Saturday Scripture Gold with Bibi: Your Life (God's Instructions Are Included!)

“There are no 'if's' in God's world. And no places that are safer than other places. The center of His will is our only safety - let us pray that we may always know it!”   -Corrie ten Boom

Almost everyone can think of a time in their life where they didn't follow the instructions, or they didn't follow directions, and things went totally wrong. I know I have! I mean, it's pretty obvious. If you want things to be right, if you want to be able to do things right, you must follow the instructions. You must follow the directions!

Allow me to lay it all out on the table for you. If we want to enjoy this life, then we must follow the directions that God has given, and will give us. Plain and simple. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "it's easier said than done!" Well, first off, I didn't say anything about this being an easy thing to do. Sure, some are going to struggle with this; just thumb through your Bible! If it makes you feel any better, even people who were much stronger in faith than you and I struggled with this.

Do you remember Joshua? After the death of Moses, God called on Joshua to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River and take possession of the promised land. Joshua just received instructions from the Lord. He received specific instructions from the Lord on how to defeat the city of Jericho (Joshua 6:2-5). Look, the Lord was going to do all the work! All Israel needed to do was obey.

All through the Bible we see where the Lord gave specific, detailed instructions to his people. For example, Moses and Abraham, to name just a few. Have you ever browsed through an instruction book and tried to look at only the highlights? Or how about this, have you ever read the last chapter in a book before starting at the beginning?

When God told Abraham to go, he said “Here is step one. You get this step done, and then I will give you the next step.” Did you ever consider that He may do the same thing in our lives today; because we so much want to look at the end of the instructions. But, if we do know the end, then we'll try to take our own logical steps to get the job done. God doesn't work like that. We need to obey Him.

We've been given the Bible, the Word of God, the instruction manual for our lives. And we need to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us through the Word of God; to guide us through those instructions. But, God also has specific instructions he wants to give each and every one of us.

When we accept Jesus Christ, when we receive that Gift, God has a plan for our life. When we become Christians, he has specific instructions for our individual lives. He has specific things that he wants us to do, and if we don't do those specific things, then we'll miss out on his blessings. Now, does that mean that we'll never be blessed? No, but we will miss out on something God wants to give us.

So, what do we have to do to receive those directions? What must we do to receive those instructions that we need to live that victorious life that God has for us? In Joshua 5:14, the Bible says that Joshua fell face down to the ground in "reverence." In other words, worship or fall prostrate before the Lord. We need to give our will over to the Lord; to give in to him totally and completely. We must have reverence, and honor for the Lord.

Now look at Joshua 5:15. Take off your sandals. The same command was given by God to Moses at the burning bush. "Remove your sandals for this ground is holy." (Exodus 3:5) What does that mean? Well, this was a custom back in those days, just as it still is the custom in Oriental and Indian societies today. When these people go to a place of worship, or to someone’s house, they remove their shoes, much as we would remove our hats today. They do this out of respect, out of reverence, out of honor.

But, there has to be more to this than just taking our shoes off. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we? Let's say you've been outside doing some gardening. Before you come into your freshly cleaned house, what do you do? That's right! You take off your shoes. When your kids want to come into the house from playing outside, what do you tell them to do? "Take off your shoes!

Can you see what's going on here? When we come in from outside and we are dirty, we remove our shoes. Why? Out of respect? Yes, but respect for what? What are we trying to prevent? You've got it! We don’t want to track our dirt into a clean environment!

The angel told Joshua to remove his sandals because he was on holy ground (Joshua 5:15), God told Moses to remove his sandals because he was on holy ground (Exodus 3:5). God was saying, “ I don’t want your dirt! If you want instructions from me, if you want me to give you direction in your life, then when you come to me, you need to leave your dirt behind. You need to come clean.”

Psalm 66:18 says, “ If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear”  The KJV uses the word iniquity; “if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” Okay, now I can hear some you saying, “well, I thought the only way to get rid of our sins was to bring them to the Lord, and you are saying that we can't come to the Lord if we have sin!”

Please don't misunderstand me. Joshua came to the angel (to the holy ground), Moses came to the Lord, (to the holy ground), with their sandals on; with their dirt still in place, you might say. But, they were willing to remove the dirt once they got into his presence. They had to remove the dirt before they received their instructions.

Similarly, when we're walking in the world all day long, we get our feet dirty. When we sin time and time again, but we still want to come to the presence of the Lord for our instructions, then we need to be willing to leave that dirt behind once we get there.

What if we have a sin in our lives that we're not willing to give up? Or, maybe we have sin in our lives that we are enjoying so much that we decide we want to continue in that sin? And yet, even with all of this going on we still want instructions from the Lord. I can tell you right now, there's no way it's going to happen!

If you will not let go of your sin; if you will not remove the dirt; if you will not remove your shoes in the presence of the Lord, then you will not grow. And sadly, you will not live the life that God has in store for you.

Scripture: Jeremiah 29:11; Proverbs 3:5-6; Isaiah 58:11; Proverbs 3:5; Ephesians 3:20; 1 Corinthians 2:9; Ephesians 2:10

Now, let's pray...

O Father, give us the humility which realizes its ignorance, admits its mistakes, recognizes its need, welcomes advice, accepts rebuke. Help us always to praise rather than to criticize, to sympathize rather than to discourage, to build rather than to destroy, and to think of people at their best rather than at their worst. This we ask for in thy name's sake. Amen

Until next time...

May your week be blessed!

Bibi