“Do you understand what you are doing, sir?”
This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith. Thank you for joining us.
Okay. Not so weekly, sorry!
This is Week 21.
(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well as some articles lead into the next one).
Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:105
Many Christians are at a place in our walk with God where we know what we are to do, but for some reason, we are not doing those things. We are aware of what God expects from us as believers, yet, for some reason, it feels like we don’t have it to give.
However, the scripture tells us that God’s commandments are not grievous. This means that they are not impossible to do, and so, it also means they are not supposed to make us feel hopeless.
The reason many of us are at this point in our christian lives — knowing the truth but not being able to practise this truth — is usually because of our lack of understanding.
The scripture tells us that a wise man is strong, and a man of understanding increases strength. Strength for what? Strength to do.
But how do we lay hold of this understanding? This thing that is so important to our walk with God, that we can’t really be fired up to work without it. In fact, without this understanding, we are just sitting ducks too. It is our understanding of who we are in Christ that helps us to live in the reality of being “far above” the works of the enemy. This is our spiritual position as children of God, regardless of what our physical situation says.
The funny thing about spiritual position, however, is that it is at the mercy of the positioned to enforce. For an illustration, I will use this example. Many do not know this, but lions, bears and many wild animals have a natural ‘fear’ for human beings. I don’t know if its something we did to them in the past, or how imposing we are because we stand upright, or maybe its just our smell, but for some reason, they’d rather not attempt a fight unless disturbed.
The thing is though, even though this is just an initial ‘fear’, its a valid one to have. Human beings may not have the brawn, but we have the brains. We have the ability to exert the least amount of force that could possibly be exerted in a fight with a wild beast and still win. Just a pull on a trigger and a Lion adorned with claws and fangs would feel the hit of a tiny metal whizzing at six times the speed of the fastest car square between its eyes. And we can pull that trigger more than once. Just saying. For added effect.
Now, I don’t think lions are aware of that. They just seem aware that we could potentially be dangerous. In fact, they may not even feel we are dangerous at all. They’d just rather not go through the stress of tackling something that is vertically taller than them just because they want to eat lunch. At least not right now when their stomachs are full.
However, if they are hungry, they’d consider going toe to toe with us. If they feel threatened, they’d probably do it too. If they get too familiar with humans, and see that they aren’t as tough as they initially thought, then the probability of getting mauled increases even more.
Now, the Devil is described as a lion seeking whom to devour. Just because he knows your position (“seated far above..”), he may have an initial disinterest, or even outright fear of you. However, the more time he hangs around you and the more he sees of you being unaware of your position, the more you start to look like his next meal. So, that lengthy illustration was just to explain to you that if you don’t know who you are in redemption, if you don’t understand, then you, my friend, smell like lunch.
So at this juncture in this article, we see that we not only need understanding to live the reality of our spiritual status, we also need understanding to live like Christ. If we don’t have understanding, apart from just being a sitting duck for a hungry predator, you also cannot really walk this earth as Christ did — not in terms of power, dominion, righteousness, and so on.
So, how do we get this much needed understanding?
There is a popular scripture that we all are aware of. It was God’s wager to Daniel. I don’t call it a promise, or a blessing, because God was merely stating facts. The Scripture goes:
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
Now, many of us skim through the “thou”s until the big man starts talking about “thou shalt have good success”. Then we say that part with a smile and even drag the “successss” like we are cute, bible-reading snakes (don’t mind me, that’s what I always did when I was a kid 😂).
However, we need to look carefully at the things that would happen before we, Like Daniel, have good success.
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth;”
Many of us have that part right.
“but thou shalt meditate therein day and night”
Mayday mayday, we are losing people!
“that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein..”
The auditorium is now basically empty😂
The reason why many of us never get to the doing part (and I’m not even talking about the success part yet), is because we don’t meditate on the word day and night.
We say the cute verses, we say the ones that roll off the tongue smoothly when read in that particular translation that everyone loves to read to feel kingly (Yes, I’m talking to you, King James), but we don’t actually meditate on the Word of God.
And why does that matter? Well, because, if you don’t meditate on it, you’ll never understand it. The Word is where we get wisdom and knowledge from. We get understanding from the time we spend studying that word and letting the Holy Spirit teach us from that word.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom…
Do you remember what the Psalmist said?
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Many are walking without their paths lighted. Imagine just how much more difficult it is to walk in a room that is not lighted. I mean, its hard enough that “narrow is the way that leads unto life eternal”. Now, you’re trying to toe that narrow line without light? This is a high-wire act, and you’re doing it blindfolded? Impressive!
There’s a reason they call it the highway to hell, and the stairway to heaven. Climbing the stairs without seeing anything is a little difficult. You’re bound to stumble.
When we look at Luke 2:40–50, we see that Jesus Christ was not an exception to being a student of “the law”. Jesus, according to verse 46, was found “sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions”, after three days of a frantic search for him.
It is what you impress that would eventually be expressed. Many want the Holy Spirit to bring scriptures to their remembrance that they never even put to memory in the first place. They never even saw it once.
