Good morning!
Deuteronomy chapter 13.
What jumped out at me in this chapter is to remove evil from your life and from your presence. Evil is not to be played with nor compromised with. What evil do I have in my life? What is God wanting to see removed? If an outsider or someone we don't know tempts us with evil, I feel we have no problem saying NO and might even be offended by their jester. What if someone we love and respect tempts us to join in on a certain behavior, we sometimes struggle with saying NO. We don't want to offend them by acting like we are better than they are. We justify our compromise with them cuz we want to be their friend don't want to push them away. This chapter makes it clear, it doesn't matter who tempts us, we say NO!!! They just offended our Lord God by asking us to compromise with evil. So who do we want to defend? The loved one or God? We can do this in love. In fact, it is an opportunity to lovingly share your testimony for the Lord. If done in love you may gain their respect or plant a seed in their hearts for the Lord. They may, on the other hand, hate you. But keep loving them. God's not looking for Christians who will compromise their faith. We have enough of them. They're all over the place. Instead God is calling us to be a light in a dark world. Matthew 5:16. God is calling us to be different than the world. 2nd Corinthians 6:14-18. God is calling us to love him more than the things of this world. To love the things in the world more than God is to become an enemy of God. James 4:4. We want God to bless us but we don't want to get rid of evil in our lives: lust, lying, drunkenness, hate, bitterness, unforgiveness, anger issues, habits, etc. All of this to say what evil is in our lives is God saying, at all cost, let's get rid of it? He will help us. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you. Ask and then keep asking, he will intervene.
Chapter 13 talked about purging evil from our midst at all costs. Sin is a big deal to God and it should be a big deal to us. I have to admit that this was a challenging chapter for me to read as it talked about killing those who would entice us to sin. I realize that this was what was being directed to Israel at that time so to put this into practice today would look somewhat different. To me, this might mean putting to death a relationship that is not a healthy one. For example, if someone who is a facebook friend is choosing to post things that are not honoring the Lord, God may want me to take action in some way that might not be easy. God wants us to be a light to shine for Him as we read in Matthew 5:16 so one of the questions that I have to ask myself is whether I am being a Christlike influence for that individual or is that individual’s influence pulling me more away from the Lord?
I think about how Jesus dealt with sin in John 8:1-12. Do I have the same attitude as Jesus? I definitely don’t want the attitude that the scribes and Pharisees had. They didn’t really care about people, but had selfish motives instead. Jesus showed forgiveness to the woman and told her to go and sin no more.
Before we start thinking that Jesus or the New Testament doesn’t deal with sin as harshly as the Old Testament does, think again. Jesus made it clear that He needs to have first place in our lives above every other relationship. We read this in Luke 14:26-27.
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple.” I don’t think that Jesus wants us to actually hate anyone, but the point is that our relationship with Him has to be the top priority above any other relationship. Jesus was quick to forgive sin, but He certainly didn’t take sin lightly. Check out what He had to say in Matthew 18:8. “And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.”
Two things stand out to me today.
1. God is holy.
2. Lost people matter to God and He wants them found.
May we see sin as God sees sin and may we see people the way that God sees people.
One phrase I heard today was, “culture Christianity”. It’s like you were saying the other day Blair, churches voting on allowing a gay pastor. Culture Christianity is when you allow our culture, and society, to shape your Christianity. Instead of using the word of God and it’s teachings, you allow the culture we live in to dictate the types of beliefs you should have, even if it’s the opposite of biblical teachings. I hear a lot of people say, “I did this (insert sin), and Jesus still loves me!” Well yes, Jesus ALWAYS loves us. But He most certainly doesn’t love our sin. And in our sin, are we showing that we love Jesus? No. He paid a price for our sins. To continue sinning is the opposite of loving and honoring Jesus.
I found a great quote about Jesus and sin, “Jesus doesn’t convict a Christian of sin to condemn us, but to clean us and set us free from the sin so that we can enjoy fellowship with Him and be use by Him for his glory and our reward.”