Today’s reading: 1 Chronicles 15; Hebrews 10
It is not honoring to God to accomplish God-honoring work in a non-God-honoring way.
As David gathers the priests and Levites to bring the ark up to the City of David he says, “Because you did not carry it the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us, because we did not seek him according to the rule.” The fact of that matter is that preparing a place for the tent to be set up and for the ark to rest was a God-honoring desire on David’s part, but putting the ark on a cart pulled by oxen when God had specifically declared that it was only ever to be carried from place to place by Levites carrying it on their shoulders using the poles through the rings set into the base was not a God-honoring means of accomplishing it.
It is easy to fall into a mindset that God is most concerned with outcomes. Clearly success matters in the things we pursue, and how much more true does that seem to be in spiritual matters, where eternities are on the line, than in other, more mundane, areas of life? We can’t lose sight of the fact that we are serving the infinite creator God of all that exists. There is absolutely nothing that He is unable to accomplish fully without our help or influence. God has chosen to include us in His work, but there is nothing we are accomplishing for Him that He could not accomplish for Himself if He so desired. So when, in serving the Lord, we adopt a mindset that the ends are more important than the means, we lose sight of the reality that we are serving the God with power to ordain any ends He desires, and who will most bless the means that are most faithful to Him. Given that reality, the ends that we are able to accomplish by our own means are so much less important than our faithfulness in pursuing the work God has before us according to His means.
The best outcomes will always arise from the greatest faithfulness to the Lord.
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