Stand Your Post
Jerry Leachman recently wrote a blog entitled, “Do Not Leave Your Post,” an exhortation from Ecclesiastes 10:4: “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences.” If we leave our post even for a little while, a lot of destruction can happen. In a little while, a little fly can putrefy the perfumer’s ointment. In leaving our post, our reputation can be sullied and many followers will fall. The Bible has many warnings about men who had stood for God and the integrity of His word. According to Romans, Do you who say, “dont commit adulatory, commit adulatory?” As men of God and servants of the most high God may our prayer be, Keep me in the hollow of thy holy hand… that I would be a witness unto you to your glory and honor.
In my own flesh dwelleth no good thing. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Our redemption is not through our own works. For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast.
Therefore keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life. Sin thrives in darkness and isolation. If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We’re called to the body of Christ to build up one another and to encourage one another in love.
Pride blinds us from our weakness. Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. The love of Jesus keeps us pure in heart. In his presence we develop a “hunger and thirst after righteousness.” If we focus on sin, we’ll fall deeper into sin. Sin means to miss the mark. The emphasis on the Greek word for sin “hamartia” is not on the missing of the mark but on the mark itself. Therefore looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus….
Ecclesiastes 10:4 says, despite the battle raging around you, don’t leave your post: “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place; for yielding pacifieth great offences.”
When Pete first came to Christ he prayed, “Lord I know I’m not the man you intended me to be. Please, Lord make me that man.”
Jeremiah was known as the “weeping prophet.” He loved the children of Israel whom God had called him to minister. He delivered God’s message for the tribes of Judah to return their hearts to the Lord. Despite his repeated warnings that they would be carried away into captivity if they did not repent, Judah continued to forsake the Lord.
Despite God’s dire warnings about the consequences of Israel’s sin, there are also great and precious promises for God’s people. The choice is always truth or consequences. Jeremiah 24:7 is about repentance: “And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”
After Israel had been taken captive by the Babylonian king because they had forsaken God and followed their own devices Jeremiah 24 says, “THE LORD shewed me, and, behold, two baskets of figs were set before the temple of the LORD, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the carpenters and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. 2 One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad. 3 Then said the LORD unto me, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, Figs; the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten, they are so evil. 4 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 5 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good. 6. For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. 7. And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”
Like God’s promise to Israel through his prophet Jeremiah, God will give us a heart to know Him when we return our hearts to the Lord. God has called us to the body of Christ so that together we can follow in the footsteps of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God wants to reproduce children “after his kind.” The character of our Heavenly Father is love, mercy, grace and faithfulness. These are the qualities that he will reveal in us when we return our hearts to him with a whole heart.
To forsake sin is to turn unto our Lord. To flirt on the edge of sin is to be consumed by the world, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. You’re most like the friends with whom you associate. This is why we’ve been called with a collective calling as the church of the living God, the body of Christ. When we together answer God’s divine appointment to assemble ourselves together, then we can have fellowship with our Lord Jesus Christ, and one with another in the household of faith.
Whom the lord loves, he chastises. The word of God is profitable for doctrine, for reproof and correction, for instruction in righteousness. To correct means to restore to an upright position. Even though it hurts to be straightened out, God restores us upright for our own good. The blessing is that we will be returned to a position where we can glorify God.
According to Jeremiah 29, God has a plan for you to restore you to fellowship with our Father, His son Jesus Christ and one another in the body of Christ. God is a God of reconciliation and restoration. The requirement is that we repent… that we turn from ourselves and unto the Lord. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.
The consequences of sin and iniquity leave scars even though we have been reconciled and forgiven when we repent. God’s grace and mercy forgives us when we repent with a broken and contrite heart of humility and meekness.
God’s plans are for our welfare and not for calamity…. Therefore Paul said, not only in my presence but also in my absence, work out your own salvation, your own wholeness with awe, respect,and reverence. For it is God who worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure.
When we delight ourselves also in the Lrod, he will give us the desires of our heart. When we deliberately, intentionally, and purposefully make our delight the Lord’s delight, then God will work within us to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Therefore quit ye like men…. conduct yourselves like men who stand their post to which God has assigned you. Then we shall realize His plans for good and not for evil…. to prosper and be blessed. God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11-13 says: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. 12 Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. 13 And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
… That we may ever live to the praise of the glory of His grace!
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
