Faith-bearing Seed for the Soul
"While the earth remaineth,
Seedtime and harvest
....shall not cease"

Genesis 8:22

Why do I have to do that, God?

I'm raising a teenager and I teach the teen Sunday School class at our church. In my effort to explain to them WHY God has laws and rules to obey, the Lord touched my heart again with the depth of His love for me. Teenagers want to know the "why for" and want to thrust forth into life making their own decisions...they no longer accept the, "because I told you so" answers to base their choices upon. If it can be explained and they feel they can accept it, I've found that they will obey. In this light, giving them acceptable reasons why God gave certain commands was a challenge for me.

I found myself telling them that a lot of things that God told us to do and not to do, if we did them, wouldn't personally hurt God at all. For example, if they stole another teen's car, how would that personally hurt God?...He don't drive a car, He don't need a car... Yet, God told us not to steal. We sort of came to the conclusion that nothing that we could do to each other, or, in not obeying any of the laws He gave us, would ultimately hurt God  personally because He was bigger and greater than what any man could do to Him. So together we decided that God must have given us the laws for OUR OWN GOOD. Simple enough of a conclusion... except for one thing...we found there was a way that we COULD hurt God!

God loves mankind so much that He was willing to do whatever it took to redeem him to Himself. To buy us back from the clutches  of sin, He went so far as to send His only Son to pay the price for  sin by sacrificing Himself on the cross. What awesome love God has  for us that He was willing to hurt Himself rather than see us suffer!!! When someone loves another THAT much there is something that will hurt them. When God sees us continue to do things to hurt ourselves,  it hurts Him. It's like our watching one of our children making wrong choices and ending up being hurt; we hurt because we don't like seeing them suffer.

God knows the things that cause us to suffer...He knows what rebellion does to our souls... He knows what hatred and bitterness does to our bodies, as well as our spirits. He knows how guilt and shame for wrong actions eats away at our innermost being. He even knew how eating certain kinds of foods during Old Testament times caused sickness and disease...so He gave us rules and commandments to live by. He initiated a list of "dos and don'ts" for us to live by.  These rules cause us to live long, peaceful lives in harmony and favor  with each other and with Himself.

We used verses in Matthew 5 about loving our enemies, praying for  those who persecute us and doing good to those who despitefully use us, as examples of some of the hardest commands that Jesus  gave us to obey. We discovered that without obeying these rules, we could not have peace within ourselves...there would always be turmoil, hostility, hatred and unhappiness in our lives, and some times the person that we are holding the offense against suffers very little or not at all because of our actions. When we do not obey these, or any of the commands that He gave us, we are ultimately choosing to hurt ourselves.

God is a caring Father who wants only the very best and most fruitful lives for His children. So, the next time you wonder, "Why do I have to do that, God?"...remember that it is for your own good, and if you don't obey, and God sees you hurting because of it, it hurts His heart to watch you suffer. Because He loves us so much, He layed out the best way for us to live to be happy and prosperous.

Proverbs 3:1-4

"MY SON, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments; For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine  heart: So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man."

Rooted and grounded in the love of Christ Jesus,

Marlene,

Texas Seed Sower

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