The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." - 2 Chronicles 15:1, 2
I am really struggling here. There is a whole bunch of believers these days that are attempting to embrace a God who flows naturally out of personal paradigms in their life. The emergent movement has spawned groups that, though they do not willingly embrace the overall pseudo-non-theological premise of conversation and dialogue based on a lack of foundations it is having an odd effect. May the outcomes be better than the beginnings. But first what is a personal paradigm? An example might be a friend and you are talking about godly things and you say, "I think that God will let you know when He's ready to let you know." The key words there would be, I think. That is a personal paradigm. You aren't validating your thoughts against anything. You aren't speaking or indicating you are being lead by the Holy Spirit. You are not designating your thoughts as the Bible's position on the issue. You are merely stating an opinion. Now, depending on how valued your advice is to your friend, they may just take it as Gospel. You may in fact be all the Jesus they know. Right or wrong they view you as their spiritual guidepost. You are their moral compass. And that kind of response to them, well, it's sad to me. It's also dangerous for you. In the verse above Asa was the king of Judah for 41 years. That's a long time. He was known as a good king who served the Lord with great zeal. He reformed and restored godliness to Israel as the direction the nation would pursue. He broke down idols in high places that were worshipped. These were foreign gods brought in by the insurgence of other people's into the lands. He did other moral and cool things as well such as doing away with male prostitutes. And check this out, he even removed his own mother from being queen because she worshiped an idol. The Scriptures say that as long as he sought the Lord, the Lord prospered his reign. However, Asa was not totally faithful in his calling. There came a time in his life when he made a decision to no longer trust in the God of Israel. He lost his confidence in God as his deliverer. Later in Chronicles we would find the prophet Hanani come to Asa to inform him that God's blessing was no longer on his life because of an ungodly alliance he had made. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, He delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war - 2 Chronicles 16:8-9 We all are susceptible to do the very same things with our spiritual lives. Many of us are so constantly self-observing that we read, and listen and embrace and heap to ourselves teachers whose thoughts and concepts and attitudes speak to us and validate our current emotional state. But do they provide to us the kind of childlike love that Jesus came to restore to us when He gave us back our Father God? Do they help us hear Him early in the morning? Do they open and reveal the Bible to us in such a way that it provides guidance for our ability to try the spirits and voices? We should press into God and align ourselves with those who are God pursuers; who seek to Love God - Who Love Others by their actions and words - Whose discipling power is energized by the Holy Spirit because it brings forth life and not just more dialogue. We should not simply be spinning our wheels and validating our weaknesses and the path we have pursued to this moment in time. I read a series of blogs over the last two days of whining baby Christians. Pointing to a past of teaching, discipling and training that they say, 'wore them out,' and 'caused guilt and shame.' They describe their church experiences as if they had been tied to a chair and water-boarded spiritually. In post after post they validated the horrors of their Christian history. Apparently God was not sovereign in their lives. He missed them. They were not on His radar. Whatever happened to the words of Paul where he indicated that all the things he had gone through were meant to provide goodness, grace, power, teaching and all God things for himself and his readers? Ah! If you ask some of these they would say, "I think he got sidetracked in his pursuit of God by thinking he could please God and his zealousness got him in trouble." Ya. Uh huh. THAT's what happened. Wake up believers. Get a grip! The God who loves and saved you is speaking to you. Pursue Him. Follow Him. Expect to hear and be guided by your Heavenly Father as you follow Him. Look, there are no guarantees that if we began well we will finish well. The life of Asa tells us this. It is only through God's grace that we can be faithful to our calling. But being faithful to it means we actively pursue it. This is the God who said, "You will find me when you seek me...with all your heart." And, make no mistake of it. You have a calling. Each of us is capable of falling away from that calling in God. God gets great joy in answering the prayers of the week. You don't have to come up with some slick teaching out of your own paradigm that justifies why you feel the way you do. Pray that God will keep you faithful to the purposes He has for your life. Engage your fellow believers in your quest to be strong in the Lord and the power of His might! Reach down and help another. There is ALWAYS someone who needs Jesus love as it comes from you. Our Father strengthens those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. And that is not how I feel. Ask Asa...I remain... InHISgrip,
~J~
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