“Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.”
“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is”
“For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” – Jeremiah 17:5,7,8,9
Man preaches to his soul that he loves God, that his trust is all in God, that he is walking in the shadow of God’s wings, and then he frets about his security, until he is driven to cheat his fellow man at the market place, hoping to assure himself of success.
Man professes to believe that by forsaking and confessing his sin, that God will forgive him and cleanse him of all unrighteousness. But, then he turns around and refuses to own up to his errors, by being afraid that once his fellow man hears of it, he “will have-something-on-him” to use against him.
So when it comes to reconciliation, honesty, love, trust, and uprightness, man’s own reservations that come from his sinful nature, continually arise to throw him aside and cause him to come short.
When it became necessary for God to divide the nation of Israel into two kingdoms, because of Soloman’s idolatry, God appointed Jeroboam to be king over the ten northern tribes with the promise that if he would hearken to God and walk in all his ways, that God would make his kingdom sure. But after God established Jeroboam in the kingdom, Jeroboam became afraid that if Israel went up to the Lord’s house in Jerusalem, as the Lord commanded, that they would reunite with Judah, and he would lose his kingdom. So he made two golden calves and led Israel into idolatry, and away from the house of the Lord. This brought the curse of the Lord.
God calls for “the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” Romans 12:2b. God’s will and promises work. But it is our pride, stubbornness, fear, dislike of God’s ways, and our depraved determination, that fills us with reservations against what God wants and wills. We then rule against doing what God says, thinking that it is necessary to follow our downwardness, rather than looking upward to God’s righteousness.
In most cases, the need is for conversion unto child-like faith in the Lord. Beware–a person can get beyond this through hardness of heart.
ARE YOU FREE to think, feel, and act as the Word teaches that you should?
SHARING
