Serving God is all about choices. In the beginning, when you became a Christian, God said “Today I set before you life and death – You Choose” – and you chose life. However after that there are still many decisions to make in your christian life and that is where many christians fail. They make the initial decision but fail to carry on and make any further decisions.
God is the potter and you are the clay. God continues to mold you and change you, but one serious flaw that we as mankind have, the ability to choose, always poses a problem. Clay has many characteristics and different clays are required for different purposes in pottery. Some clays are just no good for making good pots. So it is with God and us. Some people just do not make great christians!
When reading the Gospels, I always found it interesting as to how many people Jesus chased away. Why did he chase them away? He knew that they were of no substance. The parable of the sower and the seed can be clearly related. Some seed fell on good soil. Some on stony places and some amongst thorns. Jesus cast out the stony places and thorny areas straight away and was left only with the good soil which produced good results.
In my time spent counselling people, I found that 90% of my counselling time was spent on people who did not want to change.They wanted God to change his conditions to suit them. God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. Every week it was back to the same people with the same problems. They drain you and take all your time but never change. As soon as you stop nursing them they get upset and run away to another church so that they can be nursed again. It is these types of people Jesus used to chase away. Why ? They are the stony places and thorny areas that will never come to anything. It is these same people that tend to give all the non christians a finger to point at.
Now that we are left with the good soil, why is it that some fields bear great fruit while others do not? Why is it that some of these christians still battle?
Deuteronomy chapter 28 is one of my favourite chapters inthe bible and is the key to the above question. Verse 1 and 2 should be memorised by every Christian around.
Verse 1 ” Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.”
Verse 2 “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God”.
How carefully have you obeyed all his commandments? Try the Blessing Barometer test. The chapter carries on to list all of God’s blessings and then all of God’s curses that will come upon you if you do not obey. I know that the curses should not come upon us as we are set free from them through Jesus, but in reality a good 95% or more Christians have many of these curses evident in their lives. Read the verses carefully, remembering that these were written a couple of thousand years ago. Change the verse according to modern day terms ie. when the verse relates to the cattle in the field, in modern day terms that is your bank balance.
Today you need to choose to follow God’s commandments in full. God did not say in the verse above that you must only follow the new testament or that you can choose to follow a couple of his commandments while ignoring those that do not suit you. He said ” Observe carefully all his commandments“.
It is important to know how to translate this into our lives. God does not require of us to return to the sacrifices and laws of the old testament.
The Bible is split into 3 sections.
Old testament Gospels Letters.
In the old testament God ruled te earth. Then came Jesus for a period of 33 years and made the changes. Lastly came The Holy Spirit and we still live under the Holy Spirit today.
The Gospels and the rule of Jesus was a time of change for us. Jesus performed work on earth for us and set us free from many parts of the law. So now when we, living under the Holy Spirit, in the time of the letters, look at the old testament, we need to see the old testament through the Cross of Jesus.
Look at sacrifices – The law required that we sacrifice for the atonement of sins – Jesus became the sacrifice for us – we need to now recognise that Jesus was the sacrifice for our sins and through Him our sins are forgiven.
What about the curses in Deuteronomy?
It is written “cursed is he who hangs on a tree”. Jesus hung on the tree for us and removed the curses.
Cool – We have no curses – that means that we have blessings! NO. In between the scale of curses and blessings is an area of neurality
How do we earn Blessings – We obey all his commandments.
“Seek thee first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto thee”.
