It hit the bull’s eye.
Nothing could have been more dead on.
It was a direct hit, right on target, a hole in one.
That’s what transpired the other day while reading Psalm 144. Perhaps this kind of thing has happened to you. You feel deep in your conscious, spirit, soul (however you want to name it), that you are just supposed to do something. You can’t exactly recall any scripture that tells you to follow this course of action. You just know that you should. So you plod along, perhaps for years, following this leading, never really knowing why but you just do. Then one day BAM! There it is, the evidence invading your morning quiet time awaking that same conscious with a resonance that is so loud it is liable to wake the neighbors. You never felt more closer to God.
When I came to the Lord, it became glaringly obvious to me that my life was not being lived out the way the Bible said it should. I was primarily influenced by our culture, what was politically correct and what just seemed right to me. As I read through the pages of scripture it became abundantly clear that if I was going to live for God I was going to have to do a major overhaul in what I thought and how I acted. I would have to very often go against the tide of popularity if I really wanted to call myself His.
The point was clear but there was one predominate driving force that was precipitating this desire to change. It was my children. If I was going to make a difference for Christ in my children’s lives, I was going to have to change things a bit. Ok it would require nothing less then an extreme makeover. I didn’t just need to change for me. I needed to change for them. I knew that I would have to let go of the attitudes, mindsets and influences that molded my thinking up until this point in life and replace them with what God would say. I began to see that so much of what I believed to be true and had been taught by the culture we live in was filled with lies and deception.
For instance:
- If you have a lot of money, you will be happy
- If you have the perfect body then you will be loved and accepted
- Popularity is what matters even if it causes one to compromise their ideals.
- You are a product of your circumstances
- If you have power you have control
- Independence
- The best way to get back at someone is to hold a grudge…forever
- Do what feels good – it’s ok to be led by emotions
- I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan because I am woman! I can have it all!!!!
Instinctively I knew that I needed to be delivered from the prevailing doctrine of today if I was going to have children who would live a life that exceeded my own. My desire was to pass on a Godly heritage filled with the abundance that God promises for us by living His way. I knew if I could learn to recognize the lies and deceptions that I allowed to rule my mind throughout much of my life my children would reap a harvest of benefits. I just knew it. Can’t tell you how, I just did.
So there it was. Not only did I find the Psalmist cry out to the Lord for that very same deliverance but I couldn’t help but notice how his motive was identical to mine.
Deliver me and rescue me from the hands of foreigners whose mouths are full of lies, whose right hands are deceitful. Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace. Psalm 144:11-12
I wondered, what is your motive as you grow in your walk with Christ? If you are participating in our “No Other God’s” study, what is provoking you to lay down idols and to make room for God? Perhaps you are thinking, I have no children or my children are fully grown. No matter, someone is still watching you. Whether it be someone else’s children, a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker. There is someone looking at your life who deep down wants what you live to be true. They want to believe that God loves them and that they can have a relationship with Him and that He would be obvious in their life.
While I want you to be free of idols, deception and lies for your sake, perhaps you are a bit like me and are driven to make an impact on the next generation. Scripture suggests that it is vital for us to be set free from these things in order to influence those that follow us. If you can’t do it for yourself, would you be willing to do it for them. So what say you? Would you agree with me and commit to make a pact to impact the next generation of believers. Would you be willing to cooperate with God as He sets us free from our idols so that our “sons would be like well nurtured plants and our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a place”. Are you willing to do what ever it takes to change because someone who you love may be watching you?
Of all commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best.
John Donne
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