served – Praying Pint

51. Wilderness – 15.f. “Take care that you be not ensnared to follow them”

Deu 12:29-32  “When the LORD your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.

Leviticus 18:3    You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.

Psalms 106:34-38   They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them,  but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did.  They served their idols, which became a snare to them.  They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons;  they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.

Judges 2:2-3   and you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall break down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed my voice. What is this you have done?  So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.”

Romans 12:2    Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Israel was commanded to guard itself against a sinful curiosity. Ungodly curiosity has also killed many spiritual lives. God would not accept just any offering of worship. He had to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24)

They burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods: This referred to the practice of Molech worship, where Canaanites offered up their children by placing them alive on a burning hot metal statue of Molech, while drum beats drowned out the screams of the tortured infants.

. Israel had a tragic history of following after this horrible god Molech.

· At the least, Solomon sanctioned the worship of Molech, building a temple to this idol (1 Kings 11:7).

· King Ahaz of Judah gave his own son to Molech (2 Kings 16:3).

· One of the great crimes of the northern tribes of Israel was their worship of Molech, leading to the Assyrian captivity (2 Kings 17:17).

· King Manasseh of Judah gave his son to Molech (2 Kings 21:6).

· Up to the days of King Josiah of Judah, Molech worship continued, because he destroyed a place of worship to that idol (2 Kings 23:10).

The standard for worship was reflected in God’s Word – not in human preference or opinion. (Guzik)

When the Lord had cut off the nations of Canaan from before the Israelites, they were to take heed that they did not get into the snare behind them, i.e., into the sin of idolatry, which had plunged the Canaanites into destruction. (Keil_

We might not sacrifice our children on a fire or even think of doing it, but in a way, our culture has fallen away from God and turned their backs to Him, His Word, and His ways. We might not see an idol but there are certainly things that are cherished and worshipped in place of God. God’s Word is clear on being influenced by the world and what it deems important and worthy of our time, thoughts, and actions. We are to live in it but separate from its influences.

I can remember a discussion with the first pastor I learned from after I was saved, Pastor McClunn. In or around 1980 we were talking and he said, “I have seen something that is troubling. Whatever the world is doing right now and the church recognizes it as not good or right in the eyes of God or does not bring honor and glory to Him, the church will adopt within 10 to 15 years.” He is probably not the first person to say something like this. It has stuck with me for 44 years.

Thoughts about what is right and wrong, good and bad, or true and false are being eroded away little by little. When the Word of God used to be studied and people met regularly for bible study and worship and fellowship there was discernment. Now the study of the Word of God is watered down to a verse per day or some devotional pamphlet that has a nice short story tied to a verse. I might be generous here. There might not even be a daily look into God’s Word. More than likely it might just be once per week at church. Churches try to entice “bible study” by developing a plan of reading. This is not wrong but to read and not study is. New plans to engage are developed every year. New music is sung. New classes are taught. New sermons are preached. All in an effort to do what? To what end are we trying to achieve?

If there is no personal conviction to repentance, no discernment between what is worldly and what is Godly, no recognition of the influences of the world, no desire to know God more and more, no continual growth in understanding the Holiness of God, no discernment of the sinfulness of sin, no means by which to gage maturity in God’s Word and things of God, then people will do what seems right in their own eyes and soon will adopt things of this world into the church. In Revelations 3:20 Jesus was speaking to the church in Laodicea and said; “behold I stand at the door and knock”. Jesus wanted them to know that they had wandered away so far that he wanted to be allowed back into the church. How sad is this? How relevant is this today? If Paul and the writer of Hebrews commented on the state of mind of the believers in the churches the letters were sent, calling them infants, eating baby food, and not able to digest solid food, what would he say now?

The influences of this world are real and they will not be discerned by babies. Babies will put anything into their mouths and not know if it is good or bad for them. Likewise, babies in the Word of God and things of God, believers will put things of this world into their lives not knowing if it is good or bad.

37.w. “God did not permit him to harm me”

Genesis 31:1 Now Jacob heard that the sons of Laban were saying, “Jacob has taken all that was our father’s, and from what was our father’s he has gained all this wealth.” And Jacob saw that Laban did not regard him with favor as before. Then the LORD said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.” So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field where his flock was and said to them, “I see that your father does not regard me with favor as he did before. But the God of my father has been with me. You know that I have served your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times. But God did not permit him to harm me.

