Remember, Lot’s Wife

Luke 17:32, NKJV | “Remember Lot’s wife,” Jesus says.

Note: He said this in response to a question that was asked.

Question: When will the Kingdom of God come?

Answer: The Kingdom of God can’t be noticed by visible signs; it’s already among you.

Then he reminds us of Lot’s wife (this seemed like a strange jump).

The only thing we know about her is found in Genesis 19:12 onwards: We will contrast Lot, his daughters, and his wife.

Note: If we keep looking back and desiring what God has brought us out of instead of where he is taking us, we’re going to be stuck in a place in between, and we may never taste the goodness of His promises.

The Israelites did the same thing in the desert after God brought them out of slavery in Egypt, and they ended up stuck in the desert for 40 years, and many of those who actually fled from Egypt didn’t even make it into the Promise Land.

From this illustration, there are three things that I can see about God in relation to us:

• He desires our attention

• He desires our existence.

• He desires to receive us.

Our ATTENTION

God wants to command our attention; in Psalms 100:3 and Revelations 4:11, he says he created us to fellowship with Him and to do His will.

But why does He want to commune with us?

• To let us know that He sees us and cares for us, He has not forgotten us.

• So that we can get to know Him

• So that He can help navigate us and guide us to safety.

We can see this through His heart for us: countless times he pleads, If my people would just turn away from their sins and draw near to me...". Examples of how God gets our attention:

• He calls us through audible voice, dreams, or visions (like he called Samuel like Joseph and his dreams).

• Through signs and wonders (like Moses and the burning bush),

• Through our afflictions (like Job),

• Through the result of our own disobedience (like Samson),

One of the main things that keeps us from building or initiating real, honest relationships is our fear of rejection. Not to be confused with actual rejection, this means that one has tried and has been rejected. The fear of rejection, however, is merely the possibility of rejection, which means this prevents one from even trying. But the Bible assures us that if we taste, we will find that the Lord is good; however, if we are prevented from even trying, we will not be able to taste and therefore not experience that He is good. God, on the other hand, does not care much for it (not even actual rejection). Despite us being repeat offenders, he is always calling, protecting, and saving.

Our Obedience

Our ultimate call is to believe in Jesus (the one who was sent). John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and whosoever believes in Him...”

The Bible breakdowns beliefs as follows:

• But what exactly are we called to obey?

• How do we know what is required of us?

• Is it just the Bible stories?

• Did God stop speaking after Revelation?

• Does he still speak and direct our paths?

• How can we tell the right from the wrong?

• How can we know for certain that it is His voice we hear?

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The legal system is made up of three types of laws, and these seem to apply to Kingdom laws as well.

Written Laws

 These laws are very often clearly presented and easily defined. But the issue that arises for us as believers is that over the years we have classified our sins and built a hierarchy of sins (so to speak).

In Proverbs 6 : 18-19, NKJV | the Bible describes 6 sins that the Lord hates and the 7th He says is an abomination. The 7th mention is “…sowing discord among brethren…” which is gossip.

Now compare and contrast the stand that the church as a whole to day takes of a popular issue such as the LGBTQ phenomena vs. Its stand against gossip. This is not to condone any other sin but simply to state that SIN is SIN - period! Whether its lying or fraud, adultery or murder, its all sin and we will be held accountable to Him for each of these. There is no such thing as committing a lesser sin and therefore being a better believer. The call is to accept the truth of Jesus Christ and obey His commands. All of them!

But don’t we live in the season of grace? Doesn't grace abound to cover a multitude of sins? Isn’t a person allowed to be forgive 70 x 7 times (in Luke it says in a day)? Yes! Yes! & Yes! But because of the abundance of Grace the standards are also higher. Under the covenant of grace - holding anger against another is equivalent to murder, and lusting after another is equivalent to adultery.

Note : A few sins have been called out specifically as being unforgivable in the new testament - witchcraft & blasphemy.

