Good morning you guys! Numbers Chapter 30. I must confess this was a little confusing to me. It has to do with making a vow or pledge before God. And the pledge that one makes should be followed through. I'm going on the assumption that God is declaring that the pledge should be followed through provided it's a pledge that does not violate his command. For God would never want us to follow through on a pledge that violates his word.
With that assumption, then we must be careful what we say we will do for the Lord. My advice would be one of two things:
- Seek the Lord first.
- Follow through with what you say you will do by persevering. Make sure you don't give up after failing the first few times. Let me explain!
- Seek. Sometimes we can get excited about the Lord and we are too quick to say what great things we are going to do for God. We don't evaluate the consequences of our decisions. Therefore I feel we should be quick not to make a decision but be quick to:
- Seek the Lord in prayer first.
- Seek Godly advice.
- Trust God to give you peace in your heart on whether or not you should do what you are thinking. If we approach it strictly from a selfish reason, then we look for our peace and not God's peace. And if it's totally from a selfish reason, then we are not quick to respect nor take the advice of our parents or spouse.
- Follow through with what you say you will do. For example, we feel convicted by God in a given area and make a vow commit to it. I commit to serve the Lord in the church. I commit to spend more time in prayer and in the word of God. I commit to be in church using my gifts more. I commit to get help in my struggling areas that hinder my commitments. These are all good things and certainly not easy. So we start off doing the very thing that we made a vow to do and when things get tough in our world we stop. That can happen, so my advice is to persevere and not give up. God is a patient and loving God and will help you have success over time. He will give you strength to follow-through in the areas you made your vow. He will provide accountability help. Don't up. Don't give up.
Chapter 30 along with Pastor Blair’s comments remind me that our actions should always match our words and that we need to do what we say that we will. My wife can tell you that I don’t like to ever make any promises unless I know for certain that they are ones that I can keep. For example, if our kids want to go to the park or someplace special on Saturday for instance, I would say that we could plan for it, but I wouldn’t promise to do so in case something might happen like a broken-down vehicle or some unforeseen circumstances like that to deal with instead. I think plans sometimes might have to change, but promises shouldn’t be broken.
We can change our mind about some things, but what about being faithful to fulfill commitments that we make?
Do others see us as people of integrity and someone that can be counted on if we don’t keep our word or if we regularly back out of what we may have told them before?
Here’s what we find in James 4:17. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
It also makes me think of what we read in Matthew 21:28-32 when Jesus was talking to the religious leaders. “What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.”
The religious leaders that Jesus was speaking with were like the second son. They weren’t doing what they were told even if they may have said that they were. Our goal should be to be obedient to do the will of our Father. He offers grace, but there’s only a limited time that we have on this earth to accept His free gift and for us to tell others about Jesus.