God’s Way or Destruction?

Many of us like to think of God as a gentle father who never gets angry and never chastises His children….He supports them in anything they want to do and forgives with no sense of consequences for the actions they take in violating His rules. Unfortunately, that is a different God than the one I serve. The God (3 in 1) who I serve is a just God who holds us all accountable. He is a good, good Father. He loves us with a love we can not measure or fully understand. He loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die in our place when we didn’t give a care about Him…when we were in fact His enemies (John 3:16). He is also a God who is Holy and because of that, He requires that His own be Holy. 1 Peter 1:15 states it this way, “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.” What does Holy mean? Holy means to be set aside in the service of God, or dedicated to His service. Obedience is a huge part of that. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

All of this leads into the topic – God’s way or destruction. Those are the only real options we have personally or globally. Over the past few months, I’ve been studying the prophets Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezekiel. They were contemporaries but three very different prophets with three very different experiences associated with the fall of Jerusalem. However, they all experienced the fall of Jerusalem because God’s people were disobedient and did not follow God’s leading and instruction, so God used their enemies to bring about His judgement on the nation. He didn’t stop there. Because the nations He used, were so prideful many of them were utterly destroyed. 

In each of these cases, the nations were like many of us, they wanted to do what we wanted to do with no negative consequences and because it was them and they thought they had accomplished these defeats in their own power, they thought they could get away with it.  How many empires have fallen in history along these same circumstances – a leader and nation rise up to conquer “the world” and then in their arrogance and pride are brought to their knees. They forget no matter who they serve, it is the one and only living and true God who created the universe and has control of every outcome. Pride is a deadly sin and we’ve seen the consequences of it time and time again throughout history. 

Whenever we get prideful, we forget that we can do nothing in our own strength. We lose sight that the very breath in our lungs is not ours, but His. Pride leads us further into disobedience – we become our own god or authority. We believe we guide our own path and that is dangerous. Take a look at King Saul (1 Sam 15), who after being anointed by God for the role was partially obedient which led to his ultimate destruction. To be clear, if we are not being fully obedient to God’s Word, Will, and Ways, we are being disobedient. There is no middle ground. There is no grey. We are either obedient or disobedient. God is merciful and He is patient and He is kind. In some cases, He will give us time to grapple with what He has directed us to do, like He did with Gideon (Jud 6:33-40). In some, He pursues us in our disobedience, as He did with Jonah (Jonah 1-3). In others, He will destroy us immediately like with Uzzah (2 Sam 6:1-7). 

The fact is that we get to decide our ultimate outcome – eternity with God or not. We can choose God and His way or we can choose our own. If we make the mistake to choose our own way and make ourselves king and lord over our own lives, we are on the road to destruction and are basically asking God to take His hand off us. He will (Rom 1:18-32). We must never forget that God is not mocked, we will reap what we sow (Gal 6:7). If we sow disobedience, we will reap consequence….Not because it’s what God wants for us, but because it is what we ourselves sought. DON’T DO IT!

God is loving (1 John 4:8) and He is faithful (Lam 3:22-23). He is a forgiving God, but He requires us to acknowledge our sin (1 John 1:9). We are not perfect and we are not good in and of ourselves. He is the one who makes us righteous and sets us apart. Don’t ever forget how much you owe to the Lord – breath, life, the ability to move, to think, to gain wealth. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (Jam 1:17). His way is better than anything we or anyone else can come up with. CHOOSE HIM!