"And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15 (NKJV)
I feel impressed to nudge a point into view. It's something from my own personal experience and why it should happen to return to my own mind, at the moment, I can't say for sure. Perhaps it's in the interest of ministering a warning to someone else as a kindness, or to challenge a common misconception that many seem to hold in order to share a freeing truth. I suspect that it comes from a more divine urging to give away something I have personally been blessed with. But whatever the source of motivation, it's true importance is something painfully learned by me and never to be truly forgotten while I rest in the contentedness that it spawned after.
Every human being has a history built of circumstances and experiences that forms a core part of who they become formed into. And those circumstances and experiences must rarely be exactly the same for any two people as lives travel similar, but differing, paths and the finer details differ that come to inhabit their more mature makeup. Sometimes the circumstances and experiences of a person's life leave scars, wounds and misconceptions that require a grace launched blessing of healing from the heart of our creator to overcome. And it's my grateful experience that He hears our hearts when we're truly sincere and earnest in our pursuit of Him. It's also true that He answers faithfully in His perfect wisdom in ways that truly prosper us - not necessarily in the worldly economy of society, material, and flesh that will undoubtedly perish, but His own eternal economy and government of spirit, in our best interest. His focus is always on those things eternal and the shaping of our spirit to conform to His likeness. But having known our Lord and coming to the point of becoming His, if we lose our focus ... anything that we allow to take the place of priority over Him at any time, for any reason ... we risk losing.
"For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." Exodus 34:14 (NKJV)
Letting daily life's issues, among the other things of mankind in the world take precedence in any form over the God who gave us life puts everything that we may hold dear outside of Him at risk. Particularly if we have known and become known in relationship with our God, He will not stand for our disloyal infidelity and at times will respond. My own spiritual shaping has seemed at times to have been forged with heat and hammers in a foundry because of my bull-headed rebellion against being made subject to the misdeeds of others and our God's seeming inaction against it. In truth, I wasn't acknowledging at the time that the greatest sources of my personal consternation were born of a freedom that our God had given me also. That freedom is the freedom of personal choice - the freedom of men and women to do what they choose - whether good or evil. God is not responsible for the sinful choices of men. And if God were to intercede every time against the choices that men make, then He would not only negate what He Himself has instituted, but He would be denying Himself the greatest treasure that He sought in creating us - the pure and requited love, offered freely by individual choice. There is nothing more precious that I know and I am convinced that our God views it similarly.
The first major example of that freedom with the potential of consequence appears early in scripture and came with the warning of the consequences for making a choice against God's instruction. Adam and Eve had the freedom to make a choice, but the consequence that God warned against - both physical and spiritual death, still stands against the unrepentant who have not received Christ as their Savior, in terms of spiritual, eternal death...
"Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”" Genesis 2:15-17 (NKJV)
...satan's insinuation that God didn't mean what He said was of course nothing less than a misleading lie. Physical death wasn't imposed on them at the moment (that would have ended mankind right then), but mankind not knowing death until that time, came under it's curse from then on - both physical and spiritual. The spiritual death for the unrepentant is of course postponed until after final judgment, but if you've studied scripture well, you know that God will also pass judgment on the living for His own purposes. At times, those purposes may include disciplining an object of His desire.
"For whom the LORD loves He corrects, Just as a father the son in whom he delights." Proverbs 3:12 (NKJV)
"Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For though I spoke against him, I earnestly remember him still; Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD." Jeremiah 31:20 (NKJV)
(Ephraim was the second son of Joseph and Asenath, and the tribe of Ephraim was one of the most influential in Israel. Learn about Ephraim's history, blessing, role, and symbolism in the Bible. - Bible Hub)
In one case that I can attest to in the first person, I know "a friend" who had a business. And though this "friend" made a distinct habit of dealing with people honestly and fairly, and having been successful and given much comfort to some who were in distress as he went, from time to time he ran into customers who were sly and dealt with him treacherously, costing him much. So much in fact that this friend at one point was in serious danger of losing the business that he'd invested so much in. And it was then that this "friend" made a tragic mistake. He allowed himself to get so caught up in the fight to save his business, that he temporarily forgot the true source of his all - The God of heaven and earth, and took up the battle himself. He began working harder than ever and from dark to dark every day of the week, for weeks at a time. He began relying solely on his own skills, strength, and intelligence to resolve the desperate problem ... and set aside his focus on his relationship with His God - pretty much ignoring Him, while he was battling to save everything that he had. So ...
... The Lord took offense and He took it away from him - almost everything that God had helped and allowed him build and attain before that time.
This friend lost his business, his home, his equipment and more. He even temporarily lost his strength and still carries physical reminders of the time that he unintentionally set aside and ignored God - even though it was just temporarily setting Him lower than those things that God had helped him build and obtain in the first place. "My friend" was seriously disciplined, but he knows that he deserved it because at no time did God ever say anything that He didn't mean and my friend committed a crime that God has warned against. It was a warning that He ignored.
Remember the fourth of the Ten Commandments?
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments." Exodus 20:4-6 (NKJV)
The subject that God is warning against in this is the worship of anything other than God Himself. It doesn't have to be a physical image, it can be anything that we give importance to more than God does .. even if it's just temporary. How well, I "my friend" knows this. Our God doesn't take relationship with us lightly and neither should we take Him lightly. He's not said anything that He didn't mean and He doesn't change.
“For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob." Malachi 3:6 (NKJV)
And if we ever think that we have an excuse to go against what He said, because we might think that there was something that our Father wasn't aware of at the time that He said what He said, we'd only be fooling ourselves into a potentially dangerous situation. Not being limited by time - being able to move forward and backward through time because He exists outside of it, and being fully omniscient, God knows your life before you do. He knew what we would do before He even created us. And not only did He create us anyway, He laid down His own life for the opportunity to spare ours eternally - even knowing what we would do beforehand. How wonderful and gracious our God is!
So, obviously "my friend" in this writing and myself are one and the same. The Lord restored me physically from an unexpected, simultaneous triple TIA event and helped my wife and I start over. In time our lives became good again, though I've only come more clearly to understand the depth of my betrayal to the heart of my All-In-All. I'll not again forget to look to my Lord for what I need in any situation, or fail to recognize His grace and generosity. And I will not allow anything to overshadow or make me forget, even for a moment, His proper place in my heart and mind. I am actually grateful for the correction, even given what it cost in perishable things, because through it, I've gained so many greater blessings since.
My purpose in sharing this is to provide a wakeup and a warning to anyone who might be unaware, unthinking, or overwrought. The ancient words of our ancient God remain as fresh and living as the moment that He spoke them in those things that pertain to us. He doesn't change, so what He dislikes and what He cherishes, what He hates and what He loves, remain constantly the same. He is jealous for His own and He does discipline those that He loves when needed. Many are blinded from seeing the fact that God is still moving among us on a regular basis as He parents His own children. We need to be consciously aware that He is. He's not some abstract being, but an involved and passionate lover of those who love Him. Those who don't believe will eventually figure it out - hopefully before it costs them more than they ever thought they had.
I've come to fully realize that anything, or anyone, that we place an importance on that is equal to or above our God in our lives, priority, or thinking, we put at risk. Because as His, we do serve a jealous God. Turning to Him isn't just something that we talk about and then go on about our business. As His own children in relationship with Him, it's not just an option for us, it's what our Father wants and expects ... and He's always the best resource. My advice - seek Him out as your first and best resource in any and every important situation. I think that's what real lovers of God do.
"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (NKJV)
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it." Deuteronomy 10:12-14 (NKJV)
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