Do you ever wonder why it’s so hard to remember what you learned on Sunday Monday through Friday or how you can go to this super inspiring conference and feel so amazing only a week later to feel deflated and defeated? I hear this a lot from people that we counsel.
At the beginning of Exodus, God speaks loud enough for everyone to hear. However, in verse 20:18 the people became afraid of God’s presence - not in a good way. In verse 20:19 they decided it would just be better and less scary for Moses to hear from God, and then for Moses to relay what God said to the people.
Y’all God goes on talking up until Exodus 31, but the people miss it! (We will talk about this later!)
I don’t know how long this was, but the time between Exodus 19 and Exodus 31 was long enough for the people to forget what God had done for them, give up hope, and think that Moses was a goner. It was long enough for them to forget God’s words and turn to other things.
The same people who were so afraid of God that they couldn’t even stand to hear His voice were disobeying his first three commandments 10 versus later! They were all personal witnesses to God giving these commandments and in a short period forgot them.
This is what happens when we stop leaning into God. No matter how new or old our faith is, it is so easy when we are not connected to the source to forget a healthy fear of the Lord, what He has done for us, what He has brought us out of, what He promises, and what He says about how we should live.
This is why it’s so easy to go to church on Sunday and live like the world Monday through Saturday. Because, on Sunday, we are letting somebody else speak to us about what God says, then we go home and wait for next Sunday to get another word. Because sometimes we are more connected to a sermon than we are to the Spirit of God. We feel great for a moment, but throughout the week, temptation comes, the world sneaks in, and we forget what we were taught. We forget who God is.
We are instructed to go to the house of the Lord and we are instructed to go to church. God ordained leadership to teach is Scripture. These are all good things! But, if our relationship is not with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, those words will disappear as soon as we leave. Without a personal relationship with God, those words may be written on our phones, but they will not be written on our hearts. They will fall away or get choked out by the things of this world. Fear, anxiety, social media, culture, loneliness, etc.
The Israelites had the opportunity just out of captivity to connect with their Father but they traded a personal relationship with God for fear, anxiety, and a stand-in.
How many of us, fresh out of healing, fresh out of Freedom, fresh out of Sunday morning, follow the same pattern as the Israelite people?
We can only experience the power of God, in direct relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Without this, scripture, and all of its teaching, is the equivalent of a motivational post that will quickly be forgotten as we scroll on to the next thing.
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