What Happens to Idle Hands?

Good morning.

In the previous message we spoke about discovering ourselves through trials and tribulations. We have also learnt in the past few messages that sin is much more than just disobeying the Ten Commandments. Jesus’ commands that He issued during His teaching on earth and through the Apostles’ teaching are more comprehensive and stricter, and deliberately disobeying them is regarded as sin, which hampers our relationship with the Lord and will cause us not to see God due to unholy living (Hebrews 12:14).

We know that many Christians rely heavily on the teachings about God’s grace, but if that is all that the gospel is about, we can tear out and burn most of the New Testament, which gives a lot of instruction and commands about what we need to do to please the Lord.

The sinful nature and Satan eagerly await every opportunity to get us to sin and disobey the Lord. There is the story of a man, called Mike who got a job on the railways during those years, and as a benefit got a house next to the railway track. Concerned about the noise of the trains, he approached one of the current residents of the area and asked how much the noise of the trains actually bothered them. The neighbour answered that it did bother in the beginning, but after two weeks you get used to it. In that case, Mike said, he will move in two weeks later.

We tend to avoid the nagging awareness-, and ignore the Holy Spirit’s conviction that living only for our own comfort, being only busy with meeting our own needs, only keeping the Lord as crisis centre, doing our religious duty and so on is as much sin as for example stealing and adultery.

The idiom states that ‘the devil finds work for idle hands’, meaning that if we have nothing to do, we are usually tempted to do wrong things. This is very true in real life, but even more so in spiritual life. If we do not have purpose with regard to ‘seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness’ (Matthew 6:33), doing Jesus’ commandments so He could reveal Himself to us (John 14:21 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%2014:21&version=NIV1984), and many more instructions in the Bible, the devil and the sinful nature will find something to fill that space, such as ‘how-to’ directions to selfish living. What I am saying is that we need to live for the Lord and for Him only. If we do not determine in our hearts to hear from the Lord every day what He wants us to do regarding His requirements and do it (Kingdom interests), Satan and our sinful nature will make sure our time is taken up by other worldly interests.

We are not proclaiming a super spiritual life here. To anybody born into Christ, Christ is their life, which is why He said in John 14:6: “I am the way the truth and the life.” We are pilgrims, ambassadors, soldiers – call it what you wish – from the Kingdom of heaven, resident in a foreign country called earth. Jesus prayed in John 17:14-16 for those who love and follow Him: “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it,” and we read in John 15:18-19: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” Where do you, in your relationship with the Lord, fit in? Our identity, purpose and destiny are heaven. Our sinful nature, however, attach us to this world and Satan uses it to keep us attached if we do not decidedly live out what we are – Kingdom ambassadors.

Lord, please help me to live and work in obedience to you, so that my hands will not be found idle.

Thank you Lord that your Word went out from your mouth, via your servant’s pen, and it will not return to you empty, but will accomplish what you desire and achieve the purpose for which you sent it.

Please pass this on if you think others may benefit by it.