Saturday, June 10, 2017

June 10: Of choices and consequences

1 Kings 7:1-51
Acts 7:30-50
Psalm 128:1-6
Proverbs 16:31-33

Acts 7:39-40: "But our ancestors refused to obey him.  Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.  They told Aaron, 'Make us gods who will go before us..."

Psalm 128:1-4: Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to Him.  You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.  Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.  yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord.

Two opposite views about God.  As Stephen tells the story, when God called Moses up the mountain and he left the Israelites with Aaron, the Israelites decided they no longer wanted to do what God (via Moses) wanted; they wanted to do what THEY wanted to do.  Now if they had gone off and done as they pleased, that would have been bad enough.  But no - they decided they wanted a god that was going to take their orders, and give their sins a seal of approval.  The psalm describes the opposite - a people who follow God.  

We still see that so much today.  Popular culture, in so many ways, can be summarized as "I don't want to follow God, I want God to follow me, and to approve my choices, my lifestyle."  After all, why should He judge?  Can't we all just, in the eternal words of Katy Perry, "love on each other"?  I'm just being "true to myself."  And so chromosomes no longer define gender - feelings do.  Students insist they know better than professors, and schools agree.  It isn't a life - heartbeat and responsiveness notwithstanding - until it's come through the birth canal.  Oh, and anyone that disagrees with any of this is a bigot and a hater.  

The crazy thing is, God loves us so much He doesn't force us down His path - He gave us the ability to make our choices.  What we don't have, is the ability to choose the consequences of our choices, of our actions.  And in His generosity, He gives us an idea what those consequences might be.  And while we know what happened to the Israelites when they disobeyed (and, frankly, we see what is happening in the world today), today's psalm is pretty clear about how abundantly obedience is blessed.  

When tempted to gratify our sinfulness and disobedience, let's pray we know God - "fear the Lord" - well enough to choose obedience.

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