In vain… or in truth?
A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. Psalm 127:1
This verse holds so much truth! The Bible says that MANY are a man’s plans, but it is GOD’S that stand (in the end.) That means that unless it’s founded upon God, then it’s gonna fail, eventually. Do we build on the promises of God and around Him? Or, do we go out on our own without Him? False hopes won’t keep us safe or steady.
You and I can work as hard as we want to, or get as strong as we want to, but our plans will not stand in the end if God’s not in it. We won’t get the results we hoped for, or the feeling we expected, in the end. We must not go it alone. A good man’s (or woman’s) steps are always ordered by the Lord. We will make mistakes but we don’t stop. When we step out by faith, we also trust that God will redirect us as necessary.
You may be rocking and rolling along and alone, but unless your foundation is on Jesus and your hope in Him, then you aren’t building correctly. Your walls will be weak and frail no matter how strong or tall they appear. It doesn’t matter who you’re surrounded or backed by, unless God is on your side, you can’t win.
Looks can be deceiving….
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22
As long as your alive and as long as this ole’ earth remains, just as cold and hot comes, and as seasons interchange - so there will also be seed time and harvest time. It’s a law. You and I will pay for what we plant. It’ll “pay out.” For sin we reap consequences and for righteousness we harvest blessings. The Bible says so.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
There’s only two ways though many. One way is doing right and the other is wrong. If we do not obey God and His commands , then we simply do wrong. Sin comes in many forms of deceit; unforgiveness, love of money, focus on lack of gain, adultery, so many others and even just not heeding what God has asked you to do. It all comes down to what we trust and believe.
If we often wonder why things just don’t ever go well with us, we must ask ourselves : “do you delay or do you obey?”
We can’t continue to sin and expect to be blessed. Grace IS NOT a license to sin.
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Hebrews 10:26-27
I’m just telling you the truth of Gods word; the only thing on which you can depend. Anything and everything else apart from Him will fade and fall away, and it will destroy you. I am only trying to save you from your err and lead you to truth. He says that He wills that NONE perish but that ALL come to repentance.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18
I don’t come to condemn you or me. Only to tell you so that we might follow in the truth that sets us completely free. Otherwise, we will live a half hearted lie.
Righteousness leads to life. It leads to peace like rivers where blessings spring up that you can find nowhere else. Sin leads us away from God and right into destruction, every single time. The further you err, the more you suffer unnecessarily. Sin feels good for a while. It does. Otherwise why would we be tempted or drawn away by something that doesn’t entice us? Remember Eve? The apple? God basically told her: You can have all this, just don’t touch this one tree. The tree that produced bitter fruit. Sin will cause you to have a false full feeling for a while that will only leave you more and more empty and vulnerable where you tried to fill the void that only God can fill.
Sin will leave you dry as a bone and thirsty for more, but yet it’ll never truly fill. Always a false full, that’s goes away quickly. Real growth and good growth requires digging up what is wrong and by planting what is right.
Here’s how sin works: you tend to get away with it for a while. That’s the waiting season, the in-between from the time that you gave way to that temptation and planted a seed, till harvest time. That sun begins to grow, it feels-good UNTIL it don’t. If you leave a crack, you might as well of opened the door. Shut the door to sun completely! Give the devil an inch, he’ll take a mile. He will take you all the way if you don’t turn around and surrender to God. Sin at some point comes into full bloom and you suffer for it. Sin is the very thing that will destroy you when you give way, unless you destroy it and repent. Fully and completely turn away from it. Or else….
That time in-between the seed and the harvest is the most crucial time. When you gave way to the seed it felt good. The waiting is the time that seems no one notices and you escape the consequences as you continue to feel good, but then BAM! Suddenly! It’s like you’ve been found out. God knew all along but the harvest catches up with you. This allowing it to grow gets the best of you, because you’re allowing it to take root. When it has become full grown, you’re near the end. It’s about to produce the wrong kind of harvest. For the fruits that come from abiding in the source of life; the HOLY Spirit of God and not the flesh (evil desires) are different.
“BUT the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.”
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. John 15:4-8
The word says that the way is broad that leads straight into destruction. Though it may lead down many roads, it is a one way to sin. There is only one way to God and one way to righteousness. Narrow is the way that leads therein. The wide road is filled with all kind of lust and appeals. It’s the land of anything goes but only produces death in the end. Though for a while it seems to produce an income or feeling of good, but it WON’T LAST. It feeds the flesh and kills the soul. Sin is only for a season.
Read again the fruits of that result from abiding in the Holy Spirit. By inserting the exact opposite of the Holy fruit, it will tell You what the fruits are that come from abiding in the wrong source; sin. Ask what you’re abiding in from the fruits that you bear. Wear do you err? There was a time that I couldn’t check any holy fruits off, I had became embittered and it penetrated my faith and infiltrated my core belief. I had chosen to trust in revenge and hate, rather than the Father God and truth. You can’t expect to do one sin and it not eventually get all and the best of you.
Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Hebrews 11:25
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away BY HIS OWN (evil) DESIRES and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:14-15
Do not (err) be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:16-17
Sin always causes us to err and go away from God. When we hear and do not do what God is asking us to do, then we live deceived by that which we want to do. Man cannot live by bread alone but by every word of God (truth). We feed our flesh with all kinds of things. Yet we deceive ourselves by continuing in and following “our own” way. Only He can fill.
