2008-02-15
Good Morning God's Cherished Ones,
Eventually, the rubber hits the road where our need to make a living and conduct our lives meets with our spiritual beliefs. Recently, Gov. Mike Huckabee made the assertion that he doesn't believe that his spiritual life and values should be separated from his personal and professional life. That is so apt to the topic of today's devotion that I had to include it. Some questions arise. Can this lack of separation be accomplished in our own efforts to make a living? Can these values be passed on to our children despite the fact that they are growing up in an increasingly secular society? Our Lord Jesus has weighed in on both these questions in MT 6: 33, "Instead, be concerned above everything else with the Kingdom of God and with what He requires of you, and He will provide you with all these other things [food, clothing, drink, etc.-the basic needs of our lives]." I've already made the assertion that doing nothing to help oneself is out of the question in previous messages. In the KJV, the words "be concerned" are substituted with the word, "seek" in this verse, indicating one should seek the Kingdom of God. The Greek word used here for "seek" is "dsay-teh'-o," meaning to go about, desire, endeavor, enquire for, or require. It is given in the present tense, implying an ongoing, habitual action. This would indicate that we have two goals, carrying on the activities and aims of our lives, while at the same time remaining aware of and acting on God's will- which is seeking His Kingdom on earth. While not easy, He created us with the ability to do this, which was unlocked and unleashed by Christ's death on the cross and our faith in Him [JN 3: 16; RO 3: 24-25; RO 1: 16-17; RO 6: 6, 11].
I have often said that society's most serious problem is the breakdown of the family unit. It's the reason why we must return repeatedly to be reminded of GN 2: 22-24, "He [God] formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him. Then the man said, 'At last, here is one of my own kind-bone taken from my bone, and flesh from my flesh. 'Woman' is her name because she was taken out of man.' That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one." Out of this union of one man to one woman comes children, forming a family unit. What has happened to the family unit in the modern world is a tragedy, one of commission of sinful acts and one of rationalization to cover these sins. This is something I know about first-hand because of the necessity of my own past divorce, it's effects on my son, and because of counseling many others from broken and newly-blended families. I'm not afraid to state that the reason for a 52 % failure rate of marriages in this country is partly due to people getting married in haste for the wrong reasons. Of course, I'm not simplistic enough to say that it's the only reason for this alarming statistic. Even more worrisome is the trend of living together without marriage and having children-relationships that have an 80 % chance of failure. What has happened is that today's young people are frightened of learning the skills necessary to make wise choices in a mate and of making any kind of commitments at all. Only being raised in a home with parents who are true believers living out their faith can combat that trend.
God intended that His values should be passed on to children by their parents, as is seen in DT 6: 4-7, "Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. Never forget these commands that I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working." In the book of Joshua, there is a mandate for regular Scriptural mediation. JS 1: 8, "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful." The attitude we should take toward God's teaching is given to us clearly in PS 1: 1-2, "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night." When I began this devotion, I mentioned where the rubber meets the road. What this means here is that we must be the "salmon swimming upstream" against the trends of sinfulness and rationalization in the way we are to live our lives in today's society. Our lives should be lives of righteousness, according to God's point of view [LV 19: 2; 1 PET 1: 16]. What God asks of us isn't easy, but it is surely necessary if our family units are to be at all protected. Establishing a home based on a committed marital relationship is only the first step. Remaining in a committed marriage means being willing to work through the challenges that come to us, not giving up the minute they appear. It means mutual respect in a very grown-up and loving way between the two parties to the marriage.
PRAYER: O Lord, our heads are bowed in reverence to You. We come to You in prayer with thanks in our hearts for Your loving kindness, wise advice, and the model Your Son, Jesus Christ, has set for us. You are a God Who deserves our praise and our hearts being committed to You. You have defined what a true marriage between believers is, as we have seen. You have also been compassionate and wise enough to allow us to know when a marriage can be dissolved by necessity. Christ made it clear that divorce is detestable to Him, except where there has been unfaithfulness [MT 19: 8-9, 11]. Later, we learn that there is only one more acceptable reason for divorce. 1 COR 7: 15, "However, if the one who is not a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases the Christian partner, whether husband or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace." You have made it clear what a family unit should be, and You have equipped us with the wisdom to establish such a unit. However, all too many of us neglect to pay attention to Your teaching in the rush of our desire to either marry for the wrong reasons or to refuse to ever make a commitment to a person of the opposite sex. The partners in the marriage are not the only humans engaged in sin. Sometimes it is the families of a marital couple that cause the problems, usually by meddling in one form or another. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ has said, in MT 6:24, "No one can be a slave of two masters; he will hate one and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon." All too often, Dearest Abba, the part of us that rationalizes sin tries to mount the slippery slope of loving both God and money, and he falls precipitously into sin. You have told us in MT 5: 3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for their's is the Kingdom of heaven." Coupled with what is discussed in this devotion, we understand that we can't make good decisions without Your intervention, nor can we obey your command to establish a balance between our need to make a living and your will that we seek Your Kingdom as our first priority. So, that is our plea to You today. Guide us and teach us the way to live righteously in Your eyes [PS 25: 4-5]. You are a loving God, and we again offer You our loyalty, dedication to obedience, faithfulness, praise, and everlasting thanks for Who You are and what You do for us. In Christ's mighty name, we pray. Amen.
The Holy Spirit leads me to have left us hanging at the end of today's message. There are more issues that must be covered before moving on-things like what constitutes mutual respect in a marriage, how problems can be solved when they come, good communications regarding mammon et al, wisdom in godly child-rearing, providing for a family in a godly way, roles within a marriage, and ways to love and have devotion for God and each other. These will be discussed in coming messages. These are all things that fall under the topic of seeking God's Kingdom first in ones personal and professional life. I can't help but feel that the Holy Spirit is being wonderfully generous to us by giving me so much about which to write. It's likely to be an exciting spiritual adventure for all of us, so keep on reading as the weeks pass by to see where He takes us. I'm sure we will see a great deal of His wisdom for single people too. After all, all of us who are capable adults must make a living and still place establishing His Kingdom on earth as our first priority. We must ask ourselves, do we want to separate our Christian spiritual beliefs from our personal and professional lives? I, for one, do not! PS 119: 1, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee." Before we have any thought, come to any decision, or take any action, we should come before the Lord in prayer and ask for His direction. PS 37: 23-24, "The steps of the godly are directed by the Lord. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand." Praise be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn