Guard what is most valuable to you.
Subconsciously or not, we tend to guard and give time to what we value most. Yet sometimes we learn the cost of not doing so when we have lost it.
God would have us guard His presence in our lives jealously. In Genesis Chapter 3, Adam and Eve would take walks with God when He would come see them in the cool of the day. Mrs.Adam entertained the serpent and believed lies rather than waiting for the evening to check again with what God has said about the tree of good and evil. The result was losing their daily communion with God when He drove them out of the Garden of Eden.
“Then the Lord God said, “Now these human beings have become like one of us and have knowledge of what is good and what is bad. They must not be allowed to take fruit from the tree that gives life, eat it, and live forever.” So the Lord God sent them out of the Garden of Eden and made them cultivate the soil from which they had been formed.”
Seeking God may often be a form of sacrifice. Perhaps you gave up your time for sleeping to spend it with God. You may have walked away from a juicy story after dinner with the family or switched off your favorite TV program just to quiet yourself in God. Having to excuse yourself from a lunch invite as you are on a fast. Shouldn’t you then guard what you have sacrificed for?
We are admonished in Ephesians 4:30 not to grieve the Holy Spirit. In the preceding Verses 25-29 we are told …. Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. 26 “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give [g]place to the devil. 28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. 29 Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary [h]edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
To guard from offending the Spirit of God, it may mean walking away from colleagues at work engaging in a conversation that defiles your inner man. In an era where the internet is a critical resource, having to put filters to guard your eyes from any uncalled-for online feeds. Sometimes it’s plugging in your earphones in a public vehicle that you have no control on what is broadcasted. Perhaps it is in holding your tongue from a potential argument not to answer in a moment of anger. Flee if you have to just like Joseph fled from Mrs. Potiphar but this time, flee to ensure nothing contaminates His presence in your life.
Paul exhorted Timothy to “guard the good deposit that was entrusted to him—to guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us”-2 Timothy 1:14. God’s presence is a precious deposit. When we do not place safeguards in our lives, we may suddenly find ourselves struggling to hear the LORD. It maybe that those times when we struggle to pray or read the word, the enemy vexed our spirits in some form. When God seems silent – check again. Might you have put your guard down?
We reflect on King Saul and his life after God left him. As much as he was chosen by the LORD, he sinned with his impatience. He made an offering which he was not allowed to and which only prophets were supposed to. He further disobeyed God’s instructions by not destroying all that he had been commanded to destroy in the attack of the Amalekites. God rejected Saul and had Samuel anoint David as king . In 1 Samuel 16:13-14 read that..
13Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him(David) in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.14 But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.
God would not change his mind about Saul even when Samuel pleaded with him on Saul’s behalf. There may be nothing worse than not knowing what the LORD is saying about different areas of our lives at particular times. Even when we can’t seem to hear, His peace alone may be more than enough to carry us through His silence. Saul could no longer hear God’s voice– not through dreams, prophets nor priests. Samuel through whom God often spoke was no more.
We read this story in 2 Samuel 28:3-25. He then faces a challenge as his nation is under attack by the Philistines. Do you see him in a panic and desperate to know what God is saying? He had to desperately seek after a medium to call up Samuel’s ghost from the grave to inquire of God’s mind on the threat to his nation. The folly of his thinking.
In what may perhaps have made an award winning movie script, David who became King after Saul took another man’s wife, slept with her then killed the poor man-2Samuel 11&12. We however see him remorseful for his sin when Prophet Nathan calls him out.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me”. That was his prayer in Psalms 51
Cain after killing his brother Abel, cried to the Lord “My [g]punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me”-Genesis chapter 4
While sin takes us away from God’s presence, sometimes its simple distractions or our pursuit of good and important things like a successful career, family, being busy in the mundane activities of life that end up turning the important things to be the ultimate things. These may unknowingly pull us away from His presence.
Return to check in with God, strive to stay in His presence whichever way returning or staying means in your walk with Him. Better still ask for His help on how to guard His presence in your life.
The Lord bless you.
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