As my journey continues the Lord has begun to peel away at yet another layer of my "conformed zone"; which is a close relative of my "comfort zone". There is a song that asks the question, "when did love become unmoving" and that's what the Holy Spirit is asking me these days. Why is it that I read a scripture or a devotional; I watch a movie or hear a wonderful story and I am flooded with emotion to which I say, "Boy, that really moved me"? The Lord is showing me that there is a BIG difference in being moved by something or simply stirred or pricked by it. I was reading in Joshua a week or two ago and as I read of the Children of Israel crossing over into the promised land I was amazed by some of the things they allowed and were eventually defeated by. To preface it, let me just say that a week or so ago I was around all 5 of my grandbabies and they were all sick. At the time I was feeling fine but within a day or two I too was sick and ended up flat of my back for a couple days. One thing that crossed my mind was the fact that I, a well person, around 5 little sick ones did not make them well, it did the opposite, being around 5 little sick people made me sick. Now there is more to it than that, I was also tired and run down which did not help. I only shared this to make a point that was in Joshua. God told His people to drive out the pagans that lived in the land. He told them not to have anything to do with them because God knew the Children of Israel would not make the pagans conform to the
ONE TRUE GOD but they would be led astray and would begin to take on the gods of the pagans. And that's just what happened. As I read, the Holy Spirit stopped me and asked me this question, "So, concerning MY PEOPLE in
America; which of the pagan gods have you taken on and are now bowing down to"? I pondered that and began to think of what the pagan gods are in
America today. Lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of food and entertainment, lovers of greed and violence. Basically we are lovers of pleasure, passion, power and prosperity. We as God's people have become so interwoven with this pagan world that we have taken on their gods and we've begun to worship them. No, I do not have a statue of Buddha in my home but I have a bigger image of worldliness in my television set. It sets there erected like a god and if anyone comes close to it with possibility of harming it or damaging it in any way we go nuts. It has a draw and a pull on us that occupies hours of meaningless, empty time that could be used in much more productive ways. We set there memorized by it to the point that we have been so lulled in and desensitized that we no longer see the poison that is subtly having its images burned into our hearts and minds and that of our children. What we would have been in total outrage about a few years ago is now so common that we no longer see it for what it is. The wolf in sheep’s clothing who comes in and removes the fake wool so slowly that he has actually removed it from his back and totally pulled it over our eyes. I think that's where the term "pulled the wool over them" must have originated from. One of the most damaging and destructive addictions today is pornography among both men and women. We are told it's happening at dangerously younger ages due to the exposure of images on our television sets and magazines that are readily available in any grocery store. There are parts of the brain that are not developed and are not supposed to be exposed to certain images at such young ages but since they are being exposed, there are chemicals that are being released in the minds of our children years before it was supposed to be there. It is causing generations of children to become lured into the world of seduction and very early sexual experimentation. You don't have to look very far to see the far reaching effects of the "sexual revolution" in the lives of our children and grandchildren. Some middle schools (and I would guess elementary schools) now have to deal with the outbreak of herpes and other
STD's that are being transmitted due to huge increases of oral sex among young people.
If that's not enough, the active, participating role of the father in the home is becoming extinct. Many more fathers are simply walking away from the home but countless numbers of the one's that are still there are inactive or on restricted duty. They too have become so addicted to this god that they spend hours watching one program or sporting event after the other. They set glued to the tube as if they are unconscious to the world around them. This causes the wife and children to have to compete with the god for the "natural affection" of the husband and dad. The family feels rejected, ignored and the message is loud and clear, "my husband or dad loves that way more than us because that's all he does". It’s a sad day when the house could be burning down around us and we would have to be pulled from the burning room by fire rescue team because we had no idea of what was going on. You say that's an exaggeration but I challenge you to be able to name as much info about each of your children and what they do on a daily basis and you can the stats of the last 3 ball games you just consumed. Better yet, not only has the god of entertainment crept into our living room and begun to diminish family relationships, what is it doing to out relationship with the
ONE TRUE GOD? Do we not take Him serious when He tells us every idle moment and word will have to be accounted for? Do we not take Him serious when He tells us to be alert for the time is near? Have we forgotten His words, "Thou shalt have NO OTHER gods before ME"? As they say on Wonder Pets, "This is Serious"!!!!
