Obvious Choices
“So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the LORD.” Joshua 9:14
The choice seemed obvious to Joshua and the Israelites. From the looks of things these people weren’t a threat and what they were offering sounded pretty good – a lifetime of servitude and no war. What they failed to recognize is that man’s heart is wicked and unless one is mastered by God then deception must always be suspected. The vow the Israelites make with the Gibeonites results in war anyway (see Joshua 10)
I wish I could say I consult with the Lord about decisions, but the reality is I more often pray after the decision has already been made seeking God’s grace and rescue from consequences I could not foresee.
As our family swelled to eight we needed a new dining table if we were going to eat as a family. We looked everywhere, or so we thought. We just happened into a furniture store that will remain nameless where we thought we had found the solution. The choice seemed obvious. The result was disastrous and eventually evolved into my first use of the Better Business Bureau, which worked just like it should have. A solution was reached almost nine months later, only a month after involving the BBB. It consumed time we didn’t have, and resulted in a loss of peace every time we sat down to eat at the defective table. After reading this verse I wonder if the Lord might have steered us away from that choice.
Here’s the reality about what I believe or don’t believe:
1. I really don’t believe God will actually communicate with me about where I should go for lunch, whether or not I should buy a car, or do business with a particular furniture store, or how I should organize my calendar.
2. Nor do I believe that any of those small choices may have really big consequences.
3. Lastly, because my tendency is to want to be satisfied immediately I will refuse to allow my wants to be suppressed, and typically I know that God almost always suppresses my wants. So, including Him in decisions regarding my wants will result in a struggle for self discipline that I would rather ignore. I almost always will be led to suspend my satisfaction in the wake of God’s direction.
What do you really believe?
For Your sake or for the sake of Christ?
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,30 engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. (Philippians 1)
Believe and suffer.
Doesn’t sound very like a very good tagline for a consumer does it? And in this day and age of consumerism the Church has often changed our tagline for the sake of communicating to the culture in a way that is relevant.
Believe and you will be saved from Hell.
Believe and you get eternal life.
Believe and you will become God’s son or daughter.
Believe and God will fix your spouse, or your kids, or your parents, or your boss.
Believe and God will make you wealthy.
Believe and God will make you well.
When our belief is focused upon us…when your belief is focused upon you, and is for the sake of you, then we will always view Jesus through the eyes of the consumer. There is plenty of evidence that any one of these belief statements may be true for you, but in the end if our belief is built on any one of them we may be setting ourselves up for disaster. In the end if our belief is built upon our willingness to do believe and suffer for the sake of Jesus, then suffering can bring joy and a new depth of our worth becomes evident.
But to be willing to believe and suffer for the sake of Jesus requires that we become familiar with the depth of our own fallen state, our own hopelessness without Jesus, our own desperate need of Jesus, and that can be a humiliating experience…but one worthy of enduring.
What suffering might you be avoiding for the sake of your comfort?
God’s Motivation
22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came.23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. (Ezekiel 36)
We often confuse God’s love for us with His motivation for acting on our behalf when we find ourselves at the ground zero of our sin. We have been willingly disobedient, and after experiencing the pain that comes with that we attempt to turn back to God looking for some kind of restoration to our previous glory. But for those of us who have been redeemed by Jesus and have been adopted as God’s kids He is most likely to act on our behalf in order to prove that He is who He says He is. As He did for Israel, God will continually restore us for His Glory because it is His greatness that needs to shine into the lives of the lost.
So, while it might be a little depressive to think that God isn’t primarily motivated by His love for us we should be all the more encouraged that He will NEVER forsake us because His reputation is at stake.