It is the little things that get us into the biggest trouble.\u00a0 We live in a broken world, and we are broken ourselves.\u00a0 The little things grow into big problems because this world and all that is in it is not improving; rather, it is degenerating.\u00a0 This is happening because it is all broken.\u00a0 Adam and Eve broke it, and it will remain broken until God is finally done and all is brought back under His authority<\/p>\n
Many years ago, I read this in a book, \u201cNearly a century ago, a French sociologist wrote that every institution\u2019s first goal is to survive and grow, not to undertake the mission it has nominally staked out for itself.\u201d\u00a0 When I read that, it helped me to understand what I saw going on around me in the Christian organization I was involved with.\u00a0 Regardless of the lofty and altruistic goals of any organization, without constant restraint and discipline from people, the people will end up serving the organization rather than the organization serving the people.\u00a0 It happens so often we no longer take note, but it is wrong and it happens because everything is broken.<\/p>\n
The book of Judges tells the story of the Israelites living in their land, serving God in their families and tribes and trusting Him for their leadership.\u00a0 This individual reliance upon God when shared by all produced a culture of reliance upon God that covered the land.\u00a0 But they too were broken.\u00a0 Their individual trust turned to individual sin and reliance upon things other than God.\u00a0 Soon God allowed them to be oppressed by neighbors. \u00a0Then they repented, then God would raise up a deliverer and they would live in peace and security, then the whole cycle would start again.<\/p>\n
In Samuel, the people cry to God for a king.\u00a0 It seems they wanted to be like other nations.\u00a0 God warns them about the weaknesses of kings and kingdoms, but they persist.\u00a0 When God tells Samuel to anoint their king, he comforts the broken-hearted prophet by telling him that it was not he they have rejected, but God himself.<\/p>\n
The small thing is our independent reliance upon God and no one else, every man, woman and child trusting in and being accountable to God.\u00a0 This idea is so slippery; and because we are broken and lazy, we give our loyalty, our authority, to others who promise in their brokenness to help us with our responsibilities.\u00a0 Every organization, be it government, labor union, service club or church, must be ruled by the independent, God-reliant people who created it, lest it rule them and destroy them.<\/p>\n
We can do it; it\u2019s just a little thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Regardless of the lofty and altruistic goals of any organization, without constant restraint and discipline from people, the people will end up serving the organization rather than the organization serving the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecclesia-real"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorsblog.lakeviewhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}