Our security and stability

As I have read through the books of Kings and Chronicles in the Old Testament this time around in my chronological reading of the Bible, I decided to note the names of the kings as they took to their thrones (as you see in my sample picture) and as I have done so I have seen more than ever before the difference that following God made (and makes), even in the life of a nation.  On this page, for example, there is the name of one king for the nation of Judah, which is a nation that obeyed God's laws and worshiped Him only.  On the other hand, during the reign of that one king in Judah, in the nation of Israel there were four different kings.  For every one of those kings there is the statement that they did not walk in the ways of the Lord and did evil in the sight of the Lord.  It has been my vivid reminder that there are always consequences to our decisions to either obey and worship God or not to do so.  This is true in our personal lives but also true in a nation's life.  It reminds me to pray for our nation and its leaders as well as for our populace.  If we do not follow God's principles of living, who knows how long we can remain secure and stable? 

Correctly focused

I Samuel 12:21 And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.

I think the Lord is giving me a strong message this week to remind me to be fully committed to obeying, following and serving Him!  Yesterday I saw that in an earlier passage from I Samuel 7:3 and again today in this verse.  I must be diligent to follow Him.  I must be careful about what motivates me, cautious to work towards useful and beneficial objectives, not empty things without lasting value.  I must be careful to pray over every goal, every activity.  I do not want to pursue anything that is empty.  Not only must I be whole-hearted but I must be correctly focused.  With God’s help, I will be just that.

Whole-hearted devotion

I Samuel 7:3 If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only.

Once again I am reminded of the fact that God is looking to bless those who are willing to whole-heartedly follow Him.  He does not want partial loyalty or partial obedience.  God wants my full attention, my full determination to obey.  In return, He will protect and empower me as the last of this verse premises: “and he will deliver you…”  What more could I ask?!

There was no king

Judges 21:25 In those days there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

I found at least 15 times just in the book of Judges when the people of God, the Israelites, did not choose to obey and worship God and in every case had to be brought back through hardship of some kind.  Several times I noticed that the scripture said the people had no king, as did this verse.  The implication for me is that without good influence at “the top” the people went their own way.  This verse even says they all did what was right in their own eyes.  With our sinful nature, we have to have someone leading us along the right way.  For me, I had my parents help me in those early years, then through the years there have been other mentors who have helped me know and understand the right way until my spiritual maturity was such that I could see what is right with my own eyes, and now I am able to be that spiritual guide to others, thus repeating the process for the next generation.  At the same time, I continue to be mentored by others such as my pastor and Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, etc.  We help mentor one another so that we can be obedient to God’s Word as we grow in our understanding of it.  We don’t have to be caught up in sin by doing what is right in our own eyes unless we choose to do so.

Top ten blessings of obedience to God

I  read a book recently that talked about making lists from scriptures one reads as a way to help focus on a passage, so I began making lists from time to time.  I have found great blessing and insight into passages as I have done this and this morning was one of those days.  God has promised wide and bountiful blessing to the one who acknowledged His leadership through obedience.  

Leviticus 26:3-13  Top Ten Blessings from Obedience to God’s Law

1. Timely rain for growing crops, v.4

2. Fruitful crops and trees, v.4

3. Long harvest season, v.5

4. Plentiful food, v.5

5. Security, v.5

6. Peace, v.6

7. Safety, v.6

8. Growth, v.9

9. God’s presence and love, v.11

10. Freedom from slavery, v.13

Do it afraid

Matthew 28:8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

How can a person be afraid and filled with joy at the same time?  How can you actually do something if you are fearful?  Those women at Jesus’ tomb did these things and I have often wondered at this seemingly impossible thing.  Then I think about two specific times in my life when I was fearful yet filled with joy and I realize this is not really an oxymoron at tall.  The day I boarded my first flight to Lebanon is vivid in my mind.  I felt “scared to death” at my first trip overseas, alone, to live in another country.  But I was filled with joy because I was fulfilling God’ will for me.  And the day I got married was similar … afraid but also excited and happy at the prospect of my marriage.  Both times I was ready to tell anyone who was listening about what I was doing, and that is how the women felt, I am sure.  The fear and joy did not deter them from running to their next responsibility, to tell the disciples, and it may have even motivated them.  So it can be for me as well.  My fear or my joy can both be my motivation to do whatever it is God is directing me to do.  Do it afraid, as they say!

As I go

Luke 17:14b, 19 And as they went, they were cleansed. … Rise and go, your faith has made you well.

It has always struck me a quite significant that the lepers were healed as they went.  They evidently were not healed while they stood there in front of Jesus, talking to Him, asking Him to heal them.  It was when they started down the road to obey Jesus’ command to show themselves to the priest that the healing actually took place.  When they took that first step, they still had leprosy!  But as they continued down the road (in faith) their healing took place.  This is a valuable lesson/example for me all these years later.  This was written for my edification, for my learning, so I know that God wants me to just go, just act upon what I know He can do, even if I don not see the final result at the very start.  Sometimes He may want to do the miracle I am looking for after I begin to obey Him in whatever it is that He is leading me into.  I cannot afford, spiritually, to wait to see what the end result of my obedience will be.  I just need to start out on my path of obedience and see what God will do as I go.

