It is not uncommon to see organizations having terms of
service explicitly detailing out certain conditions under which they render services
to customers, and outside of which they can’t be held accountable for anything.
The question is does God have His own terms of service or can I always serve
Him on my terms?
On a general note, it is a good thing to have various
alternatives to accomplish the same goal, but this isn’t always the case when
it comes to our service to God. Many times, when God wants you to do something,
He not only tells you what to do, He tells you exactly how He wants you to go
about it, leaving no room for alternative methods. However, the devil is very
cunning and his primary assignment is to keep you in disobedience, and he will
use everything he possibly can to accomplish his goal. His first approach is to
completely keep you out from doing what God has asked you to do, but should
this strategy fail, there is a strategy that always works for him and that is
to provide you with an alternative method to accomplish what God has asked you
to do, when in actual fact, God has given you the exact method to follow. I personally
believe that this is one of the many reasons why some believers are failing; they
are doing what God has asked them to do using alternative methods other than
what God Himself prescribed. This they are doing failing to understand that following
the method God prescribed to get something done is as important as knowing and
doing the thing itself.
In our primary text for this write-up (Exo. 8), you will see
that the children of Israel were to leave Egypt to go and serve God in the
wilderness according to the instruction given to Moses. Beyond going to serve
God in the wilderness, God was going to use that as an exit strategy of getting
them out of their slavery in Egypt. Now, the devil didn’t want them to be free,
so he used Pharaoh to try to persuade them to serve God in the land of Egypt, rather
than taking a journey of uncertainty into the wilderness. So the devil was in
essence offering them an alternative method by allowing them to make all their
sacrifices in the land of Egypt. Their sacrifices ordinarily should have been
an abomination to the Egyptians but Pharaoh was willing to let that be, just to
hinder them from leaving Egypt. How smart of the devil! The devil will bid high
for you any day. The children of Israel would have been slaves forever had they
accepted the offer by Pharaoh. But again if you look at the offer made by
Pharaoh, it looked really great on the surface; they could now enjoy freedom of
religion in their place of comfort, and if the only reason why God wanted them
to take a journey into the wilderness was just to serve Him, then they already
had that privilege in Egypt without having to go through the rigors of journeying
on foot. Isn’t that a miracle in itself! No, it wasn’t, it was a trap by the
devil to keep them in perpetual slavery just the same way he is doing to many
Christians today.
Moses clearly understood that if they must serve God, then
they had to do so on His terms, not on any alternative method regardless of how
good it looks. Your service to God can become absolutely meaningless when you
abandon God’s terms to choose your own terms or terms suggested to you by the
devil even through the good people around you. Often times, God’s terms of
service are clear enough but you may abandon them for other alternatives
because of the lust of your heart. Taking a look at two pointed illustrations
from scriptures; first the case of Jonah (Jonah 1), God wanted him to go preach
to a certain people but he didn’t want to go there, so he chose to go
elsewhere. Now, it didn’t matter if he went to that other city to preach, he
was already out of sync with the terms of service given to him by God. Thank
God he had the opportunity to repent and turn back to follow God’s terms before
it was too late. Our second illustration is the case of Uzzah (2Sam. 6), who
lifted up his hands to support the Ark of God when it was been transported on a
new cart. Definitely. He was trying to do something good, but good intentions don’t
vary God’s standards, God was expressly clear on how the Ark should be conveyed
on the shoulders of the priests, in which case it could never have stumbled. Uzzah
was smitten and he died immediately not because he was a bad man, but because
God’s terms of service had been abandon for man’s alternative.
Many people ask why so and so died when he/she was doing the
work of God? Well, you can’t always answer every question because the secret
things belong to God (Deut. 29: 29), but could it also be that such one had
abandoned God’s terms even while still doing some great things for God’s
kingdom. Friends, God wants you to serve Him, but He wants you to do it on His
own terms so that you can enjoy the fullness of His Blessing. Yes, there are
times that God allows you to choose your method to accomplish an assignment,
and that is totally up to you to present to Him how you want to go about it for
His approval. You may say I’m not sure how God wants me to go about the task He
has given me, well, you can wait on God for His leading to be sure, follow the
deepest premonition of your heart, and do your best in the integrity of your
heart. However, if you know certainly in your heart that you have turned over
to your own methods having abandoned God’s terms, this is your opportunity to
make it right just like Jonah did. You may have suffered some loss already, but
thank God you haven’t lost it all, at least you are still alive. It is time to
serve God on His terms so that you can enjoy His Blessing in its fullness.
Shalom!
N.B
For questions on this subject and other subjects, kindly use the Prayer request/Testimony pane. You can also send me an email or reach me by Phone on 08081249992
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