June 19 Day 26 - Postlogue

I wanted to add on to my post but thought it worthy of another posting rather than an addition to the previous one for today

You see, I have a dear friend who is in a bit of a crisis lately. This friend and I had a chance to talk today and I've walked away from that conversation burdened. You see, life has not been easy for this friend. There have been some things happening in life that could not be controlled by this friend. Yet how this friend has chosen to act on these circumstances can be controlled and unfortunately this friend made some poor choices. Recently after making some repeated wrong choices my friend went to speak with a church representative. Yet this pastor in an attempt to help ended up hurting. The pastor told my friend to view these choices as normal struggles and recognize that the struggle is common to most people. Yet what this pastor didn't do, was call sin by its rightful name. It doesn't matter how normal sin is. It never excuses it because others are doing it as well. What does matter is that sin keeps us from understanding and feeling the complete love of God our creator and our Abba Father. By encouraging my friend to see these poor choices as normal, this man of God missed the chance to help someone repent and seek forgiveness. While I don't know this pastor personally I certainly don't want to rush to judgement. This pastor may very well have a vibrant relationship with the Lord and may be producing great fruit for the kingdom. Yet, I know in this one instance, this pastor missed an opportunity. I might speculate that his decision was driven out of popularity and not out of compassion. Calling sin, sin is not popular. To tell someone they are living in sin is not going to gain you a lot of friends and it certainly might chase a few people away from your church in today's post-modern culture. But yet, that is exactly what our friends need to hear today. Too few of our "leaders" are willing to believe in absolute truth let alone calling sin by its rightful name. If our leaders won't do it, and our churches aren't preaching it, where are we to hear it. . . other than in God's Word. But you see, those of us that are caught up in our sin don't want to read God's Word and if we do, we can't hear Him correctly unless we repent. Don't you see the irony in all of this???

So today on the phone with my friend, whom I love closer than a family member, I had to speak the truth in love. There were many times when I was speaking out of my mouth but praying in my soul that my words would be His words. There were awkward silences when I needed to seek God in micro-seconds that seemed like macro hours. And I know - by my friends long pauses and pained silences - that what I was saying was about as palatable as a sandwich of glass shards. Yet, because I love my friend so much I had to help this friend understand how passionate God is about a relationship with them. I had to help show that sin is sin... it is ugly and it is common... but it is never right. But there is no sin that Jesus didn't die for and that He can't defeat. The presence of sin in our life - whatever the reason or cause - is always a result of a poor choice. You and I can chose how we react to life and the sin around us... please don't let that reaction be by sinning yourself.

So what does this have to do with today's reading... I recognized that some of the "bad kings" were bad because they ignored God. But some of them were bad, because they believed God and didn't do anything to purify the land around them. Some of them refused to remove the idols or places of idol worship around them. And the result of these actions may not have been devastation but they were certainly never God's richest blessings being poured out on the land around them. When the kings wouldn't do it, God sent Elijah and Elisha to point out Israel's sin. It couldn't have been easy for Elijah and Elisha to do this. Elijah helped show who the true God of Israel was by challenging the prophets of Baal to show down and winning! Yet the expense of this was that people called him a troublemaker. Jezebel threatened to put Elijah to death for defaming her god and her prophets. What God had called Elijah to couldn't have been comfortable and it certainly couldn't have been popular. I know this in a new sense today, because I feel a little like Elijah today... tired of calling sin a sin... in fear of losing a friendship... but totally feeling obedient to God. The hope I have is that God was so pleased with Elijah's obedience that we read about how Elijah never died... he was taken to heaven in a whirlwind. I don't expect this, but I do know that obedience to God sometimes means you aren't real popular with the world.

Friend, if you're reading this today, know that I love you more than a brother... so much so I cannot allow you to continue to give up the richest blessings God wants to pour out on you for the sake of a few poor (temporal) choices that will leave eternal scars.