In the past few posts, we emphasized the importance of reading and studying the Bible. You may recall that we just completed verse 22 of Job 22 where the Bible speaks of receiving instruction from God. Then we took a little detour into two men in the bible who received instruction from God by studying the word of God. We now return to the next section of the successful decreeing trigger. In Job 22.23, there is a clear condition. “If you return to God, you will be built up. You will remove iniquity far from your tents.”
Whenever you are truly ready to access God’s promises, start with the word “if.” Each time you find the word “if” in the Bible, do what it says and watch God do His part without much praying. You see, God is a promise keeper but we often fail to keep up our end of the bargain. If you must pray, pray for God to help you fulfill the “if,” aka the condition.
Please do not pray about the result. Results belong to God and He is faithful to perform His part. Whenever we pray about the results, we insult God. Praying about His part of the bargain means we do not trust Him. That is a slippery slope, from which we must return to God. Yet many pastors make you feel good by asking you to pray about the result.
Why Do We Need to Return To God?
Now that you know about triggers, consider a verse like Isaiah 1.19. Please pray about your willingness to obey. That verse says “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” Your part is to be willing and obedient. God will ensure that you eat the good of the land. We shall consider that in greater detail later in the series. Meanwhile, we examine the trigger that says we must return to God.
You may wonder where we went in the first place to make it necessary for us to return to God. In one word, astray. The Bible says all we, not some, but all, have gone astray like sheep. God created us with free will and, like the prodigal son, we used it to walk away from Him. But God continues to woo us to return. However, we do not enjoy returning because we like to think we are independent. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Indeed, the most mature Christian is the one who knows enough to make a unilateral declaration of dependence (not independence). He does not lean on his understanding. The prodigal son was not a sinner because of his wasteful spending. He became a prodigal man because he wanted to be out of his father’s presence. He wanted out from under the control of his father.
Next Steps
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Many young people have fallen into diverse sins because they felt the need to ‘leave home.’ In the same way, until we become mature believers, we desire to be anywhere other than with our heavenly father. Maturity dictates that we return to God. Keep in mind that only mature Christians can decree.
When we return to God, He promises to build us up. You may be more familiar with the word ‘edify’ if you have started receiving instruction from God. It implies we shall no longer be babies, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. When the bible talked about every wind of doctrine, it had no idea how fierce the winds of doctrine would become.
Now fierce winds, both physical and virtual, blow everywhere you turn. Unless we return to God for Him to build us up, the winds will blow us away. Once God builds us up, He gives us the power and desire to remove iniquity (evil) from our lives and communities. Do you not groan for communities and nations that spend more time praying than on finding out the mind of God?
You observe that the more corrupt a country is, the more its people pray. Unless you understand Job 22.23, you might reach the wrong conclusion. You might conclude that they need to pray so much to rid their nation of the many problems that corruption brought upon them. But this verse implies that our first step in dealing with a corrupting influence and its woes is not praying.
Restoration Demands We Return to God
The first step is to return to God and let him build us up. With that edification (for our Bible scholars), you can remove evil from our lives and the nation. Instead, corrupt nations spend their lives pretending to decree and then wonder why there is no improvement. The prodigal son, a parable Jesus used to illustrate how each of us is a second child in His family confirms this. That young man could have stayed in the distant land praying, holding night vigils, and decreeing. But none of that would have straightened out his life.
He needed to first come to himself, which is another way of describing his return to God. He next took the step in the physical that corresponded to that spiritual return and went home. Have we returned to God, or are we struggling to run our lives away from Him? If God has mercy on us as He did on the prodigal son, He will make the suffering unbearably tough. That tough situation may cause us to come to ourselves, retrace our steps, and return to God. He promises to build us up. The removal of evil from our lives then becomes easy.
Maranatha!
