Anything Else But You

     Sometimes that is how we live towards God isn't it. God I know You told me to do this, but right now I'm not feeling Your word, so I'm going to listen to anything or anyone else but You.....

     Oh man how deadly that is. To quench the Spirit of God and go about our fleshly ways. It always lands us in trouble, and sometimes it just leads us to death, and I literally mean death. If we look in God's word we see people taking their focus and trust off of God and putting in many different things. Things that lead them to dark places of sin or to death.

     Now obviously if you are reading this right now you have not been lead to your death, but lets take a look at one huge moment in God's word when someones unwillingness to follow God, the same God that time and time again had rescued his people and done great things before him, led him to his death. 

1 Chronicles 10:13

13 Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the Lord because he did not keep the Lord’s word. He even consulted a medium for guidance,

    Lets look at what's going on here though. God had given Saul instructions, and not only did Saul disobey God's instructions, but he thought it would be okay to consult a medium for guidance. A medium being a person supposedly used as a spiritual intermediary between the dead and the living.... Someone who supposedly conjurs up spirits.

    Saul was no noob to who God is. The spirit of God had come upon him many times. He prophesied and God even brought Saul through great battles, but for some reason Saul stopped trusting God, and decided to trust anything else. This decision ultimately led him to his death. Saul was a great leader when he trusted in God, but the moment he started trusting himself, things just began to go downhill and straight into a pit of death.

This happens to us in our spiritual lives

     When we are trusting God, we see Him bring us through the greatest of battles in life. We see Him empower us to do great things. When we trust God we walk with Him on this epic adventure to change eternity for lost souls.

     When we trust anything else, we may see what looks like progress for a moment, but the walls will surely come crumbling down on us. 

     We see the death of ministries when people trust in themselves. We see the lost stay lost when people trust in themselves. We see Christians fall away from the church when people trust in themselves. We will see people literally just DIE telling God "No I won't trust you! I will find someone else to take advice from." 

     Trusting in ourselves doesn't just lead to sin. It IS sin! When we say to God "I won't trust You!" We are sinning, and it only gets darker and darker from there. We lead ourselves toward death, all the while Christ still stands saying "Turn around and follow me." The more we refuse to listen to that call, the darker it gets for us. Rightfully so. If we separate ourselves from the source of light in a dark world then we only end up in darkness.

The Beauty of this Situation

Though we lead ourselves into darkness

when we turn around in repentance

Jesus is there!

He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us 

from all unrighteousness

Even in the dark 

we can still see the light

all we have to do is turn around

Urgent!

     You know a few days ago I read a quote from D.L. moody. Now I'm about to paraphrase because I can't find it right now, but the quote was along the lines of "What business does a messenger of God have changing the message?" The question has been on my mind lately. This morning as I'm just spending time in God's word reading Jeremiah, God spoke to me.
     God was sending Jeremiah to stand in the court of His, the LORD'S, house and speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship there. But God said something to Jeremiah that really just jumped out at me.

Jeremiah 26:2

"Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the LORD's house and speak to all the cities of Judah that come to worship in the house of the LORD ALL THE WORDS THAT I COMMAND YOU TO SPEAK TO THEM; DO NOT HOLD BACK A WORD.

     All the words that I command you to speak to them do not hold back a word. This was a time when prophets were saying that God was saying things He wasn't saying. This was in a time when prophets were tickling peoples ears with lies, and God was sending Jeremiah a true servant of the Lord into a danger zone. These people had accepted all the lies and were headed to disaster. Not only had they accepted the lies, but they grew comfortable with them. God was sending Jeremiah with TRUTH something that was about to flip their worlds upside down. 

    God continues on to say in verse 3 

"It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds."

and then in verses 4-5

"You shall say to them, 'Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to me, to walk in my law that I have set before you, and to listen to the words of my servants the prophets WHOM I SEND TO YOU URGENTLY, though you have no listened

now I stop there because what's in bold are the things that jumped out to me most

not the parts about the people in sin, but the parts about those who are on mission with God

     We are on mission with God, and it is an urgent mission. He has given us His word and we are to proclaim His word in all the earth. The chain breaking, life giving gospel has been given to us, and this world is in a state of emergency. We as His children, as His people, as His servants must not hold back a word from the rest of the world. IT MAY BE THEY WILL LISTEN, AND TURN FROM EVIL AND WALK IN THE LIGHT OF SALVATION, AND JOIN US IN MISSION WITH GOD, AND JOIN US IN ETERNITY WITH HIM!

