Post from the Past: Gossip and Murder

Should God have given Adam and Eve more information? He said, “Don’t do this…” Some may come to the conclusion that He was setting them up for The Fall. He gave them one thing they couldn’t do, and perhaps did not explain that the whole world was at stake. He told them they would die, but did they understand death, even know what it was?

My thought is this: the intensity of their sin had nothing to do with whether they had complete information or not; it had nothing to do with their intentions. Their sin was rooted in the fact that they disobeyed their Creator, the Maker of the Rules. He doesn’t have to tell us what our consequences will be. He says things like, “Obey your parents,” or “Submit to your husband.” Just because we imagine that the consequences of our own solution will be more bearable than the pain of obedience, we choose to do things  our way. But, like Eve, we have no idea how far-reaching those consequences are going to be. A woman doesn’t respect her husband. How many people does she affect? How many generations do her daughters and granddaughters carry on her tradition? How many sons allow their wives to take the lead? How many lives ruined? Where does the madness end?

How about obeying God because He says so? Because He knew what was good for us when He inspired His Word? We can fairly see the consequences for murder, so we don’t do it. Just because we can’t clearly see the consequences for other forms of disobedience, should we go ahead and chance it? If the definition of sin is disobedience to God, then gossip is no different than murder. (As a matter of fact, the sin of gossip has often resulted in similar consequences: loss of life due to suicide.)

Post from the Past: The Key to Happiness…

In a word, obedience.

Every time we disobey, we are in essence saying, “I know how to make myself happy better than You do, God.” It is identical to Eve’s sin, and it is no less stupid than hers, although we all blame her for the condition of the world.

The difference between Peter and Judas

We’ve heard the stories over and over. Over-confident Peter denied Christ three times. Judas betrayed our Lord for money. Yet Peter went on to serve God with his life and death. Judas never found repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. What was the difference between these two men? Was it the details of their sin? Betrayal is worse than denial maybe?

Sin is sin. We cannot know which sin is worse until we know how our sins are going to affect the future. How can we know the exact consequences of our individual sins? Only God knows that, and He commands us not to sin in the first place. Was Eve’s sin just an act of self-indulgence? Of eating something that wasn’t good for her body? No. Her sin lay in the fact that she disobeyed God. The act of disobedience to God is what makes something sin. Interesting that we would not know sin without the law, isn’t it? Almost like it is impossible to sin until you know better? I wrote about this topic once before in a recent post. No. The difference between Peter’s sin and Judas’ was the fact that Peter was caught off-guard, and Judas’ sin was premeditated. He had accepted the fact that he was going to sin.

Now what does that mean to you? How can seeing this difference change your life? Listen to this: you are going to sin. I am going to sin. As long as we are alive on this fallen earth, we cannot escape that reality. Does that give us an excuse to sin willfully, all the while smiling and saying, “Well, nobody’s perfect”? Of course not! Does that give us the excuse to have personality flaws and weaknesses, accepting them in our lives because we have committed the same types of sin hundreds of times, and we just can’t see ourselves changing? No! Accept the fact that you are a sinner, but never accept the sin. When we do sin, we need to reflect on it, pray about it, ask forgiveness for it, and then move on. We don’t have to live with guilt. That’s not what I am promoting. Do better next time. But we have to actually make an effort if we have any hope of doing better. We need to look for our weaknesses, the sin we return to over and over like an addict returns to his addiction. These are the areas that we need to take care of first. Don’t ignore them because they seem like part of your personality. Don’t accept them because they’ve always been around. Examine yourself and ask for God’s grace and help in dealing with these issues.

I know what my weaknesses are. I am very well aware of them because they nag at me constantly. Some of them, I have gone to great lengths to war against. I have set boundaries in my life to keep myself from coming within a mile of certain, life-destroying sins. I can never forget they are there; never let down my guard. (Overconfidence is very dangerous to a Christian seeking to avoid sin. I learned this the hard way.)

I know a couple of women. Now these women are literate; they can read. And they aren’t ignorant; they understand what they’re reading. However, there are a couple of scriptures in the Bible that they wish had never been penned. Or maybe they just wish they’d never read them. It’s not disobedience until they know better, after all. But these women have refused to honor God by obeying their husbands. They have lived their entire adult lives in direct disobedience to God. One of these women is finally starting to come around. I can see the difference in her life. Too bad she didn’t begin to obey until after she had already infected the other woman with her disobedient ideas and attitudes. Mothers, train your daughters to obey their husbands. Train them in word and in deed. They are watching you. And actions speak louder than words.

