THE DANGER OF MAKING MAN YOUR GOD
The Word of God tells us in Jeremiah 17:5-8 (AMPC),
“Thus says the Lord: Cursed [with great
evil] is the strong man who trusts in and relies on frail man, making weak [human] flesh his arm, and
whose mind and heart turn
aside from the Lord.
6 For
he shall be like a shrub or a
person naked and destitute in the desert; and he shall not see any good come,
but shall dwell in the parched places in the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt
land.
7 [Most]
blessed is the man who believes in, trusts in, and relies on the Lord, and whose hope and confidence the Lord is.
8 For
he shall be like a tree planted by the waters that spreads out its roots by the
river; and it shall not see and fear
when heat comes; but its leaf shall be green. It shall not be anxious and full of care in the year of
drought, nor shall it cease yielding fruit.”
During our evangelism
outreach today, we had course to discuss with a man who said he had stopped
attending Church since 2015.
When we asked him what
happened so we could know the message to preach to him, he initially declined
to let us know but when we made him understand that no person could stop
attending church without a reason, he finally owned up.
He said he had a bad
experience with a pastor who refused to attend to his request for prayers when
his mum was ill. Eventually, he lost his mum and the pastor said God had
revealed the mum’s death to him but he(pastor) refused to tell him not until he
lost his mum.
He got offended and said
a number of things concerning the pastor, two in particular we noted, which
were:
(1)
The man was tribalistic (racist) and only usually
attended more to prayer requests from people from his part of the country.
(2)
The man usually attended to people who had money to
give to him when he had prayed for them.
We made the brother understand
that his current position was exactly where satan wanted him to be by forsaking
the church to remain on his own contrary to God’s Word in Hebrews 10:25.
We made him understand
that only a Christian was qualified to enter heaven because only a Christian
believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Saviour and Messiah Who died for
our sins to reconcile us with God.
This brother had allowed
offense over the incident with a pastor to give satan a legal right to hinder
his prayers and his eventual entry into heaven.
We made him note that
what the pastor did was wrong and we were not there to request that he returns
to the pastor’s congregation but that he should repent quickly, return to God
asking for forgiveness, forgive the pastor to mend his relationship with God.
We told him that he
needed to pray for God to open the spiritual eyes of the pastor to his error
for racist discrimination and charging money for the work of the Gospel but he
said he would not pray for the pastor.
We showed him a number
of Scriptures including the one that says Christians should pursue peace with
ALL humans and holiness without which no one would ever see the Lord – Hebrews 12:14;
we showed him the Scripture where Christians are called not to repay evil with
evil but to leave vengeance to the Lord and to repay evil with good even to
their enemies – Romans 12:16-21.
Dear friend, we made it known
to the brother that the Lord Jesus says offenses must come and there is woe (great
distress) unto the person by whom offenses come (Matthew 18:7) but we should
not dwell there because as Christians we are called to forgive.
Unfortunately, because
of the wrong teaching by some pastors to their congregation to pray against
their enemies contrary to God’s Word, many Christians today find it difficult
to forgive the wrongs others have done to them.
Even the Lord’s prayer
is clear that God would only forgive us our sins or wrongdoings against Him when
we forgive our fellow humans their wrongdoing against us – Matthew 6:14-15.
We made it clear to the
brother that if he truly loves Jesus Christ as he claims, he needed to obey God’s
commandments as we have read out to him from God’s Word in the Holy Bible.
We told him not to allow
the love of a mother make him enter eternal damnation in hell because it was
not worth it. Jesus Christ our Lord has made it clear that anyone who loves
father, mother, son, daughter, sibling, etc more than Him (Jesus) was not worthy
of Him – Matthew 10:37-38.
Dear friend, no amount
of offense by anyone against you is worth your going to hell on account of the
offense and resentment in your heart against that person.
If God says you MUST
forgive, you cannot give any reason to justify your hardness of heart against
the Lord’s directive because not only would it hinder your prayers and open the
door to satan to afflict you, it would certainly send you to an eternal
damnation when you depart this world.
Do not make man your God
because that places you under a curse. There is ONLY one God Who is the Creator
of the Universe. Whenever you pray to Him on any matter as His child, you must
have faith to know that He hears and answers prayers that are consistent with His
Word in the Holy Bible.
We prayed for the
brother that God would open his spiritual eyes of understanding to the Gospel
we had preached to him so that he could repent and return wholeheartedly to God
and continue the work of the Gospel.
We however warned him that
having reconciled sincerely with God, he should not to minister to anyone and
receive money in return because he would be going against God’s commands in
Matthew 10:8 and committing a grave sin against God by selling God’s spiritual gifts
given to him.
May the good Lord bless
you as you heed His Word today, act on it and share with others in Jesus’ Most Merciful
Name, Amen.
Gabriel Ama.
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