1st Samuel 12:23-25, “Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and the right way: Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart: for consider how great things he hath done for you. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.”
Our text verse teaches the Biblical
principle that it is a sin not to pray for others. This is one of
thousands of sins which we as Christians commit regularly, but often fail
to recognize as sin. It is a sin when we eat a meal and forget to thank
God for it. It is a sin to make future plans and forget to acknowledge the
Lord. The Bible teaches to always preface our future plans with “If the
Lord wills” or “Lord willing.” ...
James 4:13-17, “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
I hear people boasting all the time of things they're planning to do tomorrow, next week, next year and when they retire; yet they don't include God at all. Truly, we are all full of sins in our heart. To dwell in one's heart upon what others own is a sin. It is covetousness. It is OK to save money and work to buy what we'd like to have, but it is wrong to set our mind and heart upon someone else's home, possessions, et cetera. Wanting someone else's spouse is a sin. If we'll all be honest in our heart, then we would have to admit that we are all very sinful in many ways. Selfishness is a sin and we are all selfish by nature. Our very nature is sinful.
I've said that to say this, if we would all stop and think about how sinful we are, then it would compel us to do several things that would change our life permanently:
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We would more fully grasp the depth of God's great mercy, forgiveness and love in Christ Jesus.
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We would appreciate God much more for all that He has done for us, which would compel us to live a life pleasing to Him.
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We would never gossip about the sins, shortcomings, failures and faults of others again.
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We would stop condemning and rejecting those who have repented from past horrible sins.
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We would be able to unconditionally love the worst of sinners with God's wondrous love.
When I hear someone gossiping, I know that they are self-righteous, failing to see their own wickedness in God's eyes. Many people don't care about what I am saying, but you should, because the Holy Bible teaches that God is going to judge you, me and everyone else according to how we've judged others (Matthew 7:1-2). If you enjoy criticizing those who have faltered along life's way, riding their broken spirit like a horse, slandering them because it makes you feel better, destroying their reputation with your razor-edged tongue, God is going to do the same thing to you. God can and will deal with harsh, mean and hurtful people in harsh, mean and hurtful ways.
I desire in my heart for all my web visitors to learn to love others, seeing them for what they can be through the saving-power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, rather than seeing them for who and what they are. When we have God's unconditional love, we choose rather to see people as being BROKEN rather than BAD. People need the Lord. We need a revival in our churches about how we see ourselves. We don't hear enough preaching these days about how sinful we all are. If we did, then we would stop criticizing and hating one another.
I love Pastor Jack Hyles' preaching because he always defended the little guy, the nobody, the underdog, the person who had hit rock bottom in life. Brother Hyles stood with the homeless man, the mission man, the reformed prostitute, the long-haired teenager, the widow, the student kicked out of Bible college, the condemned woman and the fallen man, et cetera.