God's teaching tools

Ezekiel 24:24 Ezekiel will be a sign to you; you will do just as he has done.  When this happens, you will know that I am the Sovereign Lord.

Although, admittedly, I am not sure I totally understand this passage, I see yet another instance of God using a man (this time Ezekiel) to remind the children of Israel that God is God, reminding them that He is omnipotent and worship/obedience-worthy.  This time, however, God asked a really difficult thing of Ezekiel in order to use him as a minister and prophet to the people.  Ezekiel’s wife died, and God asked him to not display his grief.  Ezekiel already had skepticism from the people around him, and then he had to do this.  Being the servant of God is not always easy.  God does not always shelter you from difficulty.  In fact, He may actually USE the difficulty as a stepping stone for teaching onlookers about Himself in some way.  I need to keep this in mind when things seem to go “wrong.”  It may be one of God’s teaching tools to others.  I saw this happen when I moved to Jordan with no decent household goods.  What was hard for me (having to leave so much behind in Beirut) became the key to my ability to minister to my new friends and neighbors because they saw me as one of them, not a “rich” American.  What a powerful lesson for me then and it has stayed with me all these 40 years since then.  God will use even the most difficult things in our lives for good if we allow Him to do so.

What kind of pathway am I carving out?

I Kings 16:30-31 Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.  He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him.

It is impossible to fall up, as they say, and this is clearly evident in the saga of the kings of Israel.  It all began with Jeroboam when he made two golden calf idols for the people to worship because he was afraid they would lose their allegiance to him if they went to Jerusalem to worship (12:28ff).  He went downhill quickly after that, and began a chain of events in his descendants that was all downhill.  Nadab, his son did evil and committed the same sin (15:26).  Baasha (15:34) committed the same sin after Nadab, and his son Elah, as well.  16:23 says they aroused God’s anger by their worthless idols.  It did not stop there.  After Elah came Zimri, who followed the ways of Jeroboam and committed the same sins (16:19), and then came Omri who sinned more than all those before him (16:25), and now comes his son Ahab, more sinful still.  It behooves me to stay true to God and to my obedience to Him because I could otherwise begin a chain of evil and disobedience in those who follow me.  What kind of path am I carving for those who follow after me?

Listen to the Word

I Kings 13:21b You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you.

I have struggled to understand this verse, this story through the years, every time I read it.  It seems so unfair of God to bring punishment to this man of God who was misled by another prophet.  The prophet convinced him that it was alright to retract his obedience to what God had commanded him to do.  After all, it was a prophet who told him it was OK.  Today, however, as I was once again reading this story and feeling that same frustration, I suddenly realized that the message of this incident to me is a reminder that God’s Word should always take precedence over any other person’s interpretation of its meaning to me.  If I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God has spoken to me about something that I read in His Word, this is the message for me to heed.  Although I realize that there have been people who have misinterpreted the Word and turned it into something that was not biblically sound and that is a danger I must stay alert to, it is nevertheless imperative for me to listen to the Spirit of God as He speaks to me through the Word. If the message I receive from the word agrees with Scripture in general and if I have prayed over that message, I can rely on God to confirm it to me.  If I am in a strong and solid relationship with God, His Word will speak Truth to me and that is what I must heed.  Nothing else…

Fully obedient, wholly devoted

I Kings 11:2b, 4 Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love … As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

This is my vivid reminder of a couple of things I must remember as I grow older:

1. It is possible for me to come to love and hold fast to things I should not love, and that I know I should not love.  Even though I have known God and walked with Him for a long time now, I am still vulnerable to give my heart away if I am not careful to continually and diligently obey God in every area of my life.  Solomon held fast to his wives in love, and he was not even supposed to have married them in the first place, which reminds me of how diligently obedient I must be in all areas of my life in order to not lose my heart to the wrong things.
2. My years of experience with God and my maturity of those years will not be enough to protect my heart from wandering.  Only my current fully devoted heart, fully devoted to loving Him supremely, only that will protect me from falling into love with something else and consequently falling away from devotion to the Lord.  I must remain diligent until the very end, and by God’s grace with the help of His Holy Spirit, I will do so.

 

Staying faithful

Psalm 119:74 May those who fear you rejoice when they see me, for I have put my hope in your word.

We Christians talk a lot about our need to live in such a way as to be a good testimony of God’s love and grace to unbelievers, but this verse remind me of the importance of my good testimony to other believers.  The example of my hope in God and His Word should be an encouragement to other believers to do the same.  When other Christians see my response to the call to obedience, they should be challenged and/or encouraged to also obey.  When they see my faith, they should find an example to follow and an example of the good results of being faithful to God’s call to holiness.  My life should bring joy to them as they see God at work in me.

Act like a man

I Kings 2:2b-3 So be strong, act like a man, and observe what the Lord your God requires.  Walk in obedience to him … so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go…

David, out of his lengthy and vast experience of walking with God, gave Solomon a nutshell of advice that would help him as king.  “Be a man,” he said, “and obey God.”  It is almost as though he was saying, “Just because it isn’t always easy doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it!  Buck up, be a man, and do what is right and do whatever you are required to do.”  Sometimes that is how I have felt … like it was too hard to do what was right, and yet I knew I had to do it anyway.  And the result is prosperity of heart and soul that I gained even if it was not material prosperity.  That is where I think a lot of people misunderstand what God intends as the result of determined obedience.