.
~ Heart-2-Heart ~
.
Pastor Lynda MacDonald, Nova Scotia
.
A NEW YEAR – AN ANCIENT
PATH
BY LYNDA MACDONALD
One of the most difficult things I have faces in my walk with God is
when His plans are contrary to mine and I need to change. One would think it
was an easy thing to simply “adjust” our way of thinking but it is most hard to
do. So many factors influence our actions –family, other believer’s opinions,
preconceived beliefs, etc.
In ancient Biblical times the people
who followed God’s ways were faced with the same challenge –obey God and change
or live in their safe zone but be in rebellion to His Ways.
Some of the scriptures that have
challenged and shook my “old thinking” are found in Jeremiah. In chapter
2:11-13, God looks at His people and rightly deducts “Has a nation ever
exchanged its gods (and theirs are not gods at all!)? Yet my people have
exchanged their Glory for something without value. Be aghast at this, you
heavens! Shudder in absolute horror!" says ADONAI. "For my people
have committed two evils: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water,
and dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water!”
God looked at Israel and saw a people
“following Him” but doing it in a way that they had decided was ok. God said
that it was not! He brought them back to His ways –called “the Ancient Paths”
so that they could start on the right way but they clung to their own paths.
God reminded Israel in Jeremiah 2:2 “I
remember your devotion when you were young (a new believer); how, as a bride,
you loved Me.” In verse 5 He continues “what did your ancestors find wrong with
me to make them go so far away from me?” I challenge you- fellow believer –we
did that!
In 6:16 so sad a thing took place. “Here is
what ADONAI says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask about the ancient
paths, 'Which one is the good way?' Take it, and you will find rest for your
souls. But they said, 'We will not take it.'”
Again in 18:15-17, God warns Israel,
“No, but my people have forgotten me and offer incense to nothings. This causes
them to stumble as they walk the ancient paths; they leave the highway to walk
on side-trails. Thus they make their land
an object of horror and ongoing
ridicule. Passers-by shake their heads, appalled, every one. Like a strong east
wind, I will scatter them before the enemy. I will see their back, not their
face, on their day of disaster.'
Thus has the believing church done
today! In Ecclesiastes 1:9, it reads “there is nothing new under the sun”. Man
will always –when deciding what is right or wrong- repeat the same mistakes.
God sends out a strong warning but it goes unheeded because we (believers)
refuse to change directions. These “side trails” are connected to Him but they
are NOT His Ways.
Throughout the believing communities
today, God is shouting out “stop!!! Return to My Ways!!! The ways you are
walking have moved from My Ancient Paths” but the warnings are going unheeded
for the most part.
The internet is filled with
congregations who stopped, listened, checked out the warning in scripture and
made a change in what they were doing. They have moved back to God’s plan and
are learning how to abandon their own.
While this is exciting, it is also sad
because the larger community of serious believers are “just sure they are
right” and that they are so close to His Spirit that they would never be
walking astray. How arrogant!
We quote verses like “God is the same
–yesterday, today and forever.” “I am the LORD, I change not.” And then we live
our walk different than Yeshua (Jesus) taught his followers to both live by and
teach others to do.
The first month of a New Year is the
perfect time to check out your life -NOT according to your feelings but against
the Word. What did the first century believers –including Yeshua and the
disciples live by? Did they keep Sabbath? Did they eat Biblical kosher? Did
they keep God’s appointed times? Did they celebrate Christmas, Easter,
communion, Hallowe’en? Did they????
My heart is so deeply grieved as I
share God’s warning to return to His Ancient Ways. The Body of Messiah has
followed down “bunny trails” –that means they have zigzagged off the path. The
trails are cute but lead away from the true way.
When an archer shoots an arrow towards
a bull’s-eye –the goal is to hit the mark. What determines the outcome is the
path of trajectory the arrow follows. It leaves the bow with the purpose of
keeping a straight line to the end but if it veers off even the slightest as it
leaves the bow, the arrow will miss the mark by a wide range.
Shaul uses this very picture image in
Philippians 3:13-14, “Brothers, I, for my part, do not think of myself as
having yet gotten hold of it; but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind me
and straining forward toward what lies ahead, I keep pursuing the goal in order
to win the prize offered by God's upward calling in the Messiah Yeshua.”
King David expressed this quandary in
Psalm 119:25-27, “I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your
word. I told you my plans, and you answered. Now teach me your principles. Help
me understand the meaning of your commandments, and I will meditate on your
wonderful miracles.”
I double dare you –fellow believer-
accept my challenge and go check out the Word!!! Is your Path the same one God
designed us to follow?
I usually frown on posting web sites
but there are some anointed teachers who God has commissioned to warn the
believer. Just like prophets (I am not calling them prophets) God spoke truth
to their hearts and uses them to equip the Body. We have become a “Christian
society” that unless God sovereignty speaks to “us” we reject those He has
chosen as “watchmen” –those called to call out a warning. Ephesians 4:11
http://www.waytozion.org/video/jim/audit1.wmv
http://www.ascensionministries.net/
