When God has a point He wants to get across to us, He tends to leave little ‘wiggle room’ so that we clearly understand what is being said. That doesn’t mean we are not prone to wanting to ‘wiggle’ some and ‘seek a loophole’ to put another spin on what we hear; but make no mistake about it- God means what He says. Take for example, this idea of what it means to ‘love God’, which we discussed yesterday.

Jesus made the statement repeatedly that IF…we truly loved Him, we’d do what He says, as in ‘keep His commandments’. (John 14:15,21,23)

Where we tend to ‘wiggle’ is in believing the lie that we can ‘still love Jesus’ …and Not…have to always do what He says. You know, be a ‘saint’ or a ‘child of God’ who sins regularly, given that well repeated line we’ve all bought in to that ‘nobody is perfect, just forgiven’.

So here’s a clear point Jesus makes when He said “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.” (Matt. 6:24). Sounds like ‘either/or’ to me.

It would not appear that there is any ‘middle ground’ there. You either love Him…or hate Him.

I only bring this up given a couple of passages found in the OT that have often caught my attention recently.   In the book of Jeremiah, we read where God was speaking through him and warning the people regarding the popular teachings of their day:

“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you….they speak a vision of their own heart…NOT…from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise Me…’The Lord has said, ‘You shall have peace”, and to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, ‘No evil shall come upon you.” (Jer. 23:16-17)

It seems to suggest here that you have a bunch of false prophets/teachers, who claim to be sent by God, but are not; …telling God’s people that even though they live the way they want to live, that they won’t suffer any consequences for living according to the dictates of their own hearts. Promising them ‘peace and safety’ as in ‘nothing bad will happen to them’,  God actually describes them as a people who “despise Me”.

God is saying these people actually ‘hate’ Him. I mean, who in their right mind would openly admit or profess to ‘hate God’? Maybe it’s not always with our words that conveys that message, but rather our actions, or should I say the fruit we manifest in our lives? It’s not like this is some strange phenomena either given what Paul wrote to Titus telling him of how people would ‘profess to know Him (Jesus) but by their actions they would deny Him.’ (Tit. 1:16)

So let’s go visit Psalms 81 for a moment if we can. But let me first remind you that in the OT, when we read of Israel, it’s good to know that Israel is a ‘type’ or ‘foreshadow’ of the church, the ‘called out ones’ who are the ‘apple of God’s eye’. And they (Israel) had a repeated history of not doing what God asked of them. 

So let’s examine where we read: “My people would not heed My voice…Israel would have none of Me…so I gave them over to their own stubborn heart to walk in their own counsels”. (81:11). You might jot down 2 Thess. 2:9-12 next to that and look up to read later.

And God continues on: “Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways. I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries.” (81:13-14)

Who is our ‘enemy/adversary’ today? *hint* - 1 Peter 5:8 will tell you.

Do you often hear, as I do, how many professing believers today talk about all the ‘attacks’ they are under ‘from the devil’?

It’s one thing to be ‘tempted by the devil’ which we know will happen regularly in our walk of faith which is how we are ‘tested’. But it’s another thing to be ‘attacked’ by the enemy, who comes to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’. (John 10:10). We are also exhorted to ‘give no place to him’ in Ephesians 4:27. Would you like to take a guess how we ‘give place to the devil’? - It’s when we sin. Sin, gives place to the devil which is why Jesus told that man He healed to ‘go and sin no more or something worse will happen to you.” (John 5:14)

So according to Psalm 81:15, who is it that these enemies are attacking that God promised deliverance to if they would simply do what He says?

He refers to them as “the haters of the Lord who would pretend submission to Him.”

[Pause]

What would that imply and look like in your mind? People who might ‘honor God with their lips, but their hearts are elsewhere’ perhaps? (Matt. 15:8). People maybe who ‘say Lord, Lord, but don’t do what He says?’ (Luke 6:46). Could we be talking of those same people Jesus warned us about in Matt. 7:21-23 who were busy doing all kinds of ‘wonderful works in His name’, but were denied entrance in to His kingdom because they continued to practice sin?

If we are honest with ourselves, we’d admit we do the same thing with those people around us, like our families. We are quick to ‘profess our love’ for them, but if that is true, why do we repeatedly find ourselves constantly quarreling, and snapping at, and bickering with, and finding fault and running short of patience with them? And how often are we told, and continue to tell ourselves, that ‘marriage is hard’ and ‘full of challenges’?

Everyone says that, correct? [Who told us that? Gen. 3:11]

Yet…we husbands, for example, are told to ‘love your wives as Christ loved the church” (Eph. 5:25). Sounds like the commandment Jesus gave us to ‘love one another as He loved us’, in John 14:34-35, does it not? And did not John write and tell us that God’s commandments are ‘not hard’? (1 John 5:3). Do we not read the ‘way of the transgressor (sinner) is hard? (Prov. 13:15). Did Jesus not say His way/yoke was ‘easy’? (Matt. 11:30)

Can I just tell you now, without any judgment, that if there is a lot of repeated ‘backfiring’ taking place within your home/marriage…(see my post from Thursday), something is not working right. When we hear it repeated regularly from church leaders and counselors and we repeat it ourselves as we tell others the same line….”Oh, marriage is difficult and there are all these ups and downs, etc…”, I’m not disagreeing with that assessment. What I am saying is…something is not right. It’s not supposed to be that way. (James 3:9-12) We’ve just learned to accept that lie, live it out, tell others that’s ‘just the way it is’…and we have suffered greatly for it. But we sure feel comforted in the fact we are not alone when it comes to experiencing all the noise and conflict in our own homes; so we just hang in there, try harder and feel better about ourselves when we don’t ‘crash and burn’ as bad as others around us do.

Years ago, I heard it taught that the home of a believing family that has a ‘godly marriage’ should reflect the love and harmony that exist between God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the ‘oneness’ they manifest. (Hold on there UPC friends, I know your heart rate went up on that one). Marriage is, after all, a ‘coming together where two become one’, is it not? So what kind of message have we conveyed to our children about that ‘harmony in heaven’? And don’t think for a moment that I figured this all out years ago. I’m right there with you and have scars to prove it. But just because everyone is on that same ‘wide road’ that Jesus spoke of in Matt. 7 does not mean majority rules and all is ‘normal'.  Do you believe there is conflict and discord among the ‘godhead’? I would beg to differ if you do.

Do you think it is remotely possible…that just maybe…we’ve ‘missed it’ somewhere when it comes to living out this walk of faith as true disciples of Jesus? And because of a ‘lack of knowledge’ that God says leads to ‘destruction’ in Hosea 4:6, we have somehow missed out on the true power of God that was supposed to make us a ‘new creation in Christ’ (2 Cor. 5:17) and ended up walking in a ‘form of godliness’ but void of power. (2 Tim. 3:5)

And since ‘sin’ is breaking the commandments of God (1 John 3:4) and sin ‘gives place to the devil’, if we have fallen short of ‘loving others as Christ loved us’ which was what He commanded us to do, then maybe we are those very people God is talking about there in Ps. 81 that ‘pretend submission’ to Him; trying are hardest to please God but failing repeatedly.

But instead of just humbling ourselves and truly repenting and coming to God with all our hearts, we try to live out this walk saying we love God, but only in word. Which then leads to double-mindedness and deception. And James had some pretty strong words to address this in his letter. Let me assure you now, this beloved book of ours, the bible, is not a collection of ‘pie in the sky’ theories to be studied and analyzed. It was given to us for us ‘to do’. (James 1:22; Matt. 7:24) We’ll continue on with this later.