It wasn’t that Jacob had taken anything that belonged to Laban. Rather, it was that his wealth was increasing in proportion to Laban’s wealth. The problem wasn’t that Jacob stole; it was that Laban’s sons were filled with envy. Envy will distort the truth. Jacob had not taken anything of Laban’s, but envy will lie. The envy of Laban’s sons poisoned Laban’s heart against Jacob. Before, Laban was entirely pleased with the agreement. Envy is bad not only on its own, but also for the company it keeps: For you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. Instead, Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy. God wants to deliver us from envy: For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. Envy is no small sin. It put Jesus on the cross: For he knew that they had handed Him over because of envy. (Guzik)

Selfish men consider themselves robbed of all that goes past them, and covetousness will even swallow up natural affection. Men’s overvaluing worldly wealth is that error which is the root of covetousness, envy, and all evil. The men of the world stand in each other’s way, and every one seems to be taking away from the rest; hence discontent, envy, and discord. But there are possessions that will suffice for all; happy they who seek them in the first place. In all our removals we should have respect to the command and promise of God. If He be with us, we need not fear. The perils which surround us are so many, that nothing else can really encourage our hearts. To remember favored seasons of communion with God, is very refreshing when in difficulties; and we should often recollect our vows, that we fail not to fulfill them. (Henry)

37.v. “What shall I give you?”

Genesis 30:25 As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. Name your wages, and I will give it.” Jacob said to him, “You yourself know how I have served you, and how your livestock has fared with me. For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the LORD has blessed you wherever I turned. But now when shall I provide for my own household also?” He said, “What shall I give you?” Jacob said, “You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again pasture your flock and keep it: let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages. So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.” Laban said, “Good! Let it be as you have said.” But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted, and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in the charge of his sons. And he set a distance of three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob pastured the rest of Laban’s flock.

Then Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban. He put his own droves apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob would lay the sticks in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the sticks, but for the feebler of the flock he would not lay them there. So the feebler would be Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s. Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.

Jacob said unto Laban, Send me away.—After Jacob had served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters, he continued with him for twenty years without any settled hire, receiving merely maintenance for himself and family. During most of this time he would be too encumbered with pregnant wives and young children to wish to take so long a journey. (See “Excursus on Chronology of Jacob’s Life.”) In these thirty-four years of service there would be time for the vast increase of Laban’s wealth referred to in Genesis 30:30. But at length Joseph is born, and as his other sons were most of them grown to man’s estate, as soon as Rachel was fit for the journey Jacob desired to return to his father, if for no other reason, yet because now it was time to provide for his children, and at Isaac’s death he was joint heir of his property. (Ellicott)

This shows that Jacob had no stock from Laban to begin with. “I will pass through all thy flock today” with thee. “Remove thou thence every speckled and spotted sheep, and every brown sheep among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats.” These were the rare colors, as in the East the sheep are usually white, and the goats black or dark brown. “And such shall be my hire.” Such as these uncommon party-colored cattle, when they shall appear among the flock already cleared of them; and not those of this description that are now removed. For in this case Laban would have given Jacob something; whereas Jacob was resolved to be entirely dependent on the divine providence for his hire. “And my righteousness will answer for me.” The color will determine at once whose the animal is. Laban willingly consents to so favorable a proposal, removes the party-colored animals from the flock, gives them into the hands of his sons, and puts an interval of three days’ journey between them and the pure stock which remains in Jacob’s hands. Jacob is now to begin with nothing, and have for his hire any party-colored lambs or kids that appear in those flocks, from which every specimen of this rare class has been carefully removed. (Barnes)

In the same way, blessing comes from the LORD to us not because we are great or good, but because of the covenant God has made with us through Jesus, and promises He has given us in His word.

We may note Jacob’s principles for prosperity: Don’t make wealth your goal. Don’t be afraid to work for others and try to increase their wealth before or as you work to increase your own wealth. Work hard, dedicating yourself to your employer’s success. Trust God. (Guzik)

17.o. Sitting at the feet of Jesus

John 12:1 Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

Luke 10:39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’* feet and heard His word.

John 11:32 Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Mary has sat at the feet of Jesus and learned. She sat at His feet in mournful surrender. And she sat at His feet and honored Him with oil. How can we learn if we do not spend time listening with a desire to hear Him speak? How can we surrender our broken heart at His feet if we don’t believe in His comfort in a time of grief? How can we honor Him if we do not know and see His holiness and worthiness?