I am afraid we are losing femininity in our culture. Where will our daughters find themselves? Women are needed in the capacity that they were designed to fulfill. There’s nothing derogatory about that. We are needed. The world needs women, not just a bunch of men and a bunch of females aspiring to be men. I know that most of my posts seem to swing back around to the role of women, but I am truly concerned about this generation and the ones to follow.

Gossip and Murder

Should God have given Adam and Eve more information? He said, “Don’t do this…” Some may come to the conclusion that He was setting them up for The Fall. He gave them one thing they couldn’t do, and perhaps did not explain that the whole world was at stake. He told them they would die, but did they understand death, even know what it was?

My thought is this: the intensity of their sin had nothing to do with whether they had complete information or not; it had nothing to do with their intentions. Their sin was rooted in the fact that they disobeyed their Creator, the Maker of the Rules. He doesn’t have to tell us what our consequences will be. He says things like, “Obey your parents,” or “Submit to your husband.” Just because we imagine that the consequences of our own solution will be more bearable than the pain of obedience, we choose to do things  our way. But, like Eve, we have no idea how far-reaching those consequences are going to be. A woman doesn’t respect her husband. How many people does she affect? How many generations do her daughters and granddaughters carry on her tradition? How many sons allow their wives to take the lead? How many lives ruined? Where does the madness end?

How about obeying God because He says so? Because He knew what was good for us when He inspired His Word? We can fairly see the consequences for murder, so we don’t do it. Just because we can’t clearly see the consequences for other forms of disobedience, should we go ahead and chance it? If the definition of sin is disobedience to God, then gossip is no different than murder. (As a matter of fact, the sin of gossip has often resulted in similar consequences: loss of life due to suicide.)

The Key to Happiness…

In a word, obedience.

Every time we disobey, we are in essence saying, “I know how to make myself happy better than You do, God.” It is identical to Eve’s sin, and it is no less stupid than hers, although we all blame her for the condition of the world.

Eve’s Mistake, My Mistake

Back in January, my pastor’s wife loaned me a book by Debi Pearl, titled Created to Be His Help Meet. I have been reading it on and off, and have enjoyed (almost) every word of it! I don’t read much for pleasure any more (too many other things to do!), so last night, I found myself about a third of the way through the book. It was about there that Mrs. Pearl began talking about the differences between Adam and Eve. As I was reading, I had a strange idea.

How many times have I blamed Eve for being so stupid and ruining everything? If it weren’t for her, I sometimes think, we would still be living on a perfect earth. She should have known better! God told Adam point-blank that death was the penalty for disobedience (Genesis 2:16-17). Why didn’t she believe Him?

But as I was reading the story again last night, in the context of thinking about obeying my husband perfectly, a new idea occurred to me. Every single time I rationalize concerning the Word of God, I make the same exact mistake that Eve made. Take, for instance, submission to my husband. Every time I think, “Well, God’s rule doesn’t apply in this situation,” I am allowing Satan to deceive me into questioning God.

The problem is thousands of years old: Eve didn’t respect God’s supreme authority, and it’s even possible that she didn’t trust God to follow through on His promise. She wanted what she wanted so badly, that she allowed Satan to deceive her into rationalizing. She willingly chose to be deceived.

God is God. This fact alone requires our obedience.

First of all, Eve should have been willing to obey God because He is God. Because He is the Creator. Because He makes the rules (or rule, in her case). He doesn’t have to explain Himself. We often don’t tell our children precisely why we ask them not to say certain words or act a certain way. Sometimes, the explanation wouldn’t be good for them, like when I asked my five-year-old not to go around holding hands with and hugging on other boys (he was making some of the older boys in choir uncomfortable). Sometimes, we need them to obey immediately, and we don’t have time to explain. And again, sometimes, we just want them to recognize our authority and to obey us just because our position demands it.  God required Eve’s obedience. He told Adam that the consequences of disobedience were death. I’ve long figured that Eve didn’t really believe that God would follow through on His promise. She certainly didn’t understand the gravity of her situation. She didn’t know about all the sorrow she would bring into the world. But should God have needed to tell her the exact consequences of disobedience before He asked her to obey? No.

Sometimes I think we forget that God created us for His own glory. He wants us to tell Him how wonderful He is. He wants us to tell Him what an awesome job He did when He created everything. And He wants us to obey Him to the letter. Because He is God. We don’t need another reason.

How do God’s rules benefit me?

However, we humans often don’t follow God implicitly unless we can see how it directly benefits us. Don’t ask me why – it shouldn’t make sense, but that’s the way we are. We are sinful. Even before Eve took her first bite, she decided that she would do what she perceived to be good for her, regardless of what her Creator, her Lord, demanded. She was led to believe that perhaps God didn’t have her best interest in mind.

