Lather, rinse, do not repeat
It is (not) funny to me that the church so quickly adapts habits. Years ago I heard a preacher say from the pulpit “God is good.” And he told the people in the audience to say “all the time.” I thought it was cute at the time…which was many years ago. But if someone says that from the pulpit, people will rehash it almost like a robot. And that frustrates me. But it isn’t just sayings…it’s belief systems, too.
Joshua chapter 6 is used in this way. Many people use the story of the Israelites marching around Jericho playing horns and shouting with praise as a repeatable method. Judah means praise….Judah goes first. All sound exciting. Always treating praise music as the first thing in warfare. But if marching around a city was the method God would always use, then why didn’t they ever do it again? We often say many religious sounding things that have no basis whatsoever. I’m not saying God will not use the method again, but God is hardly ever repeatable when it comes to situations in our lives. Every situation has a different method.
We are intended to follow the voice of the Holy Spirit in each and every situation. Failure to do that can have a costly price tag attached. Just ask Moses.
In Exodus 17:1-7 at Rephidim, the Israelites are without water, and begin to complain. God allowed a little complaining in the beginning because they were new to the ‘trust God’ situation. God told Moses to smite the rock with his staff. When he did, water began to flow out of the rock. Not a little water, either. Enough water flowed out of the rock to feed 6 million Israelites and all their livestock.
Fast forward, 38 years later, Israel has wandered the land for almost 4 decades. What happens? They run out of water, and again begin to complain. Moses seeks God’s plan for water this time, and God tells him to speak to the Rock. But Moses gets frustrated with the complaining himself and instead of speaking to the rock, he again strikes it. It worked last time….and even now, yes, water came out of the rock for the people of Israel.
But listen to God’s words in Numbers 20:12— Because you did not trust in me, TO SANCTIFY ME in the eyes of the children of Israel. The actual word used here is Qadash, and it means to ‘set apart as holy.’ We misunderstand holy…it means to be completely set apart to God’s ways. Because Moses acted on his past practice instead of following orders… his actions became unholy. They were not set apart.
Many churches today are dying just for this very reason; what happened yesterday, is not working today. God is not set into patterns by the world, the devil, or his people. God moves fresh and new in every situation.
People do the same things…many people in churches have not changed in the last 20 years….you know who they are…they ‘figured God out’ and became patterned, and not holy. Holy is doing what God wants in this situation, and never looking back at what he used to do, and never expecting him to do the same thing next time.
Habits like these may be comfortable, but comfort has never been in God’s ultimate plan.
What’s the plan for what you’re going through? Get alone and find out. God has a specific warfare plan for your situation.
