January 28, 2013 … Just Do It – God’s Way!

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 28

Passage of the Day: 1st Chronicles 21: 14 [NLT] …
14 So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel, and seventy thousand people died as a result. 

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Contextual Study of today’s passage: 1st Chronicles 21 [NLT] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passage #1: Romans 1: 24-25 : [NLT] … {When we choose to seek selfish ways, rather than the Savior’s, God will often let us to show us the brokenness our pride will produce. } … 
24 So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever. Amen.  

My Journal for Today: Wow! In today’s lead devotional Bible passage, we’re reminded, in 1st Chronicles 21 of David letting pride get in his way and doing battle his way rather than following the Lord’s will; and it cost him, and especially the Israelites, dearly, as it brought a plague upon the army, costing them 70,000 lives. Seems like David, when he made a prideful mistake, really needed a big chastisement lesson from God to get it right, didn’t he?

 But the principle is truth. God wants us to do life HIS way, because when we try to do things our way, … it can be disastrous. And sometimes God uses some pretty wild scenarios in Scripture to show us the way of faith. Remember how Moses led the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea; … and how Gideon defeated a whole army with just a few men; … and Jehoshaphat led his army into battle with a few singers; … and Joshua defeated Jericho by having his army, following God’s lead, march around the city playing trumpets and shouting. Each scenario showed that God’s way is the right way … the only way to do battle; and when we do life’s battles God’s way, He not only gets the victories, … He is glorified in the process.

 But woe to the believer, i.e., God’s soldier, who decides to battle the forces of life, doing life his own way. And certainly this is illustrated by today’s Bible passage/story. And it reminded me of the passage the Apostle Paul wrote about in Romans 1 [please read verses 18-32 besides the section copied above for reference].

 We humans, primarily because of a spiritually defective heart (see Jeremiah 17: 9) so often want to do life – or the battles of life – OUR OWN WAY in the default of denial or defensiveness; and so God, quite often, just has to let us go it on our own for a time – sometimes a long time in our estimation – for us to learn our lesson. Certainly we would hope that our prideful foolishness would not cost the lives of so many others as it did for David. However, our pride, when followed instead of obedience to God’s ways, can be costly … even to those we love, … can’t it? Maybe, like me, you’ve been there and you have a t-shirt on that one.

I grieve these days, seeing America going the way of prideful foolishness, rather than following the ways of God as laid out in His word; and I ache to see God allowing us to go down that wide road of selfishness rather than following His narrow road of truth. America cast her vote of confidence collectively in this last election; and I’m afraid we’re going to reap the whirlwind of our national whims. And … what will be the outcome of our national foolishness? Well, if it is anything like that of what happened to God’s people for David’s mistake, it’s not going to be pretty.

My Prayer for Today … Oh, Lord, have mercy on us! … Amen