I was walking through town yesterday when I suddenly got the feeling that I should write today about saying no to God.
We all have things about which we think, ‘I’d never do that!’ Whether it’s something as big as going to Africa as a missionary, or as daunting as speaking in front 1000 people.
We walk a strange line where we tell God that we’d do ‘anything’ for Him and then put limits on what ‘anything’ is.
I never got round to writing about this yesterday but this morning, my ‘Tweet Old Post’ plugin ‘randomly’ chose to tweet a post I wrote called “What’s your River Jordan?” which talks about this very subject.
So instead of writing about it again, I’d like to invite you to read my two part series:
What would I not do for God? Strap on a suicide bomber’s vest.
Nor would I participate in a war that is being fought offensively, to advance policy aims. This was exactly the situation in Iraq, but Christians, heart-breakingly, supported it.
This ALWAYS needs to be discussed, when talking about one’s boundless desire or obligation to do God’s will. If you believe God’s will could include committing war crimes and inhumanities, then you should recognize that you are worshipping what Jesus condemned, not the One to Whom He prayed.
When the nation of Israel took the destruction of the Amalekites as the will of God, they were mistaken. They recorded that mistake in 1st Samuel, without recognizing it was in fact the worst possible sin. But our doing similar things today is still worse, because we have Jesus’ teaching and example.