It's so easy to be deceived. If for just a split second we think that we don't have to do exactly what God said, we can fall into Satan's trap. If we listen to a voice other than God's, we follow a path that leads to destruction. Ask the man of God in 1 Kings 13.
A man of God went to then King Jeroboam and prophesied. He witnessed miracles as amazing as the ones Moses witnessed before Pharoah. How humbled he must have been to be so close to what God was doing.
The man of God had specific instructions: "You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came."--1 Kings 13:10. After witnessing God move, he started out as God instructed, going down a different road.
The man of God was on a complete fast until he returned to Judah. He was hungry and thirsty. God had said no food or water. He was going back a different way, and maybe the way back was even longer. How long before he could eat?
As so often happens, in all our lives, he met temptation. Temptation came in the form, not of a serpent like in the garden, or some obvious sin to be avoided, but as an old prophet.
Satan knew where the man of God was vulnerable. He knew who he would listen to. King Jereboam had urged him to stay and eat. He refused. But an old prophet offering food? The hungry man of God couldn't resist a meal offered by one he believed to be a fellow prophet.
Satan knows how, when, and where to strike. He won't hit us in places where we are sure to avoid the trap he is setting. He hits us where we are vulnerable. He tells us what we want to believe.
The man of God didn't know as he ate that the meal would be his last. I imagine him sitting there, stuffing his face, justifying his disobedience to the almighty God, when the old prophet, used by God, told him of his fate: "You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers."--1 Kings 13:22.
How downcast he must have been when he left that place! And how quickly the Bible records that God dealt with his disobedience: "As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was thrown down on the road"--1 Kings 13:24.
How sad! The man of God had prophesied events that would happen years later and seen God perform mighty miracles! But he didn't follow God's instructions. He started out strong, but he didn't follow through.
The price of disobedience is high!! Remember the choice God game the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15: "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." If we are disobedient, we will suffer consequences for not following the directions that God has laid out before us. But if we obey God, He blesses us, and we will be able to say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
Monday, April 23, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
Thirsty for God
Lord, I am parched. Thirsty.
I haven't felt well for a couple of weeks. That spring flu/allergy thing going on. Not a big deal, but I still didn't feel like myself for a few days. During that time, I turned my focus to physical preservation and away from spiritual sustenance. The thing about our physical needs is they scream at us to be met. They insist that we respond. I am understanding even more the reason that fasting is such a vital discipline. It gives us the opportunity to bring our bodies, which can be so demanding, to their rightful place in line. Spiritual needs met. Then physical.
We live in a physical world. We tend to identify physical needs that we have and not only meet them but indulge them. We have difficulty bringing our bodies into submission. We can be overwhelmed not only by our physical needs but by our physical desires. We are in tune with the things we see, feel, touch, taste, hear.
I have spent two weeks attending to my physical needs at the expense of my spiritual needs. As I have begun to feel better, I have become aware of my spiritual thirst.
Lord, I am parched. I feel dry. I need your water. I want you; I need you.
David, too, had times that he was driven by self-preservation. God had appointed him king, but David still had struggles. His son, Absalom challenged David and tried to kill him (2 Samuel 15 - 18). It was during that time that David probably wrote Psalm 63: God, you are my God.
I search for you.
I thirst for you
like someone in a dry, empty land
where there is no water.
Imagine the thirst of someone in a desert with no water. Can you get a sense of how your body would ache for water in the scorching heat of the day as your throat was throbbing from being so dry? How you would fight for just a few drops of water to quench your thirst? How the need for water would be the one thing on your mind, driving you each step of the way?
So was David's thirst for God. He was driven as if by the thirst of a man in the desert with nothing to drink. With a thirst that could only be quenched by God. He was obsessive in his search for God who would satisfy the thirsting of his soul.
So I want to be in my search for God! Only He can satisfy this ache in my spirit. I am keenly aware of the need to have Him flow in, through, over me. I don't want just a few drops. I don't want to sip it. I want to gulp the waters of His Spirit. As the psalmist said in Psalm 42: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When may I come to see God's face?
"Lord, I am thirsty for you. Thirsty for your presence. Thirsty for your guidance. Thirsty for your purpose. Thirsty for your mercies. Thirsty for your grace. Thirsty for your direction. Thirsty for your embrace. Thirsty for your peace. Thirsty for your Word. Thirsty for your Voice. Thirsty for your love."
But may my thirst for Him never be satisfied! May I never get "filled up"!
"Lord, I want always to be seeking more of You. To have You spilling out of me, into the lives of others. May I seek not just to quench my thirst but may I seek to be poured out into a world that desperately needs you."
I haven't felt well for a couple of weeks. That spring flu/allergy thing going on. Not a big deal, but I still didn't feel like myself for a few days. During that time, I turned my focus to physical preservation and away from spiritual sustenance. The thing about our physical needs is they scream at us to be met. They insist that we respond. I am understanding even more the reason that fasting is such a vital discipline. It gives us the opportunity to bring our bodies, which can be so demanding, to their rightful place in line. Spiritual needs met. Then physical.
We live in a physical world. We tend to identify physical needs that we have and not only meet them but indulge them. We have difficulty bringing our bodies into submission. We can be overwhelmed not only by our physical needs but by our physical desires. We are in tune with the things we see, feel, touch, taste, hear.
I have spent two weeks attending to my physical needs at the expense of my spiritual needs. As I have begun to feel better, I have become aware of my spiritual thirst.
Lord, I am parched. I feel dry. I need your water. I want you; I need you.
David, too, had times that he was driven by self-preservation. God had appointed him king, but David still had struggles. His son, Absalom challenged David and tried to kill him (2 Samuel 15 - 18). It was during that time that David probably wrote Psalm 63: God, you are my God.
I search for you.
I thirst for you
like someone in a dry, empty land
where there is no water.
Imagine the thirst of someone in a desert with no water. Can you get a sense of how your body would ache for water in the scorching heat of the day as your throat was throbbing from being so dry? How you would fight for just a few drops of water to quench your thirst? How the need for water would be the one thing on your mind, driving you each step of the way?
So was David's thirst for God. He was driven as if by the thirst of a man in the desert with nothing to drink. With a thirst that could only be quenched by God. He was obsessive in his search for God who would satisfy the thirsting of his soul.
So I want to be in my search for God! Only He can satisfy this ache in my spirit. I am keenly aware of the need to have Him flow in, through, over me. I don't want just a few drops. I don't want to sip it. I want to gulp the waters of His Spirit. As the psalmist said in Psalm 42: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When may I come to see God's face?
"Lord, I am thirsty for you. Thirsty for your presence. Thirsty for your guidance. Thirsty for your purpose. Thirsty for your mercies. Thirsty for your grace. Thirsty for your direction. Thirsty for your embrace. Thirsty for your peace. Thirsty for your Word. Thirsty for your Voice. Thirsty for your love."
But may my thirst for Him never be satisfied! May I never get "filled up"! "Lord, I want always to be seeking more of You. To have You spilling out of me, into the lives of others. May I seek not just to quench my thirst but may I seek to be poured out into a world that desperately needs you."
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