Bottom line is we claim to be in such close communion with God and that we walk with Him daily but I fear that we have no idea what it really looks like to walk with God. Television may not be causing you to waste precious time, it may be face book, shopping, eating, talking, or countless other gods that we look at as "not a big deal" but I once again challenge you as the Spirit is challenging me, "Which of their gods have you bowed down to"? I assure you it does not usually happen over night. It is a subtle, slow process that chips away at our convictions until they are less defined and certainly less adhered to. We keep moving the bar on our standards because we have bought into the notion that "well, no ones perfect and you know, God understands". Well to that I use a very technical term, HOG
WASH!!!! We are being drawn away by the lust of our own hearts and we are too "Wordless" to know it. We are like the story of the frog that was put in a pan of cold water and placed on a burner. The heat was turned up very slowly as to allow the frog to become adjusted or conformed to it then the temp is raised again and again. Finally there he is being boiled to death and incapable of doing anything about it because he ignored the warning signs and the gradual increased heat while sitting in the pot singing "rubber ducky...your the one". In closing, you might be thinking I'm just a "hater" of sports or the TV and I tell you I am a "hater" of anything that comes to steal, kill and destroy. Life is too short and we only have one chance to do the most with the time we are given. I am finding that I am full of conformed patterns that are crippling me, rendering me useless to my family and my Lord because I have slowly but surely become a lover of pleasure, a seeker of entrainment rather than a seeker of God and I'm being crippled by a deficiency of iron which comes from the steady intake of vitamin B; the BIBLE. I want my grandchildren to be different than my children. I want them to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and mind. I do not want them to have to look outside their home for what they should find inside it; love, stability, security, protection and conviction. I want them to grow up saying I may not know many stats but I do know the scriptures, I may not have material things but I am rich because my parents and grandparents loved me enough to give me Jesus instead of what the world told them to give me. I want them to grow up remembering the times we chose to keep the TV off and played games and laughed together and sat around and shared what we learned in God's Word that day or week. I want them to be able to tell their friends that at our house we serve the Lord and our dad is our hero, not Payton Manning or Michael Erving. I want my grandchildren to know that they are worth what ever price has to be paid, what ever sacrifice has to be made in order to help them come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Not that kind of "faith" that 85% of the teens have today that causes them to walk away after they graduate high school and never go back, but the kind that helps them stand and face the giants, that helps them be one in a million who say we will not shut up, back up or give up until we are taken up. I want them to be equipped to go to battle fully armed and ready to use the shield of faith and the sword as they proudly proclaim the gospel of truth to a world that's taken on the gods of the pagans. I want to see fathers willing to do more than watch Courageous but BE COURAGEOUS and take back what the enemy has stolen from them. The right to stand in the threshold of their homes and proclaim boldly, "As for me and my house we WILL serve the LORD".
Father,
You hate luke warm and you hate idolatry in every form. You sent your Son to come and show us the way that you have called us to go and you beckon us, "Come and Follow Me". How I have fallen short and been deceived by the slow process of conformity and complacency. Please forgive me, help me find the idols that I'm serving and destroy them. Do a redemptive work in my heart and help me fall so deeply in love with You that the thought of serving another would sicken me. Help me see through Your eyes, hear through Your ears and speak under the influence of Your Words. Father help my family see the danger lurking and the criticalness of the moment. Help us be bold in our decision making and courageous in our stand. May we put Your Word to the test and find that Your ways are true, they are best and they can be trusted. Help us all realize you are calling Your People, called by Your name to humble ourselves, turn from our wicked ways, pray and seek you then you will heal our homes, our land and our nation. Help us stand boldly and proclaim “I WILL lead, I WILL teach, I WILL sacrifice what ever it takes to preserve and defend what's at stake. Help us live what we profess and profess what we live. Father, let today be the day that I make the stand, drive my stake in the ground and declare “UPON THE SOLID
ROCK IS WHERE I STAND, all other ground is sinking sand; all other ground is sinking sand"
