Date June 20, 2021 | Number: Vol. 10, No. 7
Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. Welcome to another week of the month of June 2021. I pray that your heart will be strengthened to always retain and profit with every word God is bringing to you all through the remaining days of your life, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I offered that prayer for you because the word of God is clear about the fact that it is not everyone that hears or reads the word of God that ends up profiting with it. Why is this so? It is so because in order to profit with the word of God, one must not just read or hear it; he must also act on it. It is only the one that acts on what he hears or reads that will experience the fullness of the blessing of what God says. The one who merely listens to the word or reads it but does not act on it is only deceiving himself – he will not experience in his life the result that the word is supposed to accomplish in it (Cf. Matt 7:24-27; James 1:22-25; Rev 1:3)
So, our aim in reading or listening to the word of God must be to act on it. Otherwise, not only will His word not accomplish His will in our lives, it will also stand against us as a witness when God begins to judge (John 12:48). For example, there was a time that the leaders of the remnant of the Jews in Judah came to Jeremiah to ask him to seek God’s face for them, so that they may know where to go or stay. They even went on to say to him, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the LORD your God sends you to tell us. Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the LORD our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the LORD our God.” (Jer 42:5-6NIV)
Did you notice that those people said that they would act on the word of God, whether it was favourable for them or not? Yet when Jeremiah came back with God’s word for them, their response was, “…You are lying! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there.’ But Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us to hand us over to the Babylonians, so they may kill us or carry us into exile to Babylon.” (Jer 43:2-3NIV) Therefore, they rejected the word of the Lord and acted according to their own wisdom and desire.
But why did they ask Jeremiah to find out the mind of God for them, when they were not willing to accept whatever His will for them was? It was because they did not know that it would have been better for them not to know the will of God at all than to know His will and refuse to act on it. That would mean nothing but double punishment for them. They would not just suffer for not doing the will of God but also for knowing His will and deliberately rejecting it.
So, Jeremiah said this to them: “O remnant of Judah, the LORD has told you, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’ Be sure of this: I warn you today that you made a fatal mistake when you sent me to the LORD your God and said, ‘Pray to the LORD our God for us; tell us everything he says and we will do it.’ I have told you today, but you still have not obeyed the LORD your God in all he sent me to tell you. So now, be sure of this: You will die by the sword, famine and plague in the place where you want to go to settle.”” (Jer 42:19-22NIV) Did you see that? It is a fatal mistake for us to seek to know the will of God and then refuse to act on what He is saying to us. It can only mean double jeopardy for us.
Unfortunately, many of us do not realise that this is what we are doing to ourselves, when we show up in church meetings or before our leaders, hear the word of God about how we are to live and then leave to go and do the exact opposite of what we have heard. But what is the point of coming to hear the word of God, when it would only mean more troubles for us? Would it not be better for you to avoid His word altogether than to hear it and then say to yourself, “That preacher can say whatever he likes to say. But what I will do is in my mind?” That will simply bring greater punishments and sufferings on you, as it is probably your experience already. I mean that it will only make you suffer more than those who do not have the knowledge of God’s will at all.
So, stop putting yourself in more troubles by refusing to act on the truth of God’s word that you know. And may you be led to repentance and restoration wherever you are suffering as a result of this, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a great week.
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