A LOYAL HEART

I just could not get it.

What was the difference between David, who messed up in a big way multiple times, and the other good kings, who were obliterated for doing one thing wrong?

What made David different?

Then I found my answer in 2 Chronicles 25:2,

And he did was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a loyal heart. (NKJV)

This passage is speaking about Amaziah and his reign in Judah, but it spoke so loudly to me in response to my question.

When many of the good kings messed up, even if only once, they rejected the correction of the Lord.

They got angry and responded in rebellion.

When David was corrected, he humbled himself before the Lord.

He had a loyal heart.

We can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons.

To What is our heart loyal?

Looking good in front of others?

Convincing everyone, perhaps even ourselves, that we have it all together?

We can do them all for the right reasons.

Trying to please and honor the Lord.

It is easy to do right when it carries little consequences or inconvenience.

What about when we need to do right after we have done wrong?

When the Lord chastens us,

which we pray He does as it is a sign of His love for us,

how do we respond?

To What or Whom do we find our hearts loyal?

Our flesh or our God?

Like David, we are going to blow it.

We are going to mess it up at some point in time.

The test of our heart can come when we are corrected by the Lord.

Are we loyal to our flesh and demand we have done nothing wrong?

Are we loyal to Christ Jesus and repent then and there?

A work in progress, yes we are.

In that progress, let us (and believe me I mean ME in a big way) be deliberate in turning our hearts toward the Lord.

Let us deliberately raise up within ourselves loyal hearts to Christ Jesus.

He is deliberately loyal to us.

HOGWASH...

is what it is. Before I ever start, let me warn you now I have a burr under my saddle. A big one. It has hit a nerve and I am fired up. That was your disclaimer.

Complete and utter hogwash. There is a trend moving within the church body (at least in this nation) that ticks me off like nobody's business on one hand and scares the fire out of me on the other. The belief that the Bible is not the complete Word of God. The argument that the Old Testament stories are just that...stories. Used by writers to invoke emotion about a deity, but with no real validity.
Adam and Eve just a parable.
Jonah impossible.
Jericho - no way.
It is a movement that has crossed into main stream denominational churches and seminaries alike, and it is wrong. Someone help us when we have pastors with their very fancy doctorates and seminary papers telling us from the pulpit that they do not believe that Bible is the absolute Word of God.
Excuse me?
When we have megachurches and minichurches alike full of people listening to men and women who argue the Old Testament is figurative more then literal.
Are you kidding me?

Let me tell you something right now, if you can't believe the "in the beginning" then you have nothing to cling to in the end.

I can not even wrap my head around how someone could believe in God raising Christ Jesus from the dead (which is a, if not the, chief tenant of Christianity) and yet finds it impossible for the very same God to put a man inside a whale. Or knock down a wall. Or make a aged woman have a baby.
Which is harder?

What is even worse is we are buying it. Hook. Line. Sinker.
Which is exactly what we are doing.
Sinking.
Into our collective pews. We open our mouths and we believe everything that man or woman behind the pulpit says. We read our scriptures from the screen. We listen without ever checking the scriptures out for ourselves. We take no notes. We ask no questions. We give away ownership of our faith piece by piece, little by little. Don't get me wrong. I don't believe for one second that we are to sit in our pews and challenge every word our pastors or bible teachers say. There will be issues that we do disagree with them on. Do they all merit beating down his or her door Monday morning? Most likely not. However, there are some that should be deal breakers for us. The validity of the Bible better be the first.

Here is the deal. God is either a liar or He is not. (He is not, Titus 1:2; Num. 23:19).

He can not lie in the Old Testament and then be truthful in the New. It is either all true, or it is all a lie. No in-between. You can not pick and choose the parts you want to believe in. It either happened as God said it did, or it didn't. Now I know the arguments. Well, the bible was written by man....there are so many different translations....we did not really know what all the words really meant. There is legalism out there that says I must keep the Jewish laws of the Old Testament. There are those who will say I am in the wrong writing this because I have usurped my role within the body and spoken out of turn according to the New Testament. Most likely the word hypocrite will come to mind, if not to the comments. Which is fine. Absolutely fine. Why? Because my faith does not depend on what the comments section says.

Here is what I know. Here is what I have lived. When it comes down to it. When the rubber meets the road. When I am in my darkest of darks, the Word of God is the ONLY light that can defeat it. It comes down to me and that Bible. It is those words that are my sword. It is those words that speak to my soul and encourage me. Those writings that have even allowed me to know how to be saved, actual salvation, and to share that with others, and if I don't have confidence in it, all of it, I am done for. Finished. My pastor can not help and my favorite bible teacher is useless in those times. No feel good message is going to cut it. I need to know the word, believe the word, and act upon the word.

I beseech you brothers and sisters in Christ, please, please, do not think for one second that the Bible is just a story book. Please do not diminish the sacrifice that Jesus made for us (whether you accept it or not) by saying it is only to invoke emotion. Use discernment. Study. Research. Learn.
Above all BELIEVE. Have faith in the God who wrote it. Exercise faith in the Christ who died for it. Stand up and stop sinking.

O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge- by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.
1 Timothy 6:20-21 (NKJV)