Below is a post made by Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church, Charlotte, NC. I read this today and couldn’t help but pass it along to my blog viewers. I hope everyone in my church would embrace the principle of this post.
“You acted foolishly,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if only you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.”
1 Samuel 13:13
It’s a moment you never want to have.
A 13:13 moment.
The moment you realize just what you could have had, if only you had…
What a scary verse this is. Besides the fact that you have a double instance of a bad number (13:13), the thought expressed in it should rattle us to our core. When most people talk about the consequences of sin or disobeying a specific instruction of God, they usually focus on the negative consequences that actively happen to us as a result.
You sleep around, you could get an STD or get pregnant.
You cut a corner at work, you could lose your job.
You ignore God’s calling, you could end up in the wrong career.
Those are definitely bad, but there’s an even scarier thought to consider. And that’s the unprecedented blessing of God you missed out on because you weren’t willing to obey.
The levels of influence you could have had.
The marriage you could have had.
The life you could have had.
I never want to have a 13:13 moment. I never want to hear God say:
If you had been generous, I would have…
If you had not settled, I would have…
If you had stepped out in faith, I would have…
If you had…I would have…
And you don’t either. The last thing you want your life to become is a cautionary tale of what could have been. Whatever God is asking of you, believe me, it’s not about what He wants from you. It’s what He wants for you.
And you can have it, if only you will…
Well if we have this on the mind, we can tend to become so fearful of messing up that we become performance conscious and we could totally miss what God may have for us. It is very important, the choices that you make, but I always caution myself from becoming too performance minded, because I don’t want to fall into legalism. But how important it is when it comes to the decisions you make in life. Consult God and He’ll lead you. My thought about is not how its important what we missed, but when we missed the mark… a.k.a sin or go our way, we have our Heavenly Fathers grace to fall on, and we can learn from our mistake, while avoiding any condemnation that the enemy may throw at us. Just trying to stay faith based and not fear based. Yet still some awesome God truth about listening to God’s voice and following it. 🙂
David:
This is not a complete dissertation on sin and consequences. The bottom line is simple: Sin can have long-lasting, far reaching consequences. Don’t put yourself into a position where you might miss the blessing of God on your life because of sin. I think that being aware of that is empowering to avoid sin. I don’t want to put myself in a position of missing all that God has for me.
As far as the “performance focus” = “legalism” comment… I think you’re off. Scripture commands us over and over, “My Father is glorified in this, that you bear much fruit.” John 15:8 “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” James 1:22 “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works…” Eph. 2:10. If your judgment of yourself and others is based solely on what you can determine from the outside, then yes, that is legalism. But if you are demonstrating your faith by your works, that’s not legalism, that’s, well… that’s Biblical (James 2:18)
Oh very true…wasn’t trying to be rude. Just had some legalistic churches in my past history and I don’t want to put a stumbling block for myself again since I was easy caught in it. Meant no offense at all.
No offense taken. Blog comments are an easy place to misconstrue intentions. I simply wanted to correct your perception of where this post was trying to go. Frankly, I’ve been in some highly legalistic churches as well and can understand your concern. It would be easy for me to over-react to some of those elements in my past (and some might argue I have). I think the proper response for us is not to judge things based off of where we’ve been, but where we would like to be. Or where God would like us to be… I’m taking for granted that the two are the same.
At any rate, thanks for contributing. I think you and are on the same page.
Blessings!