Somebody Is Drawing A Line To Separate You From God.

Somebody Is Drawing a Line to Separate You From God.

11/28/2021 Daniel 6:1-9 Ephesians 6:10-20

I can remember as a kid the all important drawing a line in the sand. When you were upset with someone and they wanted to put you on front street, they would draw a line and dare you to cross it. If you came across the line, that was a declaration to start a fight.

We as Christians are called to live peaceably with everybody as much as it depends on us. So we should be willing to submit, to think of the other person, to seek compromise and to try our best to just get along with people. However, we should recognize that someone or something is always drawing a line in front us just hoping that we will cross it.

When the religious leaders of his day wanted to get rid of Jesus, they tried to trap him by drawing lines that they hoped he would cross. They wanted to force him to choose between what was popular and what they believed was contrary to the word of God.

Satan himself attempted to get Jesus to cross over the line with his temptation, “If you just worship me one time, I will give you all the splendor and the wealth of this world, and you can have everything without going through the pain and agony of the cross.”

Have you ever thought that just doing something one time, can’t really hurt you that badly only to discover you were wrong? You wished later that you had never crossed the line. Sometimes it’s easy to see the line when we’re stepping away from Jesus, but other times it sneaks upon us real quietly.

It could come as a phone call, a smile from someone, an offer to help you out of a situation, a chance to keep someone else from getting deeper in trouble. For us as believers, the Holy Spirit will often throw up a warning light and we can look at it and change course or ignore it and get deeper into trouble.

When God called us, the Bible tells us that he called us of darkness into his marvelous light. In other words we crossed a line to get to where God wants us to be. Not everyone is happy that we cross the line, because they know that it means, we have changed.

We can’t do some of the things we use to do. We recognize a higher calling on our lives. Our goal is to do what’s right and pleasing in the eyes of God. That’s what it means to love the lord our God with all our heart, our soul, our body, our strength and our mind.

But our love for the Lord and our commitment to Jesus is going to be challenged. We all are going to have to choose whether or not to cross the line of putting God first in our lives. Sometimes somebody is going to ask us to lie for them to cover for their mistakes. Sometimes somebody is going to offer us something, we know we should reject but we’re not going to want to hurt their feelings?

Sometimes something we have wanted for a long time is finally going to come our way, but in order to get it, we will have to compromise our commitment to God.

Sometimes we will minding our own business, doing what is right, and not bothering anybody, and someone will up against us and force us to choose between God and our position. Have you already made up your mind what you’re going to do?

Have you ever not been invited somewhere because your family or your friends knew you were not going to be happy there, and they knew that you were presence there would put a damper on the party?

Have you ever not been consulted because people knew what your stand would be, so they didn’t want your input into the decision making process? When people know in advance what you’re going to do because of your relationship with the Lord, that says a lot about your integrity, but it can also be used against you.

Let’s meet a person today who knew what it was like to be looked down upon because he didn’t fit in with the majority of the people. He knew what it was like to be lied about because of his honesty. He knew what it was like to have his good deeds twisted and called evil.

He knew what it was like to have others betray him, when he had done them no wrong. He knew what it was like to risk losing everything, including his own life because he had made up his mind to serve God and God alone.