread with the new things I've discovered about idolatry.

 

LiveJournal Tags: bible,god,God first,idolater,idolatry,idolatry today,scripture,sin,spiritual adultery,today

I used to think that I couldn't ever be an idolater...

I used to think that I couldn't ever be an idolater, but boy was I wrong! I also used to pride myself that I could never be called an adulterer and again, I was wrong! When I was first saved, my idea of "sin" was breaking one of the commandments and I took all of them quite literally. (not that there's anything wrong with that). As I grew in my faith though, I came to realize that anything and anyone I put before God was idolatry. Then I got a real shock when God showed me that an idolater was also committing spiritual adultery! Tell you what, those revelations really knocked me down a peg or two!

I'm a pretty stubborn person though,which, by the way, is usually also a sin unless it's being purposely used to obey the Lord, and I was determined that I wasn't going to let anything come before the Lord in my life. Needless to say, the Lord seemed to immediately start throwing wrenches in the works to show me the truth about myself.

One of the hardest things for me to get straight was "other people" and where they fit in my life with the Lord. It seemed like every time I decided to spend time with the Lord, I'd be interrupted. My kids needed this or that, husband wanted something, or others would call and things like that. I knew I was supposed to love others and think of others before myself, so at first I always jumped up and did whatever was asked of me, even if it was just visiting with someone. The hard thing about this was that often when I did that, by the time I was finished, I had to go do something else, like housework, errands, etc. and before I knew it, the day was over and I hadn't had my time with the Lord and His Word.

Then I realized that by allowing that to happen, I was putting all of those people and things before God. I just didn't know what to do then, because I knew that people were important to the Lord but that I also really needed that time with Him and His Word every day. So, I asked Him for help. I asked Him to help me by protecting my time with Him. I'd love to say that He did and no one ever bothered me again during that time but that's not what happened. Nothing really changed much at all.

Finally though I realized that I was going to have to speak up and let people know that I was spending time with Him and would like to have some privacy during that time. My family was fairly cooperative but it was still hit and miss, and again I realized that it was mainly my fault. I didn't have a "routine" set up. I just did it whenever I "felt like it" each day, or whenever I "had the time". So I decided to make a routine for myself to follow and actually schedule time for the Lord at the same time each day. This took some trial and error for me as well as I had to find the time that worked best for me, both physically as well as spiritually. I finally settled on first thing every morning and have been doing it at that time for more years than I care to count now.

Once I had my routine in place, I had to again let everyone know that 6am to 7am was my time with the Lord and I didn't want to be disturbed. Once I did that, the Lord did protect my time with Him, and I've rarely been disturbed. When I was disturbed at first, I simply reminded them about it and that was that. Now, all I have to do is let "new folks" know so they know not to call during that time.

Sounds fairly easy and straight forward doesn't it? It is really, but for me, it was hard to tell people I loved not to disturb me during that time. It wasn't until later that the Lord showed me that by doing that though I had set a good example for my children and everyone else. There was/is no question in their minds that I mean it when I say that's my time with the Lord and no one else. It let them know that He was and is that important to me.

The other part that was hard for me was forcing myself to spend time with the Lord even when I didn't feel like it. I know, it sounds just awful to say that out loud, but there were times when I just didn't want to study His word, or times when I just didn't feel like praying and times when I didn't want to do either one, especially if I wasn't feeling well. It took time, but the Lord eventually showed me that I was once again being idolatrous when I did that. I was shocked because there was no one before Him! But there was. I was putting myself and my feelings before Him. As I prayed about it, I remembered when Jesus prayed in the garden and knew then that He most likely didn't "feel like" being crucified that day either. I felt pretty ashamed of myself then, and since then simply have reminded myself of what He did for me and that took care of that bit of idolatry.

I have to share too though that every single time that I didn't "feel like" spending time with the Lord and His Word, but did it anyway, within a few moments of starting, 5 at the most, the Lord always, always, got me so interested in what we were studying, that I'd wind up not wanting to stop! He's always like that though. Every time we take the smallest step toward Him in obedience, He blesses us so much more then we deserve!

I've also learned over the years that having a routine like this really helps prevent us from backsliding too. Because once you've done something like this long enough, it becomes second nature to you....it's not something you even think about doing, you just do it. When we're studying His Word daily with Him, it nourishes our spirits so they become stronger and which enables us to fight sin and temptation in our lives and win. It enables us, with the Lord's help, to live a life of victory here and now as we apply His Word to our lives each day. Plus, it's through His Word and staying in communion with Him, that He changes us to be more and more spiritually mature.

My idolatrous ways were finally over then, right? Nope. I found another one. Oh, I kept my routine, but sometimes I'd find myself "cheating" and just kind of skimming through things or praying in general or out of duty rather then from my heart. Those were always times when I felt that I was "running behind schedule" and that I had to get here to Fresh Hope and start posting. After all, this was/is God's site and He gave me this job, so didn't' I have to be here for X hours a day every day to do it? If I was "late" wouldn't that mean I was being disobedient to Him? If I was the Lord, I'd have been pulling my hair out over me by this time. Thankfully though, He showed me that working for Him, wasn't as important as being with Him. I always get this picture in my mind of not being plugged in to Him, when I didn't have my time with Him first, so since I wasn't plugged into Him, I therefore couldn't do my job for Him the way it was/is supposed to be done. (my version of the vine and the branches ) I wish I could say that I realized that truth quickly but I didn't. Once He got that through my thick head though, I repented from that as well.

I do still ask myself and the Lord every once in awhile if I'm putting anything or anyone before Him, because I don't ever want to be guilty of that again. Isn't it amazing just how many stumbling blocks we put in our own way when it comes to spending time with Him and His Word daily ....even when we know there's nothing more important??? I guess it shows us just how stubborn our sin natures are though....


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oh boy, this really convicted me!

 

LiveJournal Tags: bible,god,God first,idolater,idolatry,idolatry today,scripture,sin,spiritual adultery,today