Choose Your Path

 

 Choose Your Path

“So Lot chose the entire plain of the Jordan for himself. Then Lot journeyed eastward, and they separated from each other. Abram lived in the land of Canaan, but Lot lived in the cities on the plain and set up his tent near Sodom. (Now the men of Sodom were evil, sinning immensely against the Lord.” Genesis 13:12

I always love when you can see in Scripture how things play out and then we can remember why God says what He does. The Lord told Abram to leave his family behind and go to Canaan and Abram brought his nephew Lot with him. It was soon after that a conflict of land would occur between Abram and Lot. God had given Abram direction and knew already what would come. God always knows the outcome but gives us the opportunity to choose His ways. Abram and Lot had gone two different directions. Lot pitched his tent merely in the direction of Sodom but later became a leader of that sinful place. Drawing near to sin will always draw us away from God. 

Where I choose to set up my heart is my daily choice. It has always been our choice what to worship. Even as God intends to be our first love so we don’t have to be in charge it is when we choose the alternative that leads to going the other direction. Instead of going the way God desires we go the other way towards what we want and that creates distance between me and the Lord. That is what sin does in our life. It affects everyone around us. It infiltrates our very core being. It spreads and consumes all around us. Just one look at the news and we can see how far we have distanced ourselves from the blessing God had intended us to have from the beginning. And if it wasn’t for restoration we would have to stay separated from God but it is because of Jesus we can be made right every single day. Each day is that opportunity for our hearts and minds to made clean. His mercies are new each morning. Great is His faithfulness! It is because the Son of Righteousness that we too can be made right with God.

What am I not letting go of? Is it pride? Is it not being enough? Those were just a couple questions God was prompting me with this morning. 

Wherever I decide to pitch my tent my heart will follow. Sometimes I read the Bible through my lens and others times words like “set up” and “seperated” remind me that what I choose to allow into my mind can allow my heart to follow and all of a sudden I am in that place again of realization what I am allowing in isn’t Good and Holy and Just. That is what sin does and if it wasn’t for the daily asking God, “Remove in my heart what needs to go and wash me with the clarity of your Truth” I would stay in that place of setting up myself on my own. And that never works. 

I think I dismiss that word “sin” too many times thinking it is dealing with those other people. When the reality is God’s Divine intervention is so that I can recognize it and turn back towards His Mercy and Grace. God hates sin because it breaks His peace and interferes with the way things are supposed to be. It is in a repentant heart that we can begin to acknowledge how we can move forward in all that He has for us.

I can’t move forward if I don’t acknowledge this. I found myself one morning having this discussion with God. I knew what He was asking was for me to once again trust Him but everything within my heart and mind was telling me not to bring it forth. That war between what I thought and what He says was occurring in my living room one morning. And as I sat there I realized what I was holding onto was preventing me from moving forward. I went into my kitchen and got down on my knees and prayed, “Lord I give you _ and know I am putting that before you. Please forgive me.” I stood back up and knew that acknowledgment within my heart had shifted what was going on in my mind. I was forgiven and now I could move forward. Just me and the Lord once again in our relationship that keeps Him on the throne of my heart. Day in and day out. 

Let His Divine Interruption awaken something inside your heart, agree with Him and bring it into the Light. What is it?  He is listening. 

Father,

Renew our minds. We confess those areas that we are putting before you. We lay them at the feet of Jesus and ask forgiveness so our hearts can move back toward you. We put on our new selves the one created in the Righteousness of purity and truth. Walking out our lives fully trusting that transformative power of you Jesus.

Amen