The Word - March 14, 2012 - THE SIN OF INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD

"For My people have done two evil things: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold not water at all" (Jeremiah 2:13).

Our Scripture for today is one of the gravest indictments ever given regarding God's ancient people. What a terrible error; deliberately rejecting God's provision (something that actually works) in favor of trying to do life our way, by our own devices and determinations (something which doesn't work)! Not only doesn't work but isolates us from the promised blessings of God.

We can trace the beginning of this attitude back to Genesis 3:6, "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit, and gave it to her husband."

Here we are introduced to the three basic temptations. Good for food: (the lust of the flesh). Desirable to the eye: (the lust of the eyes). Desirable to make one wise: (the pride of life) the desire to exalt self.

Do you know what the essence of the temptation was? (This is very important). The desire to be independent of God. That, beloved, is the essence of sin. As long as you have the desire in your heart to do things your way regardless of what God says in His Word, you are in a very dangerous position! No one in the universe has any right to be independent of the Creator.

Please understand: the desire to know wasn't wrong; but the desire to do life independent of God was the essence of their problem....and ours as well! The pride of life: I can manage my life without God, but if I'm in a real emergency, I'll pray! Really? We were designed to live in hour by hour dependence of the Spirit of God.

I recently received an email directing my attention to an intriguing book called "The Harbinger", by Jonathon Cahn, which focuses on large part on the danger of human pride and our insistence on independence as expressed in Isaiah 9:10.

It has to do with the pride and arrogance of heart prompting the Israelites to say the following words: "The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones; the Sycamore trees are cut down but We will replace them with cedars." In so many words, we will ignore the warnings God is sending us, and instead, we will rebuild in our own strength.

Ah, dear friends, don't make the same mistake they made. May you listen to the Word of God, not the devil's temptations. May you move forward in your life...only in God's strength!