Hello out there! I've been silent for an extended period of time and for that I apologize. There is no excuse, so I will not offer one....
This Christian life is hard folks....and terribly inconvenient. In the recent past (yes, in the period of silence), I have been faced with some difficult decisions. To my shame and dismay, I didn't always make the right ones. Actually, more often than not, I made the wrong decisions. And I have been struggling to figure out why I chose the wrong path time and again.
One word: disobedience.
It is the first sin of mankind and has been plaguing us ever since the Garden of Eden. It is the root of every sin that we can commit within or without the body. And it is terribly difficult to excise.
Disobedience rears its ugly head when we start to think of our own selfish, self-serving, evil will above God's pure, perfect, holy one. And is over-simplified as this may seem, all God wants us to do is obey Him.
But disobedience is so pervasive. And it occurs in the lives of even the most well-grounded Christians. It comes with consequences, though. The Old Testament is full of commands and warnings that boil down to: "Obey Me and live."
The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is the purest example of that. God tells Adam that the day that he eats of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). That command was not specific to the tree itself. It is not as though the tree contained poisonous fruit. The command had a far more spiritual connotation. Obedience = life. Disobedience = death.
Further reading in the book of Genesis tells us that Eve took the fruit of that tree and ate of it at the prompting of the serpent and then gave some to Adam. But they did not immediately drop dead. In fact, Adam and Eve had children after this event. And the children grew up. Adam himself lived to be 930 years old (Gen. 5:5).
These details are factual, yes....but again, they have a more far-reaching spiritual connotation. The ultimate effect of Adam's disobedience was not immediately meted out. It took years and years for death to come. But it did. Likewise, the ultimate effect of our disobedience may not be immediately felt, but they are certain. However, since the judgment of God seems to delay, we get lulled into a false sense of security and feel as though there are no consequences for our disobedience (See Rom. 2:3-4).
Make no mistake, I am talking to myself here as much as anyone who might be reading this. It is time to uproot disobedience from our lives. In EVERY aspect of our lives....even the most inconvenient ones.
This Christian life is hard folks....and terribly inconvenient. In the recent past (yes, in the period of silence), I have been faced with some difficult decisions. To my shame and dismay, I didn't always make the right ones. Actually, more often than not, I made the wrong decisions. And I have been struggling to figure out why I chose the wrong path time and again.
One word: disobedience.
It is the first sin of mankind and has been plaguing us ever since the Garden of Eden. It is the root of every sin that we can commit within or without the body. And it is terribly difficult to excise.
Disobedience rears its ugly head when we start to think of our own selfish, self-serving, evil will above God's pure, perfect, holy one. And is over-simplified as this may seem, all God wants us to do is obey Him.
But disobedience is so pervasive. And it occurs in the lives of even the most well-grounded Christians. It comes with consequences, though. The Old Testament is full of commands and warnings that boil down to: "Obey Me and live."
The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is the purest example of that. God tells Adam that the day that he eats of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would surely die (Gen. 2:17). That command was not specific to the tree itself. It is not as though the tree contained poisonous fruit. The command had a far more spiritual connotation. Obedience = life. Disobedience = death.
Further reading in the book of Genesis tells us that Eve took the fruit of that tree and ate of it at the prompting of the serpent and then gave some to Adam. But they did not immediately drop dead. In fact, Adam and Eve had children after this event. And the children grew up. Adam himself lived to be 930 years old (Gen. 5:5).
These details are factual, yes....but again, they have a more far-reaching spiritual connotation. The ultimate effect of Adam's disobedience was not immediately meted out. It took years and years for death to come. But it did. Likewise, the ultimate effect of our disobedience may not be immediately felt, but they are certain. However, since the judgment of God seems to delay, we get lulled into a false sense of security and feel as though there are no consequences for our disobedience (See Rom. 2:3-4).
Make no mistake, I am talking to myself here as much as anyone who might be reading this. It is time to uproot disobedience from our lives. In EVERY aspect of our lives....even the most inconvenient ones.
Even though this was posted a few months ago, this was timely for me to read. I can truly relate to this as if you knew my issue. I realize recently how selfishly I was in making a decision.
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