The message of the gospel!

It's Good news,

but it is also URGENT

Missed....

     They are aren't they? Not just in a sense of how people are these days, but think about how often we tell ourselves "I've got time. I'll get around to it."
     Only to never get around to whatever it may be. Oh the days are evil. Tricking us into believing that we have time to waste.

God says to His Children in Ephesians 5:15-17

look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,

making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is

     Those days when we just know God is calling us to do something! Those days when we don't feel Him calling us to do something, but can recall the great commission. We have to be on guard because those "get around to it" thoughts are sure to pop up. Though we have the intentions of getting around to it, we often don't. We will miss out on so much wasting time. Full days spent on video games or spent watching a series of a television show on netflix. Cooped up in a house by ourselves not reaching out to anyone. Oh but we will get around to it someday. Right?

we will right?

Today is our day

we've gotta make the most of what is now

we simply have no idea what is to come

they could die...

we could die...

we could simply never see them again....

and just like that

opportunity to impact eternity...

Missed

My prayer is that God would remind us

that we as His children need to make the most of the time He's given us

that He would remind us of the mission we are on together

that we wouldn't get so caught up in wasting time, but instead

using that time so that others may know Him!

"Missions exists because worship doesn't" -John Piper

lets remember this!!

     

Don't lead them astray!

Jeremiah 23:28

Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream,

but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully

Faithfully- 1. In a loyal manner.

2. In a manner that is true to the facts or the original

     Really quickly lets take a look back at what was going on here. Jeremiah was writing at a time when people were prophesying "Thus says the Lord" things that God was definitely not saying. God was confronting this issue in a very big way. You see God has never been a fan of false prophets! The people were living lives that were slapping God in the face, yet these prophets were telling them that it was okay. Not just telling them that it was okay, but they were telling them that God was saying that it was okay! GOD DID NOT, NOR DOES HE NOW LIKE THIS!!!! The people were being led astray by the prophets. Led eternally astray by them. All the while, God was speaking through Jeremiah telling of the destruction that would come to the people if they kept living the way that they were. 

     People were worshipping idols. Man made idols. They would actually offer their babies up to one particular god known as Baal. They would burn their own children in hopes order to worship this huge statue, and the prophets were saying this was okay. 

This is what God has to say about that

Jeremiah 23:16-17

Thus says the Lord of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They say continually to those who despise the words of the LORD, 'it shall be with you'; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, 'No disaster shall come upon you."

     Understand that what God is calling out here are the words of FALSE PROPHETS! Something huge stands out here. in verse 17 God calls out a lie from the false prophets "And to everyone who stubbornly FOLLOWS HIS OWN HEART, they say, 'No disaster shall come upon you.'" 

Woah woah wait wait wait

    If that's the lie, then the truth must be that those who stubbornly follow their own hearts shall soon find disaster... But we live in a world that tells us all the time to follow our hearts. Don't we? In fact, don't some of us(Christians) tell people it's okay to follow their hearts? 

     I'm reminded of the last youth camp that I played at. The speaker was talking on this matter, and made it a point to say "I can't stand when people say to follow your heart." Can I just say I completely understand and agree with this statement. You see when we tell people it's okay to simply follow the heart, we become false prophets. We lead people astray! Just as these prophets were leading God's people into disaster, so do we when we tell people it's okay to follow the heart. "Why?" you ask. 

Genesis 8:21

"......For the intentions of a man's heart is evil from His youth."

The honesty of the situation is that

our hearts are just not fit to lead us in a good direction

because apart from Christ....

our hearts are busted and filled with evil desire

     As the people of God, we must first of all be willing to follow Christ and yield to the Holy Spirit regardless of how we feel at the time, secondly remember that in Him we've been given a new heart one that is no longer busted and is filled by Him, and finally we must be truthful about God's word. We must not twist it to fit what we want others to hear lest we lead others eternally astray into disaster and away from abundant life!

Don't be a false prophet

That just aint cool 

In our words and our actions

let's lead others to Christ and not astray