To Be Commanded

It is amazing the things that happen when we don’t work together. You can pick up on some of that, now that Joshua is dead. You can also pick up on some things that can happen when you don’t obey the word of God in your life.
There are some great things that we will be observing as we go through the old Testament. The one thing I want to focus on is Deborah. God allowed her to be a judge to the people of Israel but when it comes time for war, God gave her a message to give to Barak… “The Lord, The God of Israel, Commands you: Go take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead the way to Mount Tabor. I will lure Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon river and give him in to your hands.”
Wow! Receiving a command from the Lord, nothing more, nothing less, but to go and get after it.
But Barak is hesitant and it does not tell us in what attitude he responded, but it tells us his words and those words must have been spoken out in words of doubt in some way, for God comes back to tell Deborah that Barak will not receive the glory of victory, but a woman will, because of the way he responded.
It seems like I keep on landing on days that the Lord commands someone to do something and they don’t obey! That’s the tough thing about being a Christian I think, reading the Old Testament. In the New Testament we really grasp a hold of forgiveness. So is there ever a point where we go too far with the sin that we all struggle with? Will there be a time that God says, “ok that’s it you have reached your limit in the trial and error process!”
My personal line of thought: Where is your focus? It is one thing to make mistakes when you are trying to build something good, its another thing to make mistakes when you are up to nothing at all. It’s when we wander away from our focus, or stagnate, that we start to really mess up the good things we have been trying to build.
So keep working towards what is right, listen to what God commanded you to do and stay focused. Don’t miss out on His commands for you. Do you know what they are? Has God already spoken them to you or has He yet to speak to you?