We’ve been talking the last couple days about fear. If you’re just jumping in, would you check out the first and second posts, then join us as we close? Thanks for reading.
:: I was reminded of my third fear this morning in my Bible reading. In 1 Kings 13 we read of a man of God, a prophet, who prophesied one of the greatest, clearest prophecies in all of scripture. He prophesies about the boy Josiah (calls him by name) would be raised up many many years later, and who would draw Israel back to God (for a time). He is used by God to speak this great prophecy and then is tempted by king Jeroboam to go to Jeroboam’s house but the prophet remains steadfast by insisting,
“I will not … for it was commanded me by the word of the LORD saying, “You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came.” So he went another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.
But then just a little way later, along his journey, another man of God, another prophet is sent to this first man, and he goes and invites him into his house. The prophet is resolute in his obedience to God’s word and doesn’t go, but the second prophet presses him and insists and even goes so far as to lie and say that God told him to bring the prophet back to his house.
If this isn’t a test I don’t know what is. And the result? The first prophet gives in and goes with him to his house, abandoning his conviction he had held. Then after he leaves, having disobeyed, he is attacked by a lion and killed.
Done. Just like that. Eaten by a lion. From the heights of a powerful prophet, fore-telling the great King Josiah to come, to being torn to shreds by a lion and left on the roadside to die.
Tragic. Sin is always tragic.
Such a quick downfall. Such a stupid sin. Could it be that perhaps we are most susceptible to absolute demise when we’ve just been thrust to the pinnacle of our Christian experience?
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” 1 Corinthians 10:12
I recently had coffee with a woman who comes from a church across the country who experienced the devastation of a pastor running off with a secretary. Of course the result was the absolute ruin of two families and most of a church body. Sin always ruins lives. And oh wouldn’t the enemy love to take down the most prominent, the shepherds, the leaders, the prophets, the ones who represent our Almighty God to the masses. It was his tactic in 1 Kings, it is his tactic now.
Last night Jeff and I had our date night out. We sat over prawns and talked of life and the Lord and our kids and our lives. And we talked of this. That we could just be faithful! That’s all we’re called to do. The gist even of all of these three good fears is that we learn to be obedient and faithful and teach our children to be obedient and faithful. In short–long obedience is where it’s at.
Lifelong discipleship is lifelong obedience.
So that’s why this is new breath-prayer,
Lord help me to be faithful.
Faithful to my husband, my kids, to the Lord and His calling, to my friends, with our finances. Just faithful. That’s all I want to be.
That’s all we’re called to be.
And a healthy dose of fear, knowing our flesh and its weakness, can help us to walk soberly, circumspectly, redeeming the time. But most of all we must know our God, because “when we are faithless He is faithful because He cannot deny Himself.”
Our God is faithfulness, we learn by looking to Him.