Forgotten Truths

2 Chronicles 15:1-2, “Now the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa, and said to him: ‘Hear me Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”

Some things men forget with time. Other things men choose to forget, while others still, men want to forget. Among the things men want and choose to forget, it seems uncomfortable truths found within the pages of Scripture are high on the list, and some today are going out of their way to discredit or otherwise give themselves license to ignore the Word of God because it does not sit well with their doctrine or preconceived notions about the God of the Bible.

Because we have successfully redefined God in our day and age, and stripped Him of His sovereignty, glory, omnipotence, righteousness, and justice, we can make God into whatever we want Him to be, and most often we want Him to be a quiet, obedient, and malleable soul sitting in the corner just grateful for the company, appreciatively accepting a morsel of food or a glass of water whenever we remember to feed Him.

We have come to think so highly of ourselves, to esteem ourselves to such an extent that we view spending any sort of time with God as a favor we bestow upon Him, as some great grace with which we present Him, and one He ought to be eternally grateful for. Because we esteem ourselves so highly we think it only fair, and in fact feel entitled to, having every prayer answered, even though most often our prayers have to do with the material rather than the spiritual.

When man brings the God of the universe down to his level the requisite reverence creation must have toward Creator disappears, as does the overarching need to obey Him. Why obey a God with which we are on equal footing? Why submit to the authority of a God we can make do as we desire, and make say what we want Him to say? Why seek Him and hunger after Him and desire Him if we’ve been talked into believing that no matter what we do there will be no consequence, and though we forsake Him, He will cling to us like a motherless puppy refusing to let go of our leg?

Nowadays the Lord is no longer with us as long as we are with Him. Instead, though we’ve rejected Him, and forsaken Him, and abused Him,  and mocked Him, and demonized Him, and thrown Him out as though He were some beggar, He is required to continue to bless us and protect us and keep us. Why? Because we say so!

If God Himself said He changes not, then would it not be a logical and reasonable thing to conclude that due to our having forsaken Him God has also forsaken us? Would it not be a reasonable and logical thing to conclude that because we’ve stopped seeking Him, we have not found Him and because we have not found Him we comfort ourselves and each other with empty words and silly mantras meant to seduce the gullible into a deeper slumber?

Up until this point we have fled from reality because we could. We’ve been able to talk ourselves into believing things about the God of the Bible which are not true, because we were never so close to the flame as to feel the heat, never so close to the precipice so as to realize we could easily lose our footing and plunge to the depths below with one misstep.

Even with the house of cards we’ve built beginning to crumble under its own weight, some still look for salvation and a remedy to their circumstances somewhere other than God. We are as Israel of old, refusing to look upon the One who can save us, heal us, and restore us, even in our death throws.  

Although men by and large have chosen to forget that when a nation forsakes God, God forsakes the nation, God hasn’t forgotten. And though we scream at the top of our lungs, and until we’re red in the face that God is on our side and will forever be, the God of the Bible today reminds us that He is with us only while we are with Him.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.