I
found out my post on Tuesday April 2, 2013 has reached an all time
high. The reason seems to be that it is being downloaded by the same people as they
revisit the site to read the post again.
While I am happy, the post got some people thinking, I would not want
you to be ill-informed by reading too much into what I wrote.
Let
me explain what I mean. Remember this life is a long journey and constant battle.
Personally, the more I am growing in the Lord I am finding out Christianity is
truly serious business and cannot be a past time even for a moment. So, what we
learn from God, as blogger we write about it, often time it is what you would
call a “to be continued” type of thing. Because by the time I wrote the blog on
April 02, God has been talking to me on this issue, leading me to understand
better and directing me in how He wants me to handle the situation. I am now at
a point where I found peace about it because I know my will is not my own, it
belongs to Him to do as He pleases, and also the fact that I was at fault in sinning
big time.
I
would not want you to misunderstand the idea behind it all. While it is true
God wants us to understand and apply His Word as it is in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 but, understand that my motive to want these people in
my life was not right with God. Every time I met with them I offended God in more
ways than one because not only I was being disobedient to His Word, I also break my union with
Him on purpose. This attitude was one of disrespect, offensive and ungrateful
on my part. Furthermore, I failed on purpose to capture my selfish thoughts and
bring them into captivity for His glory. I failed to fulfill His desires to
cultivate the mind of Christ because you will find that once God sets you apart
inwardly, it is exactly what happens. All of the sudden you know a life where I
am tempted to say the Spirit takes control of your mind as He keeps injecting
his thoughts in your mind to the point that sometimes it feels like you are
flooded. I am sure some of you know what I am talking about; you find your mind
24/7 focusing on God no matter what you are doing. The strange thing is, when
you sit and think about it, you are aware it is not you doing it, but the Holy
Spirit’s work in you.
To
make matters worse, I have been in that frame of mind for years, and I was
somewhat blind to my sin. I said somewhat, because deep in me I knew it was
wrong to want to break the union with Him especially in this manner, but I
minimized the sin, so it gave me an excuse to commit it over and over again. While
God allowed it to be an ongoing thing in my life for years, but He also knows
what is best for me and I know now that I have reached a place with Him where I
cannot keep committing the same sin over and over again without affecting His
plan for me.
Through
reading Leviticus, I understood God patience, mercy, grace, faithfulness and so
on. But He is clear on the fact that we are not to mistake these attributes and
take advantage of them, which is exactly what these Christians in 1 Corinthians
5 were doing. So, I have failed God because I used my own judgement in the
flesh and put away righteous judgement as I was taught by the Holy Spirit while
I was in the wilderness.
I
needed a reminder from Leviticus because God could clearly see that I used
righteous judgement to deal with some people in my life, as a result they never
have the power to affect my relationship with Him. Yet, because it suited me, I
did not use righteous judgement for another group and I allowed them to affect
my relationship with God to the point that I dishonoured Him every time. God
did not miss a thing in what I was doing. I really minimized those friends careless
attitude toward God to suit my purpose.
When
I had a chance to put it all into perspective (after my pity party) I realized
my melancholy came from the fact that I was losing what I consider good friends
but really behind it all, I knew I was found out and called into accountability
by God. The other thing that caused my melancholy was also the fact that I needed
to put away something that was pleasing to me. It is really an amazing thing when we put God
first, the angle we view what is happening to us changes completely.
When
we decide to apply those verses in our lives such as 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 and 1
Corinthians 6:9-11, and cut off people who are considered toxic to our
relationship with Him, we better make sure we find balance through the guidance
of the Holy Spirit. Before we cut ties with them, put it all in the hands of
the Holy Spirit, remain willing to do as we are told with an open heart and He
will come through for us (which is what I was supposed to do to begin with.) In
fact in the past week, God showed me even though I sort of cut ties with these
people, meaning the idea behind the friendships and the visits have stopped, He still wants me to be available to interact
with them, but only whenever He sees
fit. However He also made it clear that my relationship with them moving
forward, will take the tone of a teacher for lack of a better word.
Secondly,
I questioned God because I have a couple of people in my life that are as bad
if not worse (spiritually speaking.) He made it clear to me that He had His
reasons for not including them. First, I am in a different frame of mind when I
am with them. While I see these people often enough because I do not have a
choice, but knowing who I am dealing with, I never let my guard down
spiritually. So right then and there you can see how the motive and attitude
matter to God. In my interaction with them, I never allowed their attitude
toward God affect my relationship with Him and I can see a mile away, when
Satan is using them to talk to me. The second reason He gave me for not
including them is that He wants to use me in their lives, every time I see them.
I
hope I was able to shed some light on the first post and that while God is God
and expects certain behaviour from us, we have to make sure He is leading
before we get rid of some of our friends because we do not know who He wants to
use us to help reach out to them. We find the right balance in Him alone.