Not having the scriptures on the tablets of our hearts continuously makes it harder to live victoriously over the flesh. In fact, it makes it harder for us to even do anything of spiritual motivation because the spirit and the flesh don’t even get along at all. And so, like we always say, when you stop sowing unto the spirit, you start sowing to the flesh, and he that soweth to the flesh shall of it reap corruption.
There is no way you are going to be a consistent tither if you are not convinced, beyond doubt, that what you are doing is solely for your benefit. There is no way you are going to give yourself to the demands of fasting and prayer if it always just feels like that time of the month/year when your entire church just decides to eat later in the day for some reason. In fact, when it comes to living your life in accordance to the will of God, you need your eyes of understanding to be enlightened.
Brute force can only get you so far. At some point, you’ll ask yourself questions that you can’t answer and that’ll be the end of that. We live in a world system where you require more intentionality to do the right thing than the wrong. You can thread wherever you like and however you like when you are not trying to live righteously. You don’t even have to know the reason why you do the things you do. You just do them effortlessly. Because your flesh has been awake longer than your spirit has. Your flesh has picked up fleshly habits, and it can basically run in autopilot. Your spirit man just got awakened when you got born again. You need to now convince your flesh to relinquish its dibs on the steering wheel in order to let your spirit man right the ship. So, best believe every step of the way, both your body and the enemy would keep asking you, “why did you turn left here? Why did you turn right here? Are you sure you know where you’re going? Are you sure you know where you’re taking us? Are you sure you’re not too drunk to drive? We’ve been in this longer than you have, are you sure we shouldn’t drive?”
This is why we meditate on the word day and night. I don’t know about any one else, but I’ve had experiences of the Holy Spirit drawing passages of scriptures together for me and making them intertwine like a web. That gives me understanding. However, in order to have such experiences, this book of the law must dominate your thoughts.
We live in the “real world”, where that is hard for us to do. Many of us work at jobs that solicit our attention from 9 am to 5 pm (add traffic time if you live in the city!), and so we find it difficult to not let our days flash before our eyes.
Now, as a word of advice, I would say that if you find yourself in that category, pray to God with the sincerity of your heart and tell him that you want to spend more time on His Word. It is His will that you meditate on the word day and night, and it is He who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. So, you know that your prayer is in line with the will of God.
Next, comes a time for honest reflection. Honest, because you have to take no prisoners here. Look at your daily schedule, and find out just how much time is being sapped from underneath your nose. The time you spend in the shower, the time you spend walking to your car or the bus park to actually start your journey to work, the time you spend waiting for the coffee to brew, or for the food to cook. The time you spend — and you know this is the one — scrolling through social media and being in that passive state of awareness.
If you are very honest, you might realise that very little time in your day is spent in productivity. In fact, Pareto’s Principle roughly states that only 20% of our actions yield 80% of our max returns.
Brian Tracy calls expounds on it beautifully. He said “two out of ten items, on any general to-do list, will turn out to be worth more than the other eight items put together.”
It’s our duty, now that we have communicated our honest petition to God, to assess how we spend our time.
Jesus Christ told us to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all other things would be added to us”. That’s a rough translation of Pareto’s Principle! Many seek so many other things above God and then end up with neither things nor God.
Also note that seek ye first the kingdom of God is posed in a way that suggests that it is one’s choice to do so. And God will not tell us to do what he has not given us authority and strength to do. If He hadn’t, he’d specify. Like when he told them to tarry in the upper room till they were endued with power from on high to tackle evangelical work.
So what would you do differently now? Remember “let the Word of God dwell in you richly”? Colossians 3:16 continues by telling us about hymns and psalms and songs. It is about always immersing yourself with the Word of God and putting yourself in a state that makes it easier to receive enlightenment from the Spirit of God.
So, instead of screaming obscenities as you honk at the car in front of you that refuses to fly over the jammed traffic with his factory-installed rocket boosters (🥴), you could use that valuable time spent in traffic to listen to a message. You could listen to an audiobook as you watch your coffee brew. You could swap out an hour of social media for some quiet time of meditation and Word Study. There are so many things on your schedule that yield even less returns than spending time sleeping. And, its important to know that not even your day job is more important than the Word of God FOR YOU. It may pay the bills, send the kids to school, get you that nice apartment and designer wear, but heaven and earth will pass away. In a moment of crisis, all those things you hold so dearly unto could be washed away and all you would have is the more sure word of prophecy. Layoffs and economic meltdowns are almost as natural as breathing in today’s world. The state of affairs of the world could be akin to a cyclic shipwreck.
Convincing yourself that God is more important than anything else in your life will help you spend more time on his affairs than on the world’s affairs. Convincing yourself that this is where your treasure lies will set the tone for how you prioritise life.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also — Matthew 6:21.
I end with this passage of scripture:
My son, if thou wilt receive my words,
and hide my commandments with thee;
So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom,
and apply thine heart to understanding;
Yea, if thou criest after knowledge,
and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
If thou seekest her as silver,
and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD,
and find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD giveth wisdom:
out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous:
he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
He keepeth the paths of judgment,
and preserveth the way of his saints.
Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment,
and equity; yea, every good path.
When wisdom entereth into thine heart,
and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
Discretion shall preserve thee,
understanding shall keep thee:
To deliver thee from the way of the evil man,
from the man that speaketh froward things;
Proverbs 2:1–12
