Stand in Awe of God – Eccl 5
1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
2 Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
3 As a dream comes when there are many cares,
so the speech of a fool when there are many words.
4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. 5 It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. 6 Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, "My vow was a mistake." Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? 7 Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.
This message is perhaps more suited to my generation, the younger generation (30 and under).
Flippancy in devotion is a dangerous thing. One thing I just noticed about myself, and this generation, is that they love God, and are really interested in serving Him with more than everything. The level of passion and energy is probably unsurpassed! But, like gasoline fires, we spring up with intensity, and die out with the same speed, not too long afterward. I suppose that explains the repeated altar calls for devotion and repentance; because we are so ADHD spiritually, we need a constant reminder and stimulant to keep us up. Hence the need for worship music on all the time, and regular altar calls for repentance from sin and whole hearted devotion to the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, this generation is powerfully in love with God, willing to sacrifice, and eager to please. But its endurance lacks. When times get tough, the first thing to buckle is the devotion to God, and we fall back on our techno gadget realities, and our ipod safety.
And the danger is that we Christians don’t know what we’re doing when we approach the altar, say a whole hearted word of prayer about our love, need, reliance, and future faithfulness to God, to only turn our backs on the whole thing within a week, not because we don’t love God or the experience of worship, but simply because we forget or get weak. Our memory doesn’t outlast the length of a commercial. Funny to note that a website doesn’t expect to keep you on a page longer than eight seconds. Eight seconds! And the eight second attention span has set in.
Our flippancy with our devotion to God is fuelling this move away from solidarity and stability. Since our relationship with Christ is the chief cornerstone of life, the way we have handled our relationship to Him will filter down through the rest of life. So it’s no wonder we’ve got a whole generation plagued by mental conditions that we never really diagnosed or recognized before; it’s no wonder we’ve got a spiritual generation that walks backward as much as forward; it’s no wonder that, although we’ve been the generation to inherit abundant natural blessing, we ain’t got the spine or the heart to match it. We’re an empty generation, lost in white headphones, and the Christians that should be stepping forward are being sidelined. And I think the main reason is just this: flippancy, and its fraternal twin, the sin of ‘lightness.’
When my generation approaches the Lord, it is whole hearted, head over heels, entirely given in one basket. That’s just the way we are. But we do that too often, giving ourselves away in many different directions, to many gods of life, happy to spend time in all camps as long as the high is still good, and the social agenda isn’t offended. But when the God-camp confronts the videogame-camp, or the music-camp, or, far worse, the sexual-camp, Christians often waver. Or when we actually make the decision to lay our wayward things at the foot of the cross, we do it with the regular intensity of zeal and honesty, only to turn back on it when things get ‘contrary’ to our decision. And with us, that can be a matter of minutes. This is tearing us apart internally, and the Lord wants us to know that it causes more damage to offer things up and then take them back, than to never offer them at all. Remember that God is eternally patient and forgiving, but we still need to remember that there are prices to things.
The above scriptures say a couple things: don’t go back on what you’ve decided to do, and watch your mouth. When a firm decision regarding your walk with God has been made, and been made in faith, you need to stick to your gameplan. To turn back on things that you've devoted is a terrible thing that does tremendous damage to a number of internal soul-organs that keep us sanctified and steady. The fallout from these sorts of whole hearted devotion altar calls, and then a quick turning away, is massive. Just massive! I imagine it’s where a great deal of our illness and mental incapacity arises.
If this generation could get a hold on one simple thing, it would find all that devotion channelled into fruitful, long lives lived in mighty service to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The one main thing, I believe, we need is this: ‘let your no be no, and your yes be yes.’ If we can capture the simplicity of a single heart that sticks to its word, and pitches its tent toward Jerusalem and not Sodom, we’d discover that these issues would clear themselves up. Passionate anointing could be poured out on the needy in service and reliable ministry. Hearts and heads would clear, heal, and unite. Man would be a whole man again.
But as it stands now, the fractures seem to be appearing in greater number and size, as a sin-sick generation hides behind a theology of so-called liberty. Our eagerness and whole-heartedness, although appropriate, has been working against us every time we turn back on it. We hurt our own selves with pornography. We divide our own hearts turning away from God: by making tidal-wave like declarations of devotion, and then going home and favouring sleep and games over simple maintenance of a good relationship with our God, we rend ourself. It’s a shame we need to live on the booster-juice of an emotional and loud meeting. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but the stimulus leaves us feeling totally empty when we go home to the real peace that Christ lives in. More fractures.
