CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES
HAVE ANOTHER PLAN
By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr.
Kyfingers@aol.com
Part #3 of 3 The Choice?
TEXT:
Deut.30:19... I call on heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that you and your children may live.
Joshua 24:15 ... CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE?
Acts 21: 13 Paul says: What mean you to weep and to break my heart? FOR I AM READY NOT TO BE BOUND ONLY, BUT TO DIE AT JERUSALEM FOR THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS! 14. WHEN PAUL WOULD NOT BE PERSUADED... THEY PRAYED THE WILL OF THE LORD BE DONE!
Today, I ponder CONSEQUENCES OF QUITTING?
This is part 3 in series...
The choice, I QUIT! Or there is Another Plan!
If plan one fails, try plan #2.
It is the demonic intention to get you to quit!
Watch out. Beware.
Take heed!
There are terrible consequences of quitting!
The consequences might take many years to fully develop.
I ask you to consider, can we afford to quit?
Evaluate the price tag of quitting, is it worth it?
Many years ago, a Pastor friend of mine received a phone call. A young mother was on the phone. She begged the Pastor, "Please come to our house! We need you."
The lady had been very cruel to the Pastor.
She left the church in anger.
The Pastor was not "SPIRITUAL ENOUGH?"
The lady found a new church and was instrumental in getting several to leave the church. Her words about the Pastor were mean and vicious.
The husband continued worshipping at the old church, but soon her husband left the church. The husband loved the old church, but his wife’s negative mouth caused him to lose heart and confidence.
He attended a new church briefly and then just quit church all together.
The husband returned to drinking and drugs.
The lady started finding faults at her new church and complained about both churches all the time to her husband.
His drinking increased and he became abusive.
The police had been to the home on several occasions.
Then, the lady in desperation called the old pastor, to please come to their house.
The Pastor refused, he said: "Call your new Pastor, he is a good man, he is spiritual, he will come." Then the pastor hung up the phone.
The next morning, the Pastor had his devotions, went out to get the newspaper.
He opened the paper, the headlines were something like this.
Man kills his wife and children, then turns his gun on himself.
Everybody in this story may be right?
Everybody may be wrong?
But one of the roots of the problem is simple, quitting!
If the lady had not quit? If the husband had not quit?
If the Preacher had not quit and given up, maybe the story could have been different.
The pain of this story is found as a certain Priest walks beyond a hurting man.
We are very prone to be angry at the Priest and not see he has a serious problem, also.
As penned in part #2, we discussed, the last day syndrome of hurt, bitterness, disappointments, unforgiveness, disguised hatred, that hides as an underground root.
Realize, you can cut the plant down, it appears dead.
But the root will spring forth bitterness and many shall be defiled.
Stop and read Hebrews 12:12-15.
This hurt and disappointment will normally express itself in the form of "I QUIT!"
A husband is very bitter at his wife, if this is not communicated and healed, divorce looms ahead.
A teenager is dealt with in anger and not love, if there is no resolve, a run away spirit roots and a rebel thrives.
A person feeling hurt or rejected leaves the church and the safety of the flock to be devoured and destroyed.
The easiest thing in the world to do, is just GET MAD and QUIT!
It is easier to quit than to find a solution.
can just marry again.
I can get a job and do things my way!
Why is the divorce rate higher in second and third marriages, than in first?
We learn it is easy to quit?
Pastors resign, seeking greener pastures? I will just retire?
We have developed a "SPIRITUAL GRASSHOPPER ATTITUDE" in the church today. People get angry at the Pastor or other people, and they just jump to another field to find grass there.
The easiest thing to do is quit, and if I refuse to quit, I will split.
SPLIT or QUIT are both wrong strategies.
Hell enlarges it’s borders daily, because our society has so reinforced quitting that it is common practice.
We have many spiritual thermometers that are unfaithful, but they can tell you what is wrong with the preacher and the church. But they are unfaithful.
God needs the thermostats to arise, not to just measure the temperature, but to doing something about it.
I ponder, what God could do through you if you were faithful and grounded and quit quitting?
