GOD'S WORD TO ME--Walking with a Limp

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I Kings 18:21

"And Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you go on limping between two different opinions?  If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.'"

Do you ever feel like your spiritual walk is more like a limp?  I know that I do.  Sometimes it is because I have been wounded or beaten up through spiritual attack as I try to traverse this life as a Christian.    But all too often I am reminded of my limp when I consider the great battle that rages between my spirit and my flesh.  More and more I am realizing that this battle is between polar-opposite opinions, God's good and perfect will and plan and the evil that entered the world with the very first sin. 

I  only have two choices in every situation.   I can choose God's way or the wrong way.  The wrong way, the way of Baal, consists of three entities.  I John 2:16 describes the three as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life."  This is the way of the world, the way of Baal.  How often I take this path and follow Satan's way in the world.  It is no wonder that I walk with a limp in so many situations.

My call is to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, for this is the only "Way" to walk without a limp.  When I create my own 'altars of sacrifice,' that I willing lay upon, it is no wonder that I then find myself limping, for I will always limp around altars of my own making.  (I Kings 18:26--Read it!) 

Lord Jesus, today I choose to follow You.  Open my eyes to see those places where I am  sacrificing my trust in You by trusting in my flesh, what I can see, and my own sinful pride, for these are the altars that make me limp.  Lord, continue to show me that a limp can quickly become lameness.  Forgive my idol worship of life in this world while forgetting You. Come, lead me today, that I might walk in Your strength and power! 

The Walk of the Flesh Vs. The Walk of the Spirit

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Many nations will come and say, 'Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us about His ways and that we may walk in His paths' . . . Though all the peoples walk each in the name of his god, as for us, we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever .  (Micah 4: 2, 5)

These verses prompted me to record these thoughts in my journal:

"All Christians have a 'walk.'  We all show up on Sundays at the mountain we call church to be taught about God's ways, and desired result is that the teaching will have an impact on the 'walk' we are currently experiencing (Micah 4:2).  We are being taught for one purpose--that we may walk in His paths!  Yet the true testimony of so many believers today is that we have been taught and Taught and TAUGHT!   We could teach seminary classes on what we have learned and already know.  But the rest  of our testimony is often that, though we know a lot, we continue to walk in the name of our 'gods' rather than in  the name of the One and Only True God.  We know what we know , but we 'walk' in our flesh (Micah 4:5).  So, we basically are worshiping our gods, idols, and sin alongside of the God whom we claim a Lord!  Whose name are we really walking in then?  We are just like the people in Micah 4:5.  Our actions don't line up with our words.  We go to the Lord's house to be taught how to walk in His ways, and then we walk in the ways of our flesh the very moment we leave God's house and His teaching."

We tend to let every continuous sin off the hook, knowing it is sin and that it is displeasing to God.  We choose to keep them alive.  We don not crucify them.  We just keep letting them off the hook by setting them aside to presumably deal with later.  We constantly refuse to see our need to rid of them.  We think that God either winks at them or just turns His holy eyes away from them.  We simply do not care at all that we have been called to a walk of holiness.  These are the telltale signs that we are "sparing" our gods, our idols, and our sin instead of taking full vengeance on them.  This is true spiritual complacency.  This is reclining in the spiritual easy chair!

Today's blog, in part, is a quote from a past journal entry after reading Micah 4: 1-5. God spoke bold words into my heart, words that brought conviction, and humbled me and my walk. Does it speak to you, too?

Your Divided Heart

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Solomon was not like his father David.  God looked down at David's heart and saw a man who was seeking after His heart.  While Solomon started well, in that at the beginning of his reign he humbled himself before the Lord and asked the Him to bless him with wisdom to rule over Israel, he began to walk in disobedience to the commands of God.

Solomon's sin is easily seen by comparing Deuteronomy 17: 14-20 (God's commandments for the ruling king) and I Kings 11: 1-13.  In the passage of Deuteronomy God precisely states 4 principles that His kings should follow:  Do not multiply horses (trusting in military power), do not multiply wives (looking to them instead of God), and do not greatly increase you silver and gold (trusting therefore in  their material blessing).  

Then God spoke of the desired spiritual walk of the King of Israel.  He was to write himself a copy of the entire Law (so that he might trust in the Lord and His word, hiding it in his heart).  He was to keep God's word with him, read it every day, learn to fear God from it, carefully obeying its commands.  By doing these things the king would keep his heart humble, and therefore not turn away from God and the power of His words.  (Hmmm. . .sounds like what the Spirit suggests to us as well.  But we don't have to write our copy of His word; we just have to pick up one of the many copies laying around our house!)

Solomon knew the commands of God, yet he chose to marry a foreign woman, and then marry 699 more!  Solomon chose the sin of having the love of many women over obedience to the God of his fathers.  And the result had drastic consequences on Solomon's spiritual walk.  They turned his heart away, to follow after their gods.  The heart that once sought the Lord in everything so that he could walk in the ways of God now was torn in two, divided between his wives' gods and the One True God.  Because of his sin Israel would now become a picture of Solomon's heart--it too would be divided.  God's precious land would be divided between the north and the south.  The commands of God were given; Solomon turned away from them; he lived a life of overlooking the sin in his heart; he and all of Israel suffered the consequences of his sin.  Solomon surely did not have the heart of his father.

But it is so easy to read this account and think to ourselves, "How could he have been so wickedly disobedient to God?"  The answer lies in our own divided hearts.  We, too, claim to love God, and yet our lives reveal our other "lovers."  We are just as guilty of idolatry as Solomon was.  But the gods we worship are not called Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, or Molech.  Our gods have the names of Adultery and Other Sexual Sin, Materialism, Cheating and Lying, Money, Prestige, Popularity, Gossiping, Self-sufficiency, Self-absorption, and the list is endless.  We like to believe that ours are not nearly as bad as theirs, so we continue to justify our attitudes and behaviors, our words and our thoughts, even though we know that God's commands to us in the Bible are against all of them.  

God is looking for men and women who are seeking His heart, through surrender to Him and obedience to His word.  He is looking for those whose hearts are not torn between this world and the next world.  He still desires for His children to be wholly devoted to Him as David was, not just partially devoted to Him as Solomon was.  Our hearts are in need of mending.  Our hearts are desperate for spiritual healing.  Are you willing to assess your own heart and see the gods that sit on its mantle?  Are you willing to surrender them to the Lord in a repentance that turns away from them, never to return to them?  Are you willing to follow His commands by the power of the Spirit within you?  If you are, and you take action, you are truly saying this:

"Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; UNITE MY HEART to fear Your name."  (Psalm 86:11)