“So
if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today--to love the LORD
your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-- then I
will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so
that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. I will provide grass in
the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or
you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.
Then the LORD's anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so
that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon
perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.” Deuteronomy
11:13-17
When I was going through the scriptures for the last blog “With ALL your Heart” I noticed something
in the above scripture that we could very easily skip over and miss: “Be careful, or you will
be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them” Did you
notice that the first time through?? I didn’t, and I don’t know how many times
I have read this scripture and missed it!! But this time I think the Lord
helped me out a little bit because it stood out to me like a sore thumb! I now
see this phrase as a VERY important part to this scripture. What I am hearing Him
say now is “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie
them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads…”
Deuteronomy 11:18 “… or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and
bow down to them”.
Chapter 11 of Deuteronomy is full of God’s admonition to keep our eyes on
HIM and He spells out all the blessings of following these instructions and the
consequences of not following them. And one of them is turning away and
worshiping other gods.
“Only
carefully obey the command and instruction that Moses the LORD's servant gave
you: to love the LORD your God,
walk in all His ways, keep His commands, remain faithful to Him, and serve Him with all your heart and all
your soul." Joshua 22:5
I know I am
not the only one who struggles with loving Him with ALL my heart, soul and strength.
And I think the enemy has done an amazing job of “enticing” us away from our
“first love”. After giving some thought to what “other god’s” we would be
bowing down to in this day and age (I don’t think we have any Baal’s or Ashtoreth
poles here now), I believe that one of Satan’s “enticements” is the pursuit of
the “American Dream”. Yep, I said it, I truly think that the “American dream”
is another god that we are bowing down to. Satan has convinced us that we
“need” to have the American dream or even better yet, as Christians, we think that
“God” wants us to have it! We believe that God wants us to have the high
profile jobs, the homes, the cars, and boats, big screen TV’s and all the “things
in life” that the world has to offer. We even believe that those things are His
“blessings” for us!! But, don’t all those things actually take us and our time
away from God? In order for us to be able to afford these things… that He has
supposedly “given” to us, we have to work mega hours, focusing on our jobs and
not Him. And when we are home we need to take care of the cars, and the house,
mowing the lawn, painting, doing repairs, making improvements, doing yard work…
And by the time we are done with all of that work we are so exhausted we sit in
front of our big screen TV to relax and gel out. The last thing we want to do
is open our Bibles and spend time with God. And we think that “this” is what He
wants for us?? Stress, exhaustion, financial burdens and ZERO time with
Him? Somehow I can’t reconcile the
Deuteronomy scriptures with what most of our lives look like today… I believe
we have been deceived and we have been “enticed to turn away and worship other
gods and bow down to them”!
“Oh, that my ways were steadfast in
obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your
commands. I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous
laws. I will obey your decrees; do not utterly forsake me. How
can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you
with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your
word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, O
LORD; teach me your decrees” Psalm 119:5-12
Love is the
governing factor in the Kingdom of God, but fear is the governing factor in the
world system. One of the “key” components of the enemy’s “American dream” is
FEAR. The more you have the more fear
you have of losing it! You work and you slave and you sacrifice your
relationship with God, your family and your health to climb the corporate
ladder to earn a six figure income… (Or something like that) to collect your
many possessions that signify and represent your successful life… But in
reality, all of that could be swept away in a heartbeat! A layoff, sickness, a
fire, economic decline, bankruptcy… Any one of those things could sweep away
all of your hard work and efforts in the blink of an eye! These two scriptures
come to mind when I think of collecting things on earth and the concept of
saving for “retirement”; Matthew 6:19-21 - “Do not store
up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where
thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,
where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And Luke 12:15-21 - “Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against
all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his
possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a
certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do?
I have no place to store my crops.' Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will
tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain
and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid
up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ‘But God said
to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then
who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' This is how it will be
with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God”. Based
on these scriptures (and there are many more like them!), I have a hard time
believing that God would want us to invest so much of ourselves, our time and
our lives for the “things” of this world and not in HIM, our eternal Father.
So then eventually, in our pursuit of the “American dream”, we wonder why
we have no joy, why God seems so far away and what happened to my marriage and
family…?! Why is my spouse leaving me
for another? Why are my kids such a mess? Why are we in such financial
distress, physical decline and an emotional wreck? Could it be that we have been deceived? The “American
dream” was not God’s idea! The whole concept of working your tail off during
the prime of your life, to collect things and money so that you can one day
“retire” and finally live the life you’ve always wanted to live is a LIE and a
trap… And dare I say bondage? I hear God’s heart for us to choose HIS way when
I read the scripture in Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary
and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from
me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Jesus is our
first and best example of what our life should look like in the Father’s eyes. He
was not in pursuit of “things” but of “hearts”, teaching the disciples to be “fishers
of men” (Matthew 4:19), loving and healing the people around Him and telling
them about His Father in Heaven. When a teacher of the law said he wanted to
follow Him “Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the
air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew
8:20) I am not suggesting that we all become homeless waifs but do we really
need all those things that are keeping us from truly knowing and pursuing our
amazing Father? In the parable of the soils He even mentions that “The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man
who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of
wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.” (Matthew 13:22)
In Oswald Chambers’ April 15th devotion he says: “God wants you to be entirely His, and it requires paying close
attention to keep yourself fit. It also takes a tremendous amount of time. Yet
some of us expect to rise above all of our problems, going from one mountaintop
experience to another, with only a few minutes' effort.”
“With my lips I recount all the laws that
come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in
great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in
your decrees; I will not neglect your word.” Psalm 119:13-16
“Am I
willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of
no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone --- to
be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Feb 15th Oswald)
