To Encourage You

Zephaniah 1:4-5 “I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests, those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom.”

Most of you probably remember President Bush’s comments in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.  As he addressed the American people and the rest of the world after that awful day, he said this: “You are either with us or with the terrorists.”  With these words he was laying down the gauntlet and telling the world that America would be seeking justice for those who had terrorized America – and warning the world that they had better choose sides, for there was no middle ground. Some people criticized the President for such stark words and pointed to the fact that life just isn’t that simple.  We live in a complicated world and people as well as nations often must straddle the fence in one way or another to get along. 

Interestingly, Jesus spoke just as starkly when he made the following statement that is recorded in Matthew 12:30 “Whoever is not with me is against me.” Similarly, in Matthew 6:24 we have these words from the mouth of the Lord: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

It took me a long time to come to grips with this in my Christian walk. In my early life as a believer, I thought I could straddle the fence.  I wanted to call myself a Christian, for as a Christian I saw the obvious benefits of eternal life. However, I also saw benefits in the ways of the world. I wanted to be accepted by my high school and college classmates, so I’d follow them in ways that were the opposite of following the Lord.  I wanted to have it both ways until the Lord, in His sovereignty, brought me to a crisis moment in my life in which I realized more fully than I ever had before that to follow Christ was an “all or nothing” thing.  I suddenly understood that the Lord had given His entire life for me, and if I wanted to be called a Christ-follower, I had to also give my life – all of it – to Him.  It was one or the other.  It wasn’t a situation where you could have your cake and eat it too.  It was necessary to make an exclusive and an irrevocable choice, for Christianity is not a part of our life – it IS our life. Anything less than that isn’t the real thing! 

In the passage above from Zephaniah 1 we have another reference to this matter.  It was a judgment pronounced by God against the kingdom of Judah, the remnant of the nation of Israel who saw themselves as God’s chosen people. Yet, Judah was straddling the fence.  They were bowing down and worshipping the God of Israel, while at the same time they were worshipping Milcom, one of the gods of the Ammonites.  In so doing they were violating the very first of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me.”  We aren’t to be like the Hindus, who are fine with worshipping Jesus as one of the thousands of other gods that they worship.  We aren’t to be those who worship Jesus and even ONE other god, be it the god of money, pleasure, some hobby, or anything else.   Christianity is a very exclusive thing – it is all or none. There is no middle ground. 

So, is that how you see it? If you call yourself a Christian, are you a Christian that views himself or herself like that? If not, you may want to reevaluate – for God will tolerate no competitors for your love. You see, God likened our relationship to Him as that of a husband for his bride (Ephesians 5:25).  Think about the kind of “love” someone exhibits to his wife if he is also secretly carrying on an affair with another woman. It’s a despicable sin and an act of anything but love to the wife to whom he had pledged his life “until death do us part.” It’s the same way with a professing Christian’s “love” for the Lord if that love is in competition with someone or something else, even if that someone else is the person themself. Like those in Judah who worshipped BOTH the true God AND the god Milcom, such love is nothing but spiritual adultery. God calls it that in many places in His Word (James 4:4 and Jeremiah 3:8–9 to name a few). In fact, the entire book of Hosea is a picture of this sin. There’s no straddling the fence for those who truly follow Christ. He will allow no competitors. He is jealous for our love (Exodus 20:5).