Got Fruit ?

Readers [all 4 of you ] may have noticed that I’ve been sparse and sporadic in writing over the past few months.  Chalk it up to one or a combination of the following; laziness, lack of motivation, distractions, and or business.  Anywho..  Blogging friend E. Barrett of R3 popped in yesterday to leave a comment on yesterday’s post, which generated a paragraph+ response.  No sense in burying it in a comment/response when I can use it as a post right?  So here you go, more thoughts on “Thinking outside inside the box”,  by way of Chris Elrod, The Marshian Chronicles, R. Barrett and 2nd Chronicles.

Trying new approaches isn’t in and of itself the problem as far as I can tell, in fact I’d say that one could easily find themselves in the Pharisees corner by holding too tightly to (local) traditions for the sake of tradition.

The thought is this however… God has laid out His ideas; which we the church should never mistake for “suggestions”, of what’s to be preached and taught within the church. We, individually and collectively, need to be very careful to not make the same mistake that Uzziah of 2nd Chronicles made when he took it upon himself to burn incense on the altar of incense.

2nd Chronicles 26:3-5
3 Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-two years. His mother’s name was Jecoliah; she was from Jerusalem. 4 He did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father Amaziah had done. 5 He sought God during the days of Zechariah, who instructed him in the fear of God. As long as he sought the LORD, God gave him success

This was a specific task laid out by God for the priests to execute, but Uzziah (2nd Chronicles 26) became prideful and took it upon himself to step outside the boundaries of his God ordained area of responsibilities.  From what I gather his intentions may have been “right” in his mind, but it apparently didn’t sway God’s opinion on the matter.

2nd Chronicles 26:16-22
16 But after Uzziah became powerful, his pride led to his downfall. He was unfaithful to the LORD his God, and entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense. 17 Azariah the priest with eighty other courageous priests of the LORD followed him in. 18 They confronted him and said, “It is not right for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD. That is for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who have been consecrated to burn incense. Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the LORD God.”

19 Uzziah, who had a censer in his hand ready to burn incense, became angry. While he was raging at the priests in their presence before the incense altar in the LORD’s temple, leprosy broke out on his forehead. 20 When Azariah the chief priest and all the other priests looked at him, they saw that he had leprosy on his forehead, so they hurried him out. Indeed, he himself was eager to leave, because the LORD had afflicted him.

21 King Uzziah had leprosy until the day he died. He lived in a separate house —leprous, and excluded from the temple of the LORD. Jotham his son had charge of the palace and governed the people of the land.

22 The other events of Uzziah’s reign, from beginning to end, are recorded by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 23 Uzziah rested with his fathers and was buried near them in a field for burial that belonged to the kings, for people said, “He had leprosy.” And Jotham his son succeeded him as king.

And I guess in a nutshell what I’m expressing as concern and disheartening in the case of the examples of self-help sermons from yesterday’s post, is that we do in fact act as Uzziah.

To close, the advice I offer is that we do what we know we can for certain, which is to pray for guidance that whatever approach we are considering, new or old; The Lord will make it clearly known to us as to whether or not it is His will.

Grace and peace be with you