We need not to lose devotion or emotion for God; both are good. We need rather, to stand by our word, to our own hurt, as the psalmist says. If we declare to God such and such a thing, we ought to be ready to pay it to the full. A great trouble looms very near the one who does such things flippantly, and repeatedly. The value of their word grinds down quickly, so too their spirit, because the word and the spirit are closely linked. And then, once the grinding of years of altar calling etc has passed, we are left empty Christians with empty spirits, filled up with not much more than spiritual sugar juice. Lots of energy, no real nutritional value!
So in the future, to avoid all this, the bible provides a good, albeit long-term remedy, that I think my generation, including myself above ALL, needs to hear and apply. Rather than try, like Ecclesiastes 5 says, to fulfil all our vows of devotion and separation, all our vows of obedience and pursuit, we should take another approach, according to what Jesus recommends:
Matthew 5:33-37
33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Instead of invoking the joys of purity and intensity in whole-hearted declarations to God, we must rather not swear at all, nor to decide to do or be anything hastily before God. We shouldn’t go near declarations that expound most firmly our love and willingness to work for God, unless our hearts are prepared to actually fulfil our promise. We should keep our mouth shut about our relationship to God, unless we really are expecting to pay the full, unseen price of what we decide. It will go far better for us! Christ died for us. Let’s start there, and let our yes be yes, and our no be no, to all we speak to, especially to God. But let’s leave behind all the bar-raising, the self-pouring, the binding the breaking declarations. ‘Cause in the midst of it all, the bar is being raised too high, the self is being emptied and never refilled with real life, and we end up bound and broken. We are left with sinning hearts, and poor minds. Let’s say yes to those we intend to comply with, and let’s pay the price required to comply, simply and honestly. Let’s say no to those we will not comply with, and to those we cannot comply with. And let’s keep our ‘maybes’ close too. Keep flippancy far, far away from everything you do, and don't get caught in the other direction, which tends to an overly serious and heavy spirit; be moderate and keep smiling. Don’t do big or God-related things quickly, without weighing and praying. Don’t be a fool, and don’t let the enemy destroy your life because of loose lips, or a hasty, overdriven heart.
With all blessing,
Degory
1 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
2 Do not be quick with your mouth,
do not be hasty in your heart
to utter anything before God.
God is in heaven
and you are on earth,
so let your words be few.
3 As a dream comes when there are many cares,
so the speech of a fool when there are many words.
4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. 5 It is better not to vow than to make a vow and not fulfill it. 6 Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, "My vow was a mistake." Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands? 7 Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore stand in awe of God.
This message is perhaps more suited to my generation, the younger generation (30 and under).
Flippancy in devotion is a dangerous thing. One thing I just noticed about myself, and this generation, is that they love God, and are really interested in serving Him with more than everything. The level of passion and energy is probably unsurpassed! But, like gasoline fires, we spring up with intensity, and die out with the same speed, not too long afterward. I suppose that explains the repeated altar calls for devotion and repentance; because we are so ADHD spiritually, we need a constant reminder and stimulant to keep us up. Hence the need for worship music on all the time, and regular altar calls for repentance from sin and whole hearted devotion to the Lord. Don’t get me wrong, this generation is powerfully in love with God, willing to sacrifice, and eager to please. But its endurance lacks. When times get tough, the first thing to buckle is the devotion to God, and we fall back on our techno gadget realities, and our ipod safety.
And the danger is that we Christians don’t know what we’re doing when we approach the altar, say a whole hearted word of prayer about our love, need, reliance, and future faithfulness to God, to only turn our backs on the whole thing within a week, not because we don’t love God or the experience of worship, but simply because we forget or get weak. Our memory doesn’t outlast the length of a commercial. Funny to note that a website doesn’t expect to keep you on a page longer than eight seconds. Eight seconds! And the eight second attention span has set in.
Our flippancy with our devotion to God is fuelling this move away from solidarity and stability. Since our relationship with Christ is the chief cornerstone of life, the way we have handled our relationship to Him will filter down through the rest of life. So it’s no wonder we’ve got a whole generation plagued by mental conditions that we never really diagnosed or recognized before; it’s no wonder we’ve got a spiritual generation that walks backward as much as forward; it’s no wonder that, although we’ve been the generation to inherit abundant natural blessing, we ain’t got the spine or the heart to match it. We’re an empty generation, lost in white headphones, and the Christians that should be stepping forward are being sidelined. And I think the main reason is just this: flippancy, and its fraternal twin, the sin of ‘lightness.’
