A little too enthusiastic?

Have you ever blamed someone else for something you really should have taken responsibility for? It is like you know you initiated the matter, but then it escalated out of control, and you don't want to step up to take responsibility. Have you ever done this with God? We forget that he knows the intention of our hearts and sees the foolishness of our actions, but it as though we want to shift the blame to him. It is that person you brought into my life, God. It was because you didn't intervene sooner, God. It was that circumstance, God. Anything or anyone other than us - even God - is to blame. People ruin their OWN lives by their OWN foolishness, but that doesn't give them the privilege to blame God or others for THEIR foolishness.

Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes. People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord. (Proverbs 19:2-3)

Do you know what 'enthusiasm without knowledge' really is? It is doing, THEN thinking things through! We might not realize it, but when we jump at this opportunity or that one, THEN think about the decisions we have made, it could be we are already reaping the consequences for the 'wrong choice'. I don't take a lot of time to make a grocery list. I just find the items we need and purchase them. I get a few things that look good in the ad and save a little money. When I buy a car, that is an entirely different matter. I take time to research the basic price, package price, taxes, fees, and cost of insurance. I might look a bit 'wishy-washy' by taking so much time to purchase the vehicle, but I have made hasty decisions in purchasing one before and regretted all the repairs I had to put into it. Haste isn't our best friend - it almost brings chaos and unnecessary complications into our lives.

I take responsibility for my decisions rather than blaming God or others for my 'hasty choices'. It isn't always the easiest thing, but I know it is the right thing to do. My life got way too complicated by MY compromises, not God's. My relationships got messed up by MY choices because of my actions, not God's. Did anyone else play a part? Maybe, but when we take responsibility for our actions, listening to what God tells us led to the chaos or consequences, and then learn from those 'hasty decisions', we are less likely to make them again. Don't blame others when at least some of the blame belongs to you. Don't accuse God of 'allowing' you to make mistakes when you clearly didn't consult him in the matter. Own up to those mistakes, allow correction to come, and then take note of how to avoid them in the future. You are doing yourself a great favor when you do! Just sayin!

The sins of the parent

“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. (Exodus 20:4-6)

I was asked how God could lay the sins of the parents upon their children. Isn't God a loving God and children innocent of their parents' sin? God wasn't saying he would 'count' the parents' sin against the children over generations to come, but rather than the effects of their sin would be evident to the children. Taken in context, God is reminding Israel (and us) that he is a 'jealous God' - he will not allow us to bow down to any idol, image, or false god. Nothing should take the place he created for himself within our lives. If we seek other gods, there will be consequences. It is those consequences that the children of many generations may actually see, endure, and be under.

An example of this is when a parent chooses to break the law and is sent to the penitentiary for ten years. This leaves the family without the caregiver and sometimes without the main provider. The result is that the children might have a different 'family structure' than was originally intended. The remaining parent has to work, leaving the children with others or unsupervised entirely. The stigma of a parent in prison follows that child to school, making them an object of ridicule. The child may have seen rather unsavory behavior from the parent, knowing they didn't want to follow in their parent's footsteps, but feeling like they have no choice. The child is a prime target for gang involvement, illicit behavior, or criminal actions. The 'generational aspect' of the parent's sin is felt deeply by the children.

God's premise in leaving us this instruction is to show us how important our relationship can be as in pertains to setting an example. Follow him with your whole heart and your children will observe your love for him. Yield your heart to whatever god finds its way into your heart and your children will see this as an option for their own walk. Soon a generation will be moving away from God and toward whatever god they see as important to their parents. The consequences of our own compromises are felt by those around us. Perhaps this warning was meant to dissuade the Israelite parents from following the practices of the pagan culture around them, but we can see clear evidence in scripture where there were those who allowed themselves to be drawn into the culture and away from following the Lord.

Maybe this is how we became a 'religious' culture without having a relationship with Jesus. We allowed one compromise allowed by a parent to become the norm by which the children lived and then they allowed another compromise. Eventually all the cumulative compromises have led to the belief that we can call ourselves Christian and live like the world does - devoid of relationship with God. As Israel came into the land they were to inherit, they were told to drive out, eliminate and totally destroy every false god. Why? The more we allow ourselves to get close to that which could draw us away from serving God, the more we set ourselves up to be drawn away. Just sayin!

Sin means judgment

I have read through scripture a number of times but have always struggled a bit with how God could 'get angry' and still be a merciful and kind God. My guess is that I am not alone in this quandary. What I have deduced is that God gets 'angry' when people sin - sin gets his anger stirred up. He is slow to anger, but that doesn't mean his patience can be taken for granted. God is the judge of human character - not us. We would like to sit in judgment on occasion, but we are not qualified to judge simply because we have this sin nature at work within each of us. 

