Awaken Youth Church

Consider Psalm 42:1-2

Hear the heart of this psalmist…

“As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for You, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before Him?”

Notice the amount of water… The writer didn’t just say that the deer wanted a drink of water… he didn’t just write that a trickle would do… Only STREAMS would satisfy (other translations say flowing streams)!

So as the deer was longing for those streams, so the heart of the writer was longing for God Himself.

“But, haven’t we already found Him if we’ve been saved?”

Yes and no.

If we’ve placed our lives in His hands by believing in Jesus for our salvation, that is only part of God. He is not just a cosmic vending machine dispensing tickets to Heaven.

But how often do we treat Him like that…?

“Ok, God, I’m saved. Thanks. See you in Heaven.”

He is God. He is limitless. We have only heard a whisper of His power!

So often we settle for less when there is so much more available. Maybe we settle because we didn’t know there was more. Maybe we settle because the thought of pursuing God is a bit intimidating. Whatever the reason may be, understand that there’s more and it’s freely available.

The veil has been torn. We can freely come before Him. Drink from His flowing streams!

Consider: Joshua 7 & 1 Corinthians 5

Interesting how these two passages coincide with each other.

In Joshua 7 we have the Israelites about to attack the city of Ai… and one of their guys, Achan, had just disobeyed Joshua and the LORD. He had taken a few items from their conquest of Jericho, yet the command was to destroy everything. Achan chose to hide some valuables under his tent.

The result, 36 Israelites lost their lives in the battle with Ai because of Achan’s direct disobedience. The LORD was serious when He said to destroy everything… really, the LORD is serious about sin.

It then came down to Achan and his entire family losing their lives. Again, the LORD is serious about sin.

Fast forward a few thousand years to 1 Corinthians 5.

Here we have Paul condemning the Corinthian church’s spiritual pride. They seemed to be proud of themselves… maybe “good things” were happening in and through their church body. But at the same time there was a man a part of their church who was living in sexual immorality. And they weren’t doing anything about it.

Apparently, Paul was not okay with church leadership just overlooking this sin. It was a big deal.

I wonder if they pulled the Grace card: You know the “we’re all saved by Grace” bit…

Or maybe the “finished work of Christ” card: “You know Jesus died once for all of our sin… so he’s really been forgiven.”

Of course we’re all saved by Grace! Of course Jesus died once for all of our sins! But neither of those are excuses for us to sin. Never.

I’m sure Achan thought “well, I know God said not to keep anything… but Jericho’s a huge city and I’m only going to take a few things… no one will notice.”

The moment we start making excuses for our sin and continue living in it is the moment we’re spitting in the face of Grace. His Grace isn’t available to simply cover over our sin (as Achan tried with his tent when he hid the goods) but it is to bring freedom so that we do not continue to sin.

If we fall, Grace gives us the opportunity we do not deserve to pick ourselves up and move on. NOT to stay down and continue sinning.

If there is deliberate, habitual sin in your life, bring it to Jesus, surrender it to Him and move deeper in Him. Don’t continue down the path that Achan and this guy from the Corinthian church was on.

The issue isn’t really will our sin keep us out of Heaven, but more so, understanding that it’s disobedience to our Father… our sin breaks His heart. And plus, sin’s just a bad deal. Stay away from it.