Spoken Rules/Words

This is not as easily identifiable as true - see Samuel - when God called him, he thought it was Eli until he was directed by Eli to respond to God. This requires intimacy and proximity with the Holy Spirit.

The issues here is due to its appearance of ambiguity, and the fact that it can’t always be rationally explained or our general predisposition to distrust others - it has largely been a contentious area of our faith in the wider circle of believers. It has generally been avoided.

But the model of seeking godly counsel and/or inquiring on God for every thing we do or how we navigate our Christian walk is biblical to its core.

Consider that fact that we have been called to be a nation of kings and priest (this being the community of believers). Its not some of us, its not a select few - its the entire community of believer. Now if we believe that the bible is also our guide to navigating this journey of life as believers than we pull from the stories and apply as best to our modern world. The principles never change. Therefore if we look at the Kings and priest of the old testament - what separated the benevolent and great kings from the terrible ones is their reliance on God.

King David is a clear example of a great king who called on God for everything and God spoke to him through his prophet Samuel.

But how do we test and see that the spoken word it truly from God ?

Psalms 105:19 | “Until the word of the Lord comes to pass, the word of the Lord will judge it.”

Sound confusing - but the Hebrew word used for the first ‘word’ is dabar (which means spoken word) and the Hebrew word used for the 2nd ‘word’ is imrat (which means commandment or written word). So it would sound like this:

“Until the [spoken] word of the Lord comes to pass, the [written] word of the Lord will judge it.”

 Convention Rules

 As mentioned above this would relate to customs, practices or a way of doing things.

Paul mentions this then he calls us to follow his doctrine (the truth of the gospel) and his manner of living (his customs/practices/ how he applies all that he believes in daily life).

We need to look to those who have gone before us and have lived right, and we need to pull from their lives the areas that they lived right - we need to carefully study their lives and learn from their successes of living by the WORD.

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Our REWARD

We live in a world where we are constantly being squeezed to the very last drop, and this is most of everyone that tries to get the best that they can out of us for the least cost to them. So as difficult as it may be - we need to trust that God desperately desires to reward us. God is reinforcing certain kingdom principles that are of utmost importance.

Take the 10 commandments for example, the first 3 are for us in relation to God and they carry an express punishment listed for non-compliance. The next 7 are for us in relation to each other. Now for 6/7 of these commandments is a directive, therefore it can be implied that failure to comply would result in punishment (and we have seen examples of this throughout the bible). However 1 commandment has a reward attached to its compliance: “Honor thy father and thy mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” In child psychology it now widely accepted that rewarding a particular behaviour reinforces it - as such parents need to be aware as to when they are giving their child something that may appear as a reward to them, so that they don’t start reinforcing bad behaviour.

Now I am quite certain that if God is doing this he know exactly what he is trying to reinforce. Honor is an extremely important Kingdom principle. But we also know from God’s first encounter with Moses, he introduces Himself as “I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward”. Hebrew 6 says that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him. But Paul reminds us to see to it that we receive a full reward, this means that there is a partial reward scenario and a no reward scenario.

An example in the bible is the story of the paralysed man who was sent in through the roof for healing. Now the bible records that Jesus was there in his hometown to do great works bu he was unable to do any great works because he knew what they were thinking. Because they dishonoured Him in their thoughts they were not able to receive their full reward that God had in store from them. Until these friends brought their paralysed friend through the roof because there was no other way to get to Jesus through the crowd. Their faith had pleased and honoured Him and they received a full reward that day.

Key takeaways:

• Position ourselves under proper leadership/mentorship to learn how to hear Him and pay attention when GOD speaks to us.

• Build up our tolerance for dicipline so that we can obey even when we dot understand, even when we don’t see it, even when we don’t want it and even when it hurts.

• Constantly check to see that we are in the perfect will of God to receive a full reward.

Prayer

Father, thank you that you love me, you have good for me, and you are leading me by your Holy Spirit. Give me the grace right now not to look back. Thank you that I am receiving and believing right now the new grace to do a new thing. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.