Outside of the betrayal of Jesus, Judas is only mentioned in the New Testament here for doing/saying something that would indicate his heart was not right. We do not know if the disciples knew that Judas was a thief. This may have been hidden from them or not. John indicates he knew he was helping himself to the money given to them and their ministry with Jesus. Was it greed that overcame Judas’s heart? Is this how satan took a foothold? We need to be mindful that sin is the fishing pond of satan. Once hooked no amount of thrashing about will calm these troubled waters unless there is complete surrender to and belief in Jesus Christ.

12.j. “Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.”

Habakkuk 2:18 “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman? Or an image that teaches lies? For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation; he makes idols that cannot speak. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’ Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’ Can it give guidance? It is covered with gold and silver; there is no breath in it.” The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.

Isaiah 42:17     They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, “You are our gods.”

Jeremiah 10:3-5     for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman.  They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move.  Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

Jeremiah 10:14-15    Every man is stupid and without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them.  They are worthless, a work of delusion; at the time of their punishment they shall perish.

Romans 1:23-25     and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,  because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Psalms 115:4-8     Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.  They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.  They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.  They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat.  Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

Isaiah 44:14-20    He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it.  Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it.  Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!”  And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”  They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.  No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”  He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

What is in the heart of man that they should even consider the need for an idol to worship? Why is there a desire at all? What is it they hope to gain by it? Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Romans 1:19-20 “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

Man is without excuse. God makes Himself known to man. He has shown them. He has also given man the free choice to worship, honor, and glorify Him alone. Yet, man chooses to deny God and intentionally choose to make and worship man-made idols. There is severe consequences for this choice both in this life and in eternity. No excuse can be given. No excuse will be accepted. The intentional choice to deny God and honor, glorify, and worship Him has a beginning in the heart of every man that does so. In this beginning, they make an intentional choice of self-reliance in what their hands have made or have been made by the hands of others. They become more and more blind and deaf to God and things of God’s. God is not mocked. Man will reap the rewards of their decisions. We do well to make sure things of this world do not become idols in our heart and mind. God wants all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

80. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

Judges 2:6 After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to their own inheritance. The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel. Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They aroused the Lord’s anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress. Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hands of these raiders. Yet they would not listen to their judges but prostituted themselves to other gods and worshiped them. They quickly turned from the ways of their ancestors, who had been obedient to the Lord’s commands. Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the Lord relented because of their groaning under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

In one generation God was forgotten and what He had commanded was discarded. How can this happen? How can a generation of believers and followers be succeeded by a generation that does not know God or what He had done for them? If you laid out a plan for this to happen what would absolutely need to happen to be successful.

Get people comfortable with life by giving them prosperity and ease of life. Introduce some other thoughts and religions into their culture so that they question what and who to worship. Erode away the truth of God by tolerating complacency and neglect in your life. Do not think or speak of what God has done in the past, nor look for His hand in your life today. Do not speak of God’s warnings. Do not speak of sin. Do not speak of God’s promises.

There is a reason we are told to faithfully walk with Jesus Christ. There is a reason we are to meditate on His word when we wake, throughout the day, and when we lie down at night. There is a reason we are to speak of His awesome deeds and wonders. There is a reason we are to place His word around out neck and over our doorposts. There is a reason we are to seek and desire to know Him more and more each day. There is a reason we are to be faithful in humble service, reliance, and obedience to Him.

35. Sin is crouching at your door

Numbers 33:55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those of them whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall trouble you in the land where you dwell.

Exodus 23:33     They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

Deuteronomy 7:4     for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods.

Joshua 23:12-13     For if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you and make marriages with them, so that you associate with them and they with you,  know for certain that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you, but they shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good ground that the LORD your God has given you.

Psalms 106:34-36    They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them,  but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did.  They served their idols, which became a snare to them.

Genesis 4:7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; you are its object of desire, but you must master it.”

Romans 6:11  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Psalms 119:133    Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.

Romans 8:13     For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 13:14    But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

I have taken most of this from an author on the internet but could not find his name to the article.

It helps to illustrate the force of sin and to suggest that, among other things, that we have to answer for every deed, however quickly it fades, however long forgotten. Its guilt is on our heads. Its consequences have to be experienced by us. We drink as we have brewed. As we make our beds, so we lie on them. There is no escape from the law of consequences.

