If we don’t respect our God (His word, His way, His heart) – the results will be devastating!
I’ve said before that America was not founded as a Christian nation, but rather founded on religious freedom. At our core has always been, however, a special respect for Christianity and the things of God. I believe that our forefathers, though some were agnostic and some atheists, knew that there was one God that was not to be trifled with.
I was reading Judges 19, and I was so annoyed with the master who pushed the concubine out for the men to abuse; and God spoke to my spirit, “why are you annoyed, you all do this to me all of the time!” My heart wept, how could we possibly be treating our King like our concubine. We couldn’t! We wouldn’t! But we do …When I was a youngster when someone was in a bit of trouble at their own doing we would tell them, “You brought that *mess* on yourself!” My dear Christian brothers and sisters – it’s high time we take responsibility for our own actions.We are bringing this down on our own heads! We, His own redeemed ones, are pushing our Holy King out there for the world to abuse His word; ignore His statues; poke fun at His truths; waylay His way of life; destroy His people; divide His children in an effort to destroy our faith.
What does it look like practically? Just look around at the landscape of America, our amazing homeland. Believers in Christ have wholeheartedly taken up the worship of other gods in addition to our stated devotion to Christ. I think that the god of self-love/self-satisfaction has the highest throne; after that the god of self-righteousness; then a close third is the god of gluttony or the god of more or the god of not enough.
As the bridegroom of the church – Christ has unlimited access and rights to our lives — but we have treated our own God as if He is one who neither has the rights of a full spouse; nor one who earns the respect of a kinsmen redeemer. Without regard for His authority over us and His sovereignty – we ask Him to come into our hearts and take a seat instead of inviting Him to take the throne of our lives and reign!
By our own behavior we are compromising our faith and are communicating to the world around us that our King is not really a king after all! It is our actions that tell the world who we are! They will know He is our King when we act like subjects in His kingdom!
We must treat our bridegroom with respect and honor! We have to resist the temptation to love Him while holding fast to other ways of life; refrain from compromising our principles; repent from participating in the spewing of hate when we have been redeemed to LOVE! Lest we wake up one day and find our God has been reduced to a mere ideal – and that ideal is found at the door in a heap where He was once knocking and waiting to be invited in!
My prayer is that we will stop looking at the world to treat Christ as King and that we will do that ourselves! I plead with the Lord to give us all a mind to yield the throne of our hearts to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. May His love grow and dwell in us so that a lost and dying world will be able to see the difference in the life of a Christ Follower. May we nurture and embrace a true fidelity to our King and fight against the temptation to abuse the relationship. May we never forget that we don’t serve a passive God; but one who has all authority and one for whom, one day, every knee has got to bow! May we all lift Him up and lay ourselves low.
Judges 19: 25
But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and brought her out to them, and they raped her and abused her all night until morning, then let her go at the approach of dawn.
