Hi Friends!
I’m here again, after what has seemed like so long, to share something I read during my quiet time today.
This is a concept I’ve always known, but I don’t know about you, when I read something in the Bible reiterating a concept I already know, I get all tingly inside. I just can’t wait to see what the Lord will do throughout the story.
Today I want to share about 1 Samuel 12:20-25
20 Then Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing. 22 For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people. 23 Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you; but I will teach you the good and the right way. 24 Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you. 25 But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.”
The wickedness that Samuel is talking about here, is when the Israeli people decided that they wanted to trade the Lord as being their king for a human King.
The Lord warned them of all the things that would happen if He allowed this to occur, yet they still wanted it and so the Lord granted them a human leader/king. (FYI — this will be a whole other blog post eventually)—Literally, this is one of the coolest stories, with some of the best application ever from beginning to end… Stay looking for some more blog posts about the stories from the book of Samuel—ANYWAY… So, the Lord granted them this king, and of course, God is a jealous God and He would never want anyone to put any other person or thing before Him.. BUT the Israeli’s did.
YET, the Lord is SO GOOD.
Let me break this down:
The people began to worry when the Lord sent down thunder and rain to show them how great of a wickedness they had done. They asked Samuel to pray for them, for they finally realized they were wrong in asking for a King.
They were afraid.
Samuel comforted them with this:
20 Then Samuel said to the people, “Do not fear. You have done all this wickedness; yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21 And do not turn aside; for then you would go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver, for they are nothing.
Day to day, we stumble. We sin. We nail Jesus to the cross over and over. We step on Him.
We run in the opposite direction.
Why? Most of the time it’s because we realize we’ve done something wrong. We feel in our hearts the God is mad at us. We put our relationships or school before Him. We know that we have done something wicked and have sinned against Him, so we get scared. We hide. As it says in verse 21, sometimes we find ourselves doing wrong and instead of turning to the Lord, we start to seek other things, we allow ourselves to believe that we are no longer good enough (which if it makes you feel better, we really will never be good enough, BUT THANK YOU JESUS FOR YOUR MERCY AND GRACE), we let the thought that He will never forgive us linger in our minds. Guys, as humans, it is natural to serve something. To have a master. AND if Jesus is not your master then you ARE SERVING SOMETHING ELSE. Usually things that will leave us as empty as we were when we found them. We find ourselves wanting to “turn aside from following the Lord”. To “go after empty things which cannot profit or deliver” BUT GUESS WHAT?! That is the last thing we should do. Instead we should “serve the Lord with all your heart.”.
Friends… ready for one of the best parts?!
22 For the Lord will not forsake His people, for His great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you His people.
HE LOVES YOU. HE LOVES HAVING YOU AS HIS CHILD. YOU ARE HIS. YOU ARE HIS PERSON. NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU HAVE RUN. NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE SAID. You are His child if you have made Him your savior (if you haven’t you should check this out https://divinelylovedblog.wordpress.com/the-great-i-am/).
GUYS, God is good. I hope you all enjoyed this! I definitely think that you should check out this whole scripture!
Love ya!
Valerie!
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