Luckily for us, God never asks us to do anything that isn’t good for us. He is the epitome of goodness and intelligence. He doesn’t make rules for the mere sake of placing restrictions on us, but for our own benefit. If you read through the books of Exodus and Leviticus, you will find that God made a great many rules and placed a great many restrictions on His people, and He didn’t always explain why. My husband and I aren’t Jewish, but when our son was born, we had him circumcised on the eighth day, just as God had commanded the Israelites. Now, we weren’t convicted to do so (at the time, we thought that God’s Law was only for the Jewish nation), but we figured He must have had a legitimate reason for creating a rule about it to begin with. We found out a couple years later that blood clotting is at its peak on the eighth day of life. What I’m trying to illustrate is: we don’t have to understand why God has asked us to do (or not to do) something. We need to just trust that He knows best, and that all of His intentions are good ones. When I fail to obey Him, I fail to trust Him.

Application

The difficulties begin when we start applying His commandments to our own lives. If we were to trust God completely, our lives as we know them would be turned upside down. Even Christians fail to trust God when doing so gets between them and the things they really want to do. The more wrapped up we are in the lifestyles and perceptions of our day, the harder it is to let go of our own desires and understanding, and trust God with everything.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5

Here are some potentially life-changing applications, should we decide to obey God to the letter:

Be Careful What You Watch on Television

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Romans 1:29-32

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Philippians 4:8

Submission to Authority

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

Ephesians 6:2

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22

Does God tell wives to submit to their husbands, except when the husbands are wrong? Does he tell wives to submit unless the husbands are unsaved? No! In fact, he tells wives that their unsaved husbands can come to salvation through observing their wives’ submission in the fear of God. The only time we should not obey authority is when we are commanded to do something contrary to the Word of God. Period.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Romans 13:1

For me, this verse even means paying taxes on every penny and obeying the speed limits. This may be common sense for a lot of people, but I also know many, many Christians who are more of the “civil disobedience” type.

Gossip

And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

I Timothy 5:13

Caring for Others

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

James 1:27

He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.

Proverbs 19:17

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.

Proverbs 3:27

Resisting Worldliness and Conformity

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 12:2

Church Attendance

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Hebrews 10:25

What about Old Testament Laws?

 

(I am updating this section as of 1/10/2017 because my perception of God’s Law has changed drastically in the last couple of years. I have to smile now, when I see that I wrote the phrase “Old Testament Laws.” It has come to my attention that there is only one Law given by God. The New Testament refers to many of the individual laws, but it is not a new law. I am not updating this post in an effort to hide the fact that I have changed my mind, but merely because I do not want to spread false doctrine. For a better picture of what I believe now, please see The Law Is Not an Example of Planned Obsolescence.)

Even though our salvation is not based on obedience to the Law, I maintain that all of them were instituted for our own good, and following them certainly won’t hurt us. Besides, once you get to know the Lord, you will want to please Him as much as possible by obeying His commands. In the following verse, God practically dares us to trust Him with our finances.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Malachi 3:10

Tithing is good for the Kingdom. It supports those who have devoted their entire lives to reaching others for Christ. It is good for us, too. By tithing, we prove our trust in God, which, when God blesses us in return, helps to increase our faith.

Keeping the Sabbath is also good for us.

And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Mark 2:27

Have we never stopped to consider that it is good for us, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to actually rest from working once a week?

Rationalization Is Our Warning Signal

I would venture to say that anytime we find ourselves rationalizing, we should stop in our tracks and do the opposite of what it is that we are wanting to do. Rationalization is the signal to stop and ask ourselves if we are trusting God, and to try to figure out what our motivations really are. If we have to rationalize, we already know what we should be doing, but we don’t want to do it. We are trying to find a way around it without hurting our consciences. We set ourselves up as God, and think: In this situation, I can see what’s best for me. For some reason, God’s rules only apply to our situations when we want them to. Any other time, we can find ways around them. That’s not respect at all! How would you feel if your teenagers treated you that way? My friends used to tell me, “It’s easier to apologize than to ask permission.” But if you know ahead of time that you are going to be apologizing later, then you already know it’s wrong. It’s a sin to dishonor your parents, husband, or God by doing anything that you suspect will garner their disapproval.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Do you believe that? Do you believe it enough to trust God to the point of obeying Him in all situations? That your situation isn’t the exception to the rule? Or maybe you think that God didn’t see this coming. Maybe it appears that things can’t work out by doing it His way; that it will only work out if you do what you think is best. Since when is your wisdom greater than God’s? Will you be brave enough to present these arguments before God when He asks why you disobeyed? I know the answer.

I’m not trying to be mean, but I am trying to promote a “No-Excuses Christianity.” Let’s get real, folks.

Can you think of any more areas of life in which we can apply this concept? I’m sure there are many, many more, and I would love to hear your ideas.