learning to live the christian life
Choices & Consequences
Friday 01.21.05 [8:01 pm] delete entry | edit entry
What a lot of believers fail to recognize is that life is all about choices & consequences. God saves us from the penalty of sin, but not the consequences. What I did before I got right with God is still affecting my own life right now. & things I did may affect the lives of my children for several generations. Many times what the governing body of a nation does will affect the citizens of that nation for many generations. It's the natural law of choices & consequences. Who would have known a choice Israelite leaders made would affect the whole nation for the next 2,000 years.
When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
Matthew 27:24-25
& it has been. The Israelite people have suffered for centuries now because of one wrong choice made in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. God warned the Israelite people several thousand years ago about going contrary to the revealed will of God. I don't believe God has cursed them so much as their choices have.
Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other Gods, which ye have not known.
Deuteronomy 11:26-28
All of these epidemics we're dealing with today can be traced back to decisions nations, or even mankind as a whole, have made in the past. If a girl were to get gloriously saved, & later choose to sleep around, & get pregnant, or contract HIV, God isn't obligated to heal her just because she got saved earlier. He's not even obligated to heal her if she got in that condition prior to salvation. The same holds for a man who thinks he can steal & get away with it because he's a believer. when he gets caught, he'll go to prison just like everyone else. I suffer today because I drank & drugged for 12 years before coming back to God. God can heal me any time He sees fit; but He's not obligated to do so, & I have no right to demand He heal me because I'm a child of God now, & live such a holy life. If I receive my healing, it will be pure grace because I deserve everything I'm getting for the choices I made in life in the past. A lot of people have turned away from God when trouble came into their lives because someone in a pulpit somewhere gave them unreal expectations of what life will be like as a believer. When we suffer as believers because of choices we ourselves made in the past, or others made, we have the right to come to God as Daniel did in Daniel 9:18 seeking mercy from God, but we have no right to get mad @ God when we're being punished for choices made in the past.
Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.
Lamentations 3:39-40
Instead we should pray this prayer;
O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.
Daniel 9:18