In our generation, we sin often
and ask God’s forgiveness, citing Israel’s continued story of disobedience and
God’s unrelenting mercy towards them as a precedence. The point we often miss
is not that of God’s abundant mercy towards sinful Israel, but that of the
forsaken abundance, fruitfulness and blessing. We hence spend more time being disciplined
and cleaning up our mess instead of accomplishing our purpose on earth. This is
the ultimate stupidity of a life lived in sustained stubbornness and
disobedience to God, especially through indulging one’s fleshly lusts and
desires.
Consider this case of Israel for
a moment: God’s plan was to rescue them from slavery and take them straight to
Canaan, conquer the pagan nations thereof and make Israel a great nation – the envy
of all others on earth (Genesis 12:2-3, 15:1-21, 17:8, 18:1-33, 19:1-38, Romans
9:4-5). However, their disobedience made them spend 40 years in the desert on a
journey that would have taken about 40 days! Several of them died in the desert
in the process. Even when they finally made it into the Promised Land, it wasn’t
for them “a land flowing with milk and honey” as it should have been.
The evidence we have suggests
that Israel never quite became fully what God wanted them to be. Theirs to date
has been a sad story of operation under excess capacity. Imagine how much greater
Israel would be if, even with kings, David built on the meagre achievements of
Saul, Solomon built on the great legacy of David and the subsequent generations
did likewise and avoided the hopeless civil wars and breaking into North and
South kingdom and the consequent Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman invasions and
exile. Mind boggling!
The above is an illuminating
example for us. The same things happen in our lives, sometimes unknowingly.
Satan blindfolds us and manipulates the mercy and grace of God, preventing us
from seeing the attendant penalties and fruitlessness of our sin. You
definitely know that satan can use anything; remember he once said God’s
protection to Job was making Job a hypocrite pretending to love God (Job
1:8-11)!
The onus is on us to realise that
we gain nothing by playful or continued disobedience. It hurts only us in the
end, causing us to miss out on the blessings and fruitfulness we would have
enjoyed in God. It’s important to check ourselves continuously to ensure that
we have not made any sin a persistent part of our lives (Hebrews 12:1-2).
As for me, I have determined that
my story will be different from that of the Israelites. Will you?
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