Wednesday, October 8th, 2003 - Continuing in Christ

God showed me an awesome story today in 1 Kings 13 -- it lasts the whole chapter, pretty much. It isn't such an awesome story for the guy who it's about, but it's awesome how God showed me this and how it applies to me right now.

God willing, I'll give you the story in a nutshell. The King of Israel at the time (Jeroboam) wasn't following God. He made calfs out of gold so that people would stay in his area instead of going to Jerusalem to worship God in the Temple (that's the way people did it before Jesus' death and the sending of the Holy Spirit to all who put faith in Him). So this king and the people are taking these golden calfs as their gods.

God sends a dude from Judah to go have a little talk with Jeroboam. Right as Jeroboam is making a sacrifice to the golden udder duo, this guy sent from God shows up and tells Jeroboam that God is going to take his kingdom and everything away from him because he wasn't faithful to God. Jeroboam doesn't like this guy sent from God so much, so he orders his guards to seize him.

God paralyzes Jeroboam's arm and causes his sacrificing alter to crumble to pieces, as He had said He would through the man that He sent. Jeroboam tweaks out and is afraid of this dude because God is with him; Jeroboam asks the guy to ask God to let him move his arm again, so the dude does and then feeling is restored to Jeroboam's arm. God had told the dude not to eat or drink with anyone there and to go home by a different route, so the dude heads for home after God has used him for what He wanted.

This one old guy chases after the dude and invites him to come eat with him at his house. The dude says no, because God told him to; the old man lied to him after that and says that an angel told him to bring the dude home for a meal. So the dude goes with him and eats with him. God had told him not to, so when the dude starts back out for home, he gets killed by a lion because he had disobeyed God.

So, what exactly happened here? The dude went on a mission from God, was totally obedient, did what God wanted him to do, and even did miracles because God wanted to show the people that He had sent the dude. The dude did everything he was supposed to, except for one "small" thing. He ate with the old man who lied to him. I think that seems like a small thing because as humans we don't give full regard to the enormity of God's commands, especially in light of "minor details" such as eating a meal with some old guy in this case, or maybe something more present to us in this day like laziness (a "small" thing that is quite possibly one of my greatest current sins).

God really spoke to me through this story; He showed me, in a new way, that even though we may be obedient in so many areas of our life, we are not obedient if we hold any area back from God. I knew this, but God is making it more real to me - He wants me to let Him into every part of my life and give them all up to Him. Take the parents of a 16-year-old, for example: they could give a brand new car decked out with everything to their kid, but what good is it if not all the parts are there? What good would it be even if the gas pedal was the only thing missing?

God has been and is working immensely in my life. He's doing so much and building me up in so many ways. Today, He showed me this passage as a reminder to keep giving every last part of me up to Him, especially during a time when He is already showing me how to do that so abundantly. He is encouraging me to keep doing it - keep trudging forward, without letting anything in the path hinder me from complete surrender to God and His will for me. "And now, dear children, continue to live in fellowship with Christ" (1 John 2:28, bold mine).

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