PSALM 81:8-14 – Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! There shall be no strange god among you; you shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.

THEME OF THE DAY. THE DANGER OF GETTING OUR WAY. Intense and passionate. Those are two words by which we may describe God’s words in today’s scripture. As we read them, we feel the heart of God for His people. He pleads for them to obey Him. He reminds them of His previous goodness to them in their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. He offers them the promise of being satisfied with Him and Him alone. In love, He warns them of idolatry if they seek foreign and false gods. But at the end of the day, all His intense and passionate pleading didn’t move them to obey Him. And what does the Lord do? Perhaps one of the worst forms of discipline He may give to His wayward people. He gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels. Basically, He says, “You don’t want to walk in My ways, then I turn you over to yourselves.” Should this happen to any of us, and it may if we are living in known disobedience. If we spiritually “dig our heels in” and refuse to listen to the convicting voice of His Spirit leading us to repentance and a returning to Him, He may let us have our way. And that would be a disaster. So, today, let’s consider two of the spiritual dangers we would face if God let us get our way.

First, we will forfeit the only way to know the peace of God that calms our hearts, quiets our fears, and relieves our anxieties. And during this pandemic, we desperately need fellowship with God to help us deal with the difficulties of the times in which we live. But if we are harboring sin and God is dealing with us about it, but we won’t give it up, gone is our fellowship with Him. The relationship remains intact, but the joy in the relationship is not. David tells us “If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear me” (Psalm 66:18). God may remove a sense of His Presence in our rebellion, and that will prove to be one of the most painful experiences in life.

Another danger of getting our way is we add sin upon sin because we are left to our own understanding. In this sad state, we disobey two commands – Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). The danger in relying upon our own understanding is significant for two reasons. First, we will be unable to discern the will of God. When sin is not dealt with and remains so, the Spirit of God is grieved and silenced. The ability to discern the will of God is removed. The second danger of reliance upon our own understanding is that it puts us in an unsafe position. If we are left to ourselves, we may, or likely will, make decisions that are impulsive or will lead to much regret and lifelong consequences. Why? No divine wisdom. Why? The Spirit of God, the source of wisdom is silenced by our unrepented of sin.

Getting our own way in life is one of the worst things that may come upon us. May it not be so. May we heed the Word of God to be a submissive and obedient people to His commands lest He discipline us by giving us over to ourselves – a most dangerous place to be.

PRAYER: “Father, protect me from my greatest spiritual foe in my walk with You – myself.”

QUOTE: “One of the most severe forms of discipline God may do in our lives is give us over to ourselves.”