Think how you would like it, if all your deeds from your childhood, all your follies, your vices, your evil thoughts, your evil impulses, and your evil actions, were all made visible and embodied there before you. They are there, though you do not see them yet. All around your door they sit, ready to meet you and to bay out condemnation as you go forth. They are there, and one day you will find out that they are. For this is the law, certain as the revolution of the stars and fixed as the pillars of the firmament: ‘Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.’ There is no seed which does not sprout, in the harvest of the moral life. Every deed germinates according to its kind. For all that a man does he has to carry the consequences, and every one shall bear his own burden. ‘If thou doest not well,’ it is not, as we fondly conceive it sometimes to be, a mere passing deflection from the rule of right, which is done and done with, but we have created, as out of our very own substance, a witness against ourselves whose voice can never be stifled. ‘If thou doest not well,’ thy sin takes permanent form and is fastened to thy door.

The records of memory are like those pages on which you write with sympathetic ink, which disappears when dry, and seems to leave the page blank. ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ Beware of the first step, for as sure as you are living, the first step taken will make the second seem to become necessary. The first drop will be followed by a bigger second, and the second, at a shorter interval, by a more copious third, until the drops become a shower, and the shower becomes a deluge. The river of evil is ever wider and deeper, and more tumultuous. The little sins get in at the window and open the front door for the full-grown housebreakers.

Can a man cast out sin from his nature by his own resolve? Can a man cleanse himself from every deed and thought he has had or done throughout his life? Does forgetting sins of the past remove the consequences for eternity? Can a man keep all the sin that is crouching at his door at bay? NO, he can’t.

Your sin is mightier than you. The old word of the Psalm is true about every one of us, ‘Our iniquities are stronger than we.’ And, blessed be His name! the hope of the Psalmist is the experience of the Christian: ‘As for my transgressions, Thou wilt purge them away.’ Christ will strengthen you to conquer; Christ will take away your guilt; Christ will bear, has borne your burden; Christ will cleanse your memory; Christ will purge your conscience. Trusting to Him, and by His power and life within us, we may conquer our evil. Trusting to Him, and for the sake of His blood shed for us all upon the cross, we are delivered from the burden, guilt, and power of our sins and of our sin. With your belief in Him, your hand in His, your trust in Him, your reliance in Him, and your will submitted to Him, sin can be removed as far as the east is from the west.

When God speaks through trials

“Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.”

Psalms 106:7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

Psalms 106:12 Then they believed his words; they sang his praise. But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel.

Psalms 106:20 They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

Psalms 106:24 Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise. They murmured in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the LORD.

Psalms 106:28 Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices offered to the dead; they provoked the LORD to anger with their deeds, and a plague broke out among them

Psalms 106:32 They angered him at the waters of Meribah,

Psalms 106:34 They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons;

Psalms 106:39 Thus they became unclean by their acts, and played the whore in their deeds.

Psalms 106:43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.

I don’t have to look back very far to see that I, too, have done many of these same things. I have not waited, had little faith, forgot His past works in my life, and did not remember He is the all powerful, every loving, and always in control, God. In the heat of issues, problems, troubles, and when despair and doubt overwhelms, I seem to forget God loves me, He is in control, and I don’t have to be anxious or worried about what lies ahead. It seems so easy to fall into this trap. Is it a test? Is it to teach and grow my faith? Is it to show me my sinfulness? I think the answer to all is yes. Daily, I spend time in His word to proclaim the very things I am neglect in believing. I am not sure if this is common to all but God seems to be laying this heavily upon me. Fatih is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Forgive me Father for my lack of trust, reliance, and faith and for not placing them fully in your every capable and loving arms.

For Whom we exist

“ yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”

“ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

““Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Malachi 2:10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?

Isaiah 63:16 For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.

Matthew 3:9 And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Luke 3:8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

John 8:39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,

Job 31:15 Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?

Psalms 100:3 Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Acts 17:25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

It is good to be reminded and know life, breath, and everything is from God and we are His! He made us and we are His people. He has redeemed us. We exist for Him through Jesus Christ. Because of this we are to humbly serve, honor, follow and obey. This will have different meaning to each of us. Yet I have to wonder if we truly believe that He has given us everything and we exist for Him alone. Our culture lends itself to leading us down paths without God. We trust in forgiveness but walk in sin with no thought of whom we exist to serve. We rely on our conscious to direct us but feed it very little with His word. We shut our ears to His leading and expect Him to bless, protect, guide, love, and answer our weak prayers. The thing is we are no different than those of which history speaks. We, like them, get easily distracted by things of this world, lusts of our flesh, and covet what we see with our eyes. These paths of the world should not be those we walk. Our path is the path for whom we exist. To know this path, to walk this path, and to stay on this path we need to continually grow our desire to know and serve Him. Stay in His word each day – serve, follow and obey His leading.