Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Doubts”
Our Bible verse for today: “Then the Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and He struck him dead because he had reached out to the ark. So he died there in the presence of God.” 1 Chronicles 13:10 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “God’s will must be done in God’s way.”
Have you heard the story about the man who robbed the convenience store of $500 and then in church the following Sunday gave an offering of $50? Why did he do that? Well of course because God commands us to tithe on our income.
Seems silly doesn’t it, to steal and then to try to honor God with a tithe from the stolen loot? And yet, we do things like that all the time. How often do we tell a little white lie in an attempt to protect the other person’s feelings? While it’s admirable to be sensitive to someone else’s feelings, a lie is a lie regardless of the reason it’s told.
I was asked to attend a meeting one time where a man was going to be dismissed from a ministry position because of a long pattern of misconduct and poor performance. However the leader who set-up the meeting didn’t want the man to know why he was being invited to the meeting because he thought the man might not come if he knew the truth. So he lied to the guy about the purpose of the meeting just to make sure he came. The purpose of the meeting was to carry out the will of God by dismissing the man from a ministry position he was no longer qualified to hold, but the meeting itself was facilitated by the telling of a lie, which could not possibly have been consistent with the will of God.
In 1 Chronicles 13:10 we find the Israelites attempting to transport the Ark of God in a manner that was inconsistent with the instructions God had given them. It was indeed God’s will for the Ark to be moved, but it was not being moved in the manner God had prescribed, and so people died.
As the editors of the Daily Walk Bible note, “God’s will, done in something other than God’s way, is not God’s will.”
If you instruct someone to take an action that is good and proper, but your instructions to them are laced with profanity, you have told them to do the right thing but you have said it in the wrong way.
The rightness or wrongness of an action consists not just in what we do, but also in how we do it. Even if you’re sure of what to do, make sure you also know how to do it. If you have doubts then check with God in prayer and in the Bible. God’s will, done in something other than God’s way, is not God’s will.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 