God/ His Word-leads us into all truth. The enemy lures us away with what “feels” and “looks” and “sounds” good to our senses. Come to your senses and follow God before it is too late. We can’t live in the flesh and the Spirit at the same time, just as we can’t serve two masters at the same time. Eventually we will hate the one and follow the other. How long will we waver and be tossed between the two? Just to eventually trip and fall? It leads to utter ruin.
What or who do you serve? What has the best of you? Your attention, your money, your time…..If God be God, then we must serve (worship, fear and follow) Him! We must take it seriously or we will take it lightly, and end up neglecting Him. Make up your mind like Joshua TODAY, that you and your house will in fact serve the The Lord God. If He is God to you then let Him be God to you and serve Him. There is POWER in choice. In having a made up mind and heart sold out (fully dedicated to Him) - Christ in you. You can’t do both. Make up your mind. Keep it set.
The horse is prepared for the day of battle, But the victory (safety/delivery) belongs to the LORD. Proverbs 21:31
In other words: We are helpless, weak, and defenseless unless we trust in God. No matter how strong we think we are, we are weak and frail unless we stand with God and in His truth. Don’t let it be in vain. Let it be in truth.
Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,
The strong shall not strengthen his power,
Nor shall the mighty deliver himself; He shall not stand who handles the bow,
The swift of foot shall not escape,
Nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself. The most courageous men of might Shall flee naked in that day,” Says the Lord. Amos 2:14-16
You can’t stand on your own two feet unless you stand with the God Who created you and lives inside of you. On Him you must rely and heavily lean. You can’t depend on anyone else to do it for you. It’s up to you. It’s up to me. The choice is ours.
No matter what you do, how much you prep, what you trust in, or how strong you think you are, He gets the final say. Just like seed and harvest time, it’s not till “the end” that you are rewarded or turned away. I don’t know about you, but I want to hear “Well done”. I must live a life that pleases and represents Him. We wake up to find one day that we are either found faithful or we find that we didn’t truly follow Him. There is power in choice, do not deny!
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES the will of My Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21
MAKE NO MISTAKE: not everyone will enter in. No matter if you have good heart and good intentions, at some point you must apply the word and follow God’s truth. You must know the truth that will set you free. Stay free!
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. James 1:22
The harsh truth and reality is: that if you knew better, you chose not to listen. We ALL sin. This isn’t to condemn or point fingers at any particular one or any one sin. Its to show you that you can also choose to live as unto Him. Change your mind before it’s too late. It’s to get you to turn around from the punishment of choosing to follow sin. It wasn’t God Who did it to you. He came to save you, and to give you life more abundant. The enemy comes to steal from you, kill your hopes and dreams and eventually destroy you. He will lie to you. Don’t fall for the trap. Jesus came down in the form of man, humbled Himself, and DIED, FOR YOU so that YOU might not die that way, but live life to fullest as unto Him. He came to die to set you free from that sin that binds you so tightly. To save you from the erring so that you might turn to Him and be saved. To know Him is to love Him. To love Him is to trust Him. To trust Him is to follow Him. Are you a true follower of God?
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, IF YE continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you FREE. John 8:31-32
Be free from the err of sin that leads you away from Him, His truth and protection.
IT ALL HINGES ON YOU, IF YOU FOLLOW. IF is the biggest word in the dictionary packed with a choice and so much truth.
Follow and be free or else, live deceived. When the time comes, you’ll only hear one of the two. That’s why there’s only two. Right and wrong; life or death. We choose.
The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell in it forever. Psalm 37:29
Jesus answered, “I AM the way and the truth and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father EXCEPT through ME. John 14:6
The simple but profound truth that’ll set you free. There’s only one way to truth, that’s through Jesus. The enemy comes to steal kill and destroy. He comes to give life, add to you and tell you truth.
Don’t follow feelings. Don’t hesitate. Simply follow truth. What does His word say about it?
Don’t be puffed up with pride and full of hot air just do to deflate, and find out that it was all in vain. Follow the real truth that will really set you free. Its not in false hopes. Lies are not what they appear to be; deceit. They’ll lure us in like bait just to catch us in satan’s trap. Sin looks good as does a lure to a fish. If we don’t know and stand for truth, it “allure” us in.
Even Satan comes disguised as light (2 Cor 11:14) but When God comes in real light, HE exposes the real lie. Darkness has to flee for the light drives it out.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5
That’s a powerful word. Live in truth and live in light and NOTHING can harm, overtake or overcome you. Victory rest in your Savior.
For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. John 3:20
Your not a self contained or self made man or woman. Unless Jesus fills you and me, then we’re full of false hope and believing lies.
So if someone seems big and bad, and seems to be blessed in getting away with his or her evil doing; just KNOW that this is not true and God determines the end.
Don’t go the right way just to turn around and forsake doing right as so many did in the Bible. Even many we have seen. When we forsake God, His temple (you and I) to do right in and by it, when we neglect His place of worship, and when we defy His commands, wrath comes upon us because of our sin. (2 Chronicles 24:18)
Although the LORD sent prophets to the people to bring them back to him, and though they testified against them, they would not listen. Then the Spirit of God came on Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood before the people and said, This is what God says: “Why do you disobey (transgress) the LORD’s commands? YOU WILL NOT PROSPER. Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has forsaken you.’”
2 Chronicles 24:19-20
You have a CHOICE AND CHANCE TODAY. Do not delay; OBEY. So that it may go well with you and yours after you. They are following you. Are you following Him?
