Walking in the Spirit is when we are actively seeking God in everything. In every decision, understanding that He sees all time and is constantly working everything out for our good. NOT that He is working all things out the way we want them! Working all things out for our good. I have seen many people insist on staying in bad relationships because of the worldly definitions of love; despite God making it clear they are not meant to be together. Forcing our will over God's in this realm can have lifetime consequences. I have seen people decide to move without God's direction and fall away from the faith for years. Thankfully they came back but that one decision ended up being a five year detour. I have seen people completely not understand that the answer of "no" from God is just as much a blessing as yes. You can argue it is a bigger blessing because it keeps us from a mistake! If you really wanted a promotion at work and prayed and ultimately were denied that promotion, we must understand that God is in fact protecting us. We cannot see it in the temporal what God knows in the Spiritual. God sees for example that the promotion causes an increase in stress, which damages your marriage and pulls you away from church. Maybe your faith suffers and your marriage suffers as a result. Remember -- God sees all time! The way we want to take may seem right to us but God knows which way IS right for us.
Continuing on in the key verses, God reminds us that He has posted watchmen over us. Within the context, Judah had true prophets from God such as Jeremiah. They were sounding the alarm! They were warning Judah but to no avail because at the end of the day Judah said -- No! We won't pay attention! In our lives God has also posted watchmen. If we are in a good Bible believing church then we have pastoral oversight. We also may have seasoned Christians who we can discuss crossroads decisions with. People who will agree to seek God in prayer for this decision -- not just offer their own slice of carnality. When Solomon passed away the kingdom passed to his son Rehoboam. But Jeroboam led the ten northern tribes and offered to Rehoboam their allegiance to him as king if he would just agree to lighten to burden placed upon them by King Solomon. Rehoboam sought the advice of two groups of people as he was facing a crossroads decision. The elders advised him to take the deal and unite the twelve tribes of Israel. The second group however were the close friends of Rehoboam, whom he had grown up with. They advised an arrogant and threatening response. Rehoboam decided to trust his friends instead of the elders and the result of this poor crossroads decision had everlasting consequences as the nation was forever split into the 10 northern tribes, called Israel and the two remaining tribes know as Judah. How often do we do the same things when facing the crossroads? We ask the wrong people. People who are no further along than we are in life. Or even worse, people who do not even share the same beliefs that we do! What advice do you think you will receive from your unbelieving co-worker who is twice divorced about the problems in your marriage? We need to seek out the elders beloved. People who have faced the crossroads we now face. People who are right with God and can offer prayer and wise counsel.
Lastly, we see that God promises to sound an alarm if we begin skipping down the wrong path. The Bible says that God will always provide a way out for us. Even though we might make the wrong decision, it does not mean that sometimes we cannot go back to the crossroads and change it. But only if we are willing to listen to the alarm! In the key verses we see that Judah said -- No! We will not listen! That may seem incredulous to us but how many Christians today do the exact same thing? Sitting in apostate churches even though the alarms have been going off for some time now. Sitting under bullying leadership, based on unscriptural and carnal designs. Or even within our own walks. Staying in bad relationships besides everything not going right in our lives. We are just entirely too spiritually ignorant for these last days. Spirits of suicide in our churches. Spirits of illness and disease in our families. And we stand by and sing kumbya because we cannot connect the spiritual dots. Not everything negative has a spiritual component to it some of the things do!. But only if we are willing to pay attention when the alarm is being sounded. We cannot like Judah before us simply ignore it because we do so at our own peril. God eventually will simply step in but we can ease our trials if we would just learn to listen for the alarms and obey their prompting, whatever the cost.
The crossroads will stand before us ominously. Many paths but only one that is righteous. Only one that God wants us to take. We must stop beloved and consider the crossroads. We cannot blindly rush through them and expect to magically pick the right way to go. We must submit it into prayer because only God knows what the right path is. We must submit anything that might worry us into prayer to rest in God's peace. Our flesh will rise up as it always does and demand what it wants but we must resist it and follow after what the Lord wants. We cannot shout back to God that we will not listen because the alarms will go off if we venture down the wrong road. It frightens me when I think about all of the Christians on the broad path that leads to destruction. It frightens me because I am sure that God is sounding alarm bells and they just keep skipping down the road as if nothing is wrong until the come to Jesus on the last day and say"Lord Lord. Whatever crossroads you find yourself at today -- stop, consider, pray, resist. God has the roadmap; throw away your defective GPS today.
Reverend Anthony Wade -- April 8, 2013