When my generation approaches the Lord, it is whole hearted, head over heels, entirely given in one basket. That’s just the way we are. But we do that too often, giving ourselves away in many different directions, to many gods of life, happy to spend time in all camps as long as the high is still good, and the social agenda isn’t offended. But when the God-camp confronts the videogame-camp, or the music-camp, or, far worse, the sexual-camp, Christians often waver. Or when we actually make the decision to lay our wayward things at the foot of the cross, we do it with the regular intensity of zeal and honesty, only to turn back on it when things get ‘contrary’ to our decision. And with us, that can be a matter of minutes. This is tearing us apart internally, and the Lord wants us to know that it causes more damage to offer things up and then take them back, than to never offer them at all. Remember that God is eternally patient and forgiving, but we still need to remember that there are prices to things.
The above scriptures say a couple things: don’t go back on what you’ve decided to do, and watch your mouth. When a firm decision regarding your walk with God has been made, and been made in faith, you need to stick to your gameplan. To turn back on things that you've devoted is a terrible thing that does tremendous damage to a number of internal soul-organs that keep us sanctified and steady. The fallout from these sorts of whole hearted devotion altar calls, and then a quick turning away, is massive. Just massive! I imagine it’s where a great deal of our illness and mental incapacity arises.
If this generation could get a hold on one simple thing, it would find all that devotion channelled into fruitful, long lives lived in mighty service to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The one main thing, I believe, we need is this: ‘let your no be no, and your yes be yes.’ If we can capture the simplicity of a single heart that sticks to its word, and pitches its tent toward Jerusalem and not Sodom, we’d discover that these issues would clear themselves up. Passionate anointing could be poured out on the needy in service and reliable ministry. Hearts and heads would clear, heal, and unite. Man would be a whole man again.
But as it stands now, the fractures seem to be appearing in greater number and size, as a sin-sick generation hides behind a theology of so-called liberty. Our eagerness and whole-heartedness, although appropriate, has been working against us every time we turn back on it. We hurt our own selves with pornography. We divide our own hearts turning away from God: by making tidal-wave like declarations of devotion, and then going home and favouring sleep and games over simple maintenance of a good relationship with our God, we rend ourself. It’s a shame we need to live on the booster-juice of an emotional and loud meeting. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, but the stimulus leaves us feeling totally empty when we go home to the real peace that Christ lives in. More fractures.
We need not to lose devotion or emotion for God; both are good. We need rather, to stand by our word, to our own hurt, as the psalmist says. If we declare to God such and such a thing, we ought to be ready to pay it to the full. A great trouble looms very near the one who does such things flippantly, and repeatedly. The value of their word grinds down quickly, so too their spirit, because the word and the spirit are closely linked. And then, once the grinding of years of altar calling etc has passed, we are left empty Christians with empty spirits, filled up with not much more than spiritual sugar juice. Lots of energy, no real nutritional value!
So in the future, to avoid all this, the bible provides a good, albeit long-term remedy, that I think my generation, including myself above ALL, needs to hear and apply. Rather than try, like Ecclesiastes 5 says, to fulfil all our vows of devotion and separation, all our vows of obedience and pursuit, we should take another approach, according to what Jesus recommends:
Matthew 5:33-37
33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
Instead of invoking the joys of purity and intensity in whole-hearted declarations to God, we must rather not swear at all, nor to decide to do or be anything hastily before God. We shouldn’t go near declarations that expound most firmly our love and willingness to work for God, unless our hearts are prepared to actually fulfil our promise. We should keep our mouth shut about our relationship to God, unless we really are expecting to pay the full, unseen price of what we decide. It will go far better for us! Christ died for us. Let’s start there, and let our yes be yes, and our no be no, to all we speak to, especially to God. But let’s leave behind all the bar-raising, the self-pouring, the binding the breaking declarations. ‘Cause in the midst of it all, the bar is being raised too high, the self is being emptied and never refilled with real life, and we end up bound and broken. We are left with sinning hearts, and poor minds. Let’s say yes to those we intend to comply with, and let’s pay the price required to comply, simply and honestly. Let’s say no to those we will not comply with, and to those we cannot comply with. And let’s keep our ‘maybes’ close too. Keep flippancy far, far away from everything you do, and don't get caught in the other direction, which tends to an overly serious and heavy spirit; be moderate and keep smiling. Don’t do big or God-related things quickly, without weighing and praying. Don’t be a fool, and don’t let the enemy destroy your life because of loose lips, or a hasty, overdriven heart.
With all blessing,
Degory
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Thanks for sharing!
