It has been a long time since God used His word so powerfully to produce brokenness and conviction in me. Much of my prayer time I spent in repentance. With sorrow I looked at the consequences of this blindspot sin. It not only impacted me but my family also. None of us were even aware of it.
Satan is crafty. I will give him that. Many times we sin overtly. We choose the path of rebellion. We willfully disobey God and violate His commands. There are other times when the change inside us is so subtle we do not even notice it. Like an airplane that gets one half of one degree off course. If the course is not altered it will not get to its intended destination. Neither can we if a blindspot takes root in our hearts and minds. We will drift further and further away from God's intended purpose.
I am thankful for two scriptures that help in this area.
Philippians 1:6 (NKJV)
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ;
God is not finished with any of us. He will continue His good work perfecting us until the day we meet Jesus face to face. He will convict. He will rebuke. He will chastise. He will remind. He will not give up on His own. I need that and I bet you do too. We can get off course so easily. Satan never ceases trying to trip us. He never ceases enticing us away from communion with our Creator like he did with Adam and Eve. When we stumble God will draw us back. He will pick us up. He will bind our wounds. He will also correct us.
The second verse. Jeremiah 23:29 (NKJV)
29 "Is not My word like a fire?" says the LORD, "And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
The word of God burns the conscience. It singes the sinful spots. It is also like a hammer. I would say a jackhammer. Like a jackhammer breaks rocks into small pieces so does the word of God to our hearts. That is why it is so imperative that we stay soaked in the scriptures. We must not forsake the study of God's most sacred book. His word is truth. Today that word hit like a jackhammer. I needed it.
There is no use hiding it any longer. What sin did God convict me of this morning? You might find it shocking. I am ashamed to admit it and embarrassed to share it publicly. My blindspot sin.....UNBELIEF.
Matthew 17:14-21 (NKJV)
14 And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying,
15 "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.
16 So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him."
17 Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me."
18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"
20 So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."
The word unbelief means to "to rebel and to disobey." Unbelief is rebellion and disobedience. We are commanded over and over again to believe. To trust God. To have faith. When we fail to do this it is rebellion. It is flat out disobedience. It is offensive to God. It is sin.
The prefix "un" mean the absence or the lack of something. In my case it has been the absence and lack of faith. I cannot tell you how hard this hit this morning. I have prayed. Man have I prayed. Hours and hours of praying. Especially over the last several years. Some of those prayers have lasted over six years. No visible results. This has frustrated me. While I still laid those mountains before the Lord prayerfully I know at some point my unbelief won over. I quit praying in faith. I quit trusting and believing.
Unbelief is sin. Doubt is sin. God called me on it this morning. I have preached on faith. I have written often on faith. I have taken faith steps. I just have not always believed. In other words I have not always prayed with confidence in God to answer. I have not always been assured He would come through. I have not always trusted Him.
I am ashamed to admit it. The trials wore me down. Somewhere, I cannot identify the exact moment, I lost heart. I could worship in prayer. I could pray for others. Unbelief paralyzed my own praying for personal needs in our family. God's word hammered me this morning.
Now on the other side of that experience I have hope again. I repented. I prayed differently this morning after the jackhammer of His word. I prayed about the eight most prominent mountains in our lives. I prayed with faith today. I prayed with confidence.
O God, please keep bringing the jackhammer of your word to your children. It may be painful and cause us a great deal of brokenness. I like what awaits on the other side. Thank you for not giving up on us. Thank you for always working in our hearts. Thank you for the jackhammer of your word that breaks into pieces. In Jesus name, amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment