There are people who like the idea of being able to live however they want. They are attracted to the notion of being able to do whatever feels fun or pleasurable to them. They find the concept of living an unfettered, uncensored carnal life very appealing. They think it would great to be free from God’s laws, boundaries, and restrictions.
Sadly, what these people fail to realize is that everything they REALLY want in life…all the peace, happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning, significance, enjoyment, and goodness they REALLY want…is available ONLY WITHIN God’s laws, boundaries, and restrictions.
That is why God provided those laws, boundaries, and restrictions FOR us in the first place…because they were FOR OUR good!
God didn’t need those laws, boundaries, or restrictions. We needed them!
However, God WILL generally give people what they insist upon having…including a life without His presence or providence.
Here is what the Bible says:
…people would not hearken to my voice…[they would have] none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels. — Psalm 81:11-12
The day God Almighty gives a person the sinful desires, interests, and imaginations of their heart…
The day God Almighty lets a person do things in their own way based upon their own knowledge, understanding, and perspective…without regard for God’s way…without the benefit of God’s knowledge and wisdom…without the blessing of God’s understanding and awareness…without the advantage of God’s perspective and insight…
The day God Almighty frees a person to live however they want…to be whatever they want…to do whatever they want…
…is the day that bodes, foreshadows, and portends more evil for that person than he or she could ever imagine.
This is true for many reasons including these:
- When God Almighty removes His goodness, protection, blessings, wisdom, and guidance from a rebellious, God-rejecting, self-exalting person’s life…well, that person is completely open and vulnerable to satan’s destroying power in their life.
- The person goes forth planting seeds of sin unhindered…and those seeds will infallibly produce a great harvest of pain, suffering, misery, loss, and destruction in that person’s life.
- The person’s inferior knowledge, understanding, awareness, and perspective…compared to God’s…means they will blindly walk unchecked right into serious problems and troubles again and again…and they will unwittingly select bad choices over and over.
- God is no longer there to help, aid, assist, protect, deliver, support, provide for, or guide the person…and they are completely limited to inferior power and resources. That is, they are limited to their own help and means…or the help and means of others who are just as inferior and limited as they themselves are.
- The person is cursed by God…woe will be placed upon the person…sin will be added to sin…shame, confusion, and reproach will cover the person…and the person will live in perverseness and suffer in oppression.
So, the message for us today is as follows:
- Let’s stop wanting to get away from God.
- Let’s stop being drawn towards worldly, sinful things.
- Let’s be diligent to draw closer and closer to God.
- Let’s recognize that God’s ordinances are for our good…and correspondingly surrender and submit ourselves fully to God’s laws, boundaries, and restrictions.
In doing these things, we each will be blessed with and get to enjoy the good-life that God designed and intended for each one of us.
See also: Romans 1:21-32, Isaiah 30