Many are still here, but they have mentally or spiritually quit.
May God tear down every excuse and desire to quit and build a loving, growing, caring body of believers that know ---
God and I can find a solution to every problem. If I wanted to?
My choice? Quit? Press on?
Here is the heart of this pondering ---
A Midwestern farmer planted several hundred acres of corn.
He invested everything and all his hard, long hours of work into this corn crop.
He saved no reserve, all was invested in this years crop.
He began to read in the Newspaper that millions of grasshoppers were devouring the corn growing around his area.
At church, he requested prayer that they would all be exempt from the grasshoppers wiping out their investments.
They all agreed.
One Sunday, a neighbor was crying at church, the swarm of grasshoppers had been spotted in his neighbor’s field. So the prayerful farmer started his John Deere and rode all around his field, praying for exemption from the devastation of the grasshoppers.
As he returned home, the farmer heard from God,
OPEN THE CHICKEN HOUSE DOORS, LET YOUR CHICKENS OUT!
A few days later, the farmer’s son ran in the house, the son had heard the grasshoppers in the East field.
The farmer cried, "God, what are you doing to me?" I have been faithful to your house and to giving, now we shall all die of starvation and the bank shall take the farm and the equipment.
The farmer cried all day. As the sun was going down, the farmer was very still, and he heard a voice again say, "OPEN THE CHICKEN HOUSE DOOR!"
The next morning, the farmer ate breakfast and went out to the chicken house to gather eggs. He remembered the still, small voice --- and thus, he left the chicken house door open.
The chickens started wandering out, the chickens started eating the grasshoppers. The chickens thrived. The egg laying increased. As the grasshoppers ate the corn crop, the chickens ate the grasshoppers.
The farmer sold eggs by the thousands. They killed and dressed chickens and sold them by the pound. The chickens ate enough grasshoppers, that saved some of the corn for next years planting and for the chickens to eat during the winter.
See, what I am saying, is -- if plan A doesn’t work, search for plan B.
If that does not work, go to plan C, plan X --- somewhere down the line,
God will see your need and your effort.
Don’t let the chickens starve while there are grasshoppers to eat!
God will come suddenly...
See, the Hero’s of the Faith, few of them existed on plan A.
Ask Elijah?
I have heard a silly TV preacher say, Elijah’s brook went dry, because he prophesied it dry.
CRAZY? It went dry, because God was teaching Elijah, the God was in control, the brook was not his source, but the God of the brook was! Then the birds quit, God had another plan!
Joseph, God had a well plan, one of the brothers was going to come and save him! This didn’t work?
A slave train?
Egypt?
Potiphar’s house?
Jail?
God’s plan was the PALACE!
It just took 13 years to get there.
The brothers sold Joseph for 20 pieces of silver, but Joseph was lead all the way.
See God had a plan.
What if Joseph had quit?
What if Joseph had had a sexual relationship with Potiphar’s wife and fathered an illegitimate son?
What if Joseph had lead a lose soap opera life?
The family would have starved.
Dreamers dream on, your family needs your dream.
Pastors dream on ... don’t quit.
Several well intentioned prophets asked Paul, don’t put on this girdle and go to Jerusalem, it will be too hard.
Quit, or go the easy way!
Paul just stay here in the comfort zone?
Acts 21: 13 Paul says: What mean you to weep and to break my heart? FOR I AM READY NOT TO BE BOUND ONLY, BUT TO DIE AT JERUSALEM FOR THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS! 14. WHEN PAUL WOULD NOT BE PERSUADED... THEY PRAYED THE WILL OF THE LORD BE DONE!
Please, my friend, God has not forgotten you.
God has a plan, grow, learn, trust --- JUST DON’T QUIT.
OPEN THE CHICKEN HOUSE DOORS!
RELEASE GOD!
There were many days Moses felt like he was in a desert, because he was in a desert, but it was just a training plan.
Hang on a little longer. Search for the PLAN!
His servant,
Wade Martin Hughes, Sr.
Kyfingers@aol.com
This is part #3 of 3, could you help me and pass this to others.