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. (Galatians 6:7-8)

Whenever we think we are above the judgment of God, we are in a very troubling place. We may want to take revenge when we have been wronged, but God's concern will always be with the one who has done the wrong. Scripture reminds us that God is on the side of the innocent - he will judge the one who brings harm to them. Does that mean they will burn in the lake of fire? Not necessarily! It means he will bring enough 'discomfort' into their lives that they will be driven to make a decision to either repent of their sins or face that ultimate judgment.

The principle is that of harvesting whatever it is we sow. When we sow all manner of derision and discontent in this world, we can be assured that God's patience with us will someday come to an end. He will begin to bring 'judgment' into our lives. That means we may not always come out of things 'smelling rosy'. There may be consequences we did not intend when we set out on our sinful path. It isn't that God causes the consequences as much as it is that he doesn't stand in the way of them. Always keep in mind that God's intent is that no man should be separated from him - he provided grace for all who would seek it.

When we are engaged in wrongdoing, we can expect consequences. When we are seeking forgiveness for our wrongdoing, we can expect grace. God's plan is the latter - that we would seek his forgiveness and be restored to right relationship with him. All God asks is for us to take a close look at our own actions - if they don't align with his principles, we should repent. If they do, we should press in a little closer for sin's pull is always just around the corner. God doesn't like to judge, but he isn't going to allow sin to have the upper hand in our lives. Just sayin!

Am I in trouble?

Gonna meddle a little here this morning. Do you ever get into trouble? I mean the kind where you just aren't really sure there is any way out of it - the trouble you make or that is made by those you associate with that is just about to bury you alive. The truth is that most of the time we make our own trouble - we don't need the help of others to really do a good job at finding and meddling around with trouble. Trouble isn't a thing - it is a set of actions that lead to a result we probably will find a little undesirable. I joke from time to time that I am 'making trouble' when someone asks me what I am up to, but if I were honest here, the times when I am really 'making trouble' in my life are not a joking matter!

I was in trouble, so I called to the Lord for help. The Lord answered and made me free. The Lord is with me, so I will not be afraid. No one on earth can do anything to harm me. (Psalm 118:5-6 ERV)

As kids, we'd ask our friends if they got 'in trouble' for being home late, or for having ripped their shirt, or for having lost that new sweater they got at Christmas from grandma. The 'event' was enough that we expected the outcome for our friend to maybe not be all that 'favorable' when they were faced with the searching eyes of their parents. It is like 'trouble' was a condition - an outcome of having been careless or less focused than we should have been. In reality, we weren't all that far from the truth on that one. "Trouble" is an outcome - one that usually ensues because we took some course of action that wasn't correct. 

As adults, we don't ask each other if we got 'in trouble' for the things we do and it is harder for us to really tell if someone is feeling the weight of their bad decisions or not because we have become so good at concealing our 'trouble' from others. I wonder what would happen if we were a little more transparent with each other about the 'trouble' we find ourselves in at this moment. If we aren't going to be honest with each other, we definitely need to be honest with God. We cannot hide our 'trouble' from him - no matter how skilled we become at concealing it! What happened when we got home late as kids? A lot of the time some of our 'privileges' were restricted for a period of time. We couldn't go out the next day to play after school as a form of 'punishment' for our tardiness the night before. The reason we sought so desperately to cover up our 'troubling actions' as kids was because they carried a form of 'punishment' with them! No wonder we don't want to admit our troubles to each other and even God himself! We fear the judgment and punishment that could come!

The good news is that God isn't in the punishment business - he is in the restoration business! He isn't going to overlook our misdeed - in fact, he made a way for us to be out from under the guilt and shame of it through his son, Jesus. So, instead of punishment, he extends grace. Yes, there are outcomes to our actions - we call those consequences. Speed down the freeway, get pulled over, and you get a ticket. God knows the consequence of speeding will cost us something - we are to recognize the value behind the rule we have just broken. It isn't that he is punishing us by us having to go to traffic school or pay that fine - it is a consequence of our bad choice. Sin has consequences and sometimes I think we associate these with punishment. We somehow think God is punishing us, but the opposite is true. He has provided a means for us to no longer make those bad choices, learning from the consequence that resulted from our past 'not so good choices', and he helps us 'get out of trouble' by consistently working in our lives to help us make the right choices in the future. We serve a God who comes alongside - not one who lords it over! Just sayin!