New Year’s Resolutions

Genesis 3:8 NKJV — And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 4:16 NKJV — Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.

Second Guessing God

If we are saved, we want to know that the Lord is with us.  We want to enjoy His presence.  We know that the presence of the Lord is a blessing.  Psalm 116:11 (NKJV) says,  “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  However, we cannot enjoy the presence of the Lord when we disobey His commands.  Adam and Eve had one command and they disobeyed it.  They were deceived by Satan and were promised blessings by disobeying.  However, instead of blessings, they began hiding from the Living God Whose presence they had been enjoying and instead endured much suffering.  Eve had to bear children in sorrow.  Adam had to till the ground in the sweat of his brow because now the ground brought forth thorns and thistles.  They produced a child who was a murderer.  This was all because Eve was convinced by Satan that the forbidden fruit would be a blessing rather than a curse.  She would KNOW good and evil which seems to imply that she would be the one to determine what was good and what was evil.  Mankind has been second guessing God ever since Adam and Eve took the forbidden fruit.  What they did not only affected them, it affected all of their descendents.

Leaving the Presence of the Lord

Cain, the murderer and the liar, left the presence of the Lord and began building his own society. Some of us are building churches today that make sense to us rather than churches that truly honor the Lord.  The church we attend should not be the “church of our choice” unless that church is also the church that honors the instructions for worship given in the Bible.

Jonah is another example of one who fled from the presence of the Lord.  He had been commissioned to do a job he did not want to do.  Because of his rebellion, a number of sailors came to trust in Jehovah.  They saw the calming of the seas when Jonah was cast overboard, and of course he told them that he was the cause of the storm that was about to destroy them.  Fortunately, God is a God of the second chance and rebellious Jonah was preserved to preach to the people that he despised.   But he proved that fleeing from the presence of the Lord is a bad idea.

The Importance of Having God With Us

We need the presence of the Lord.  When Israel was about to leave Sinai, Moses told the Lord,  “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here (Exodus 33:15 NKJV).”  The Lord had seen the rebelliousness of the nation and could have destroyed them, but Moses interceded on their behalf.  They needed the presence of the Lord in order to cross the wilderness and in order to reach the promised land.

We need the presence of the Lord in order to carry out His great commission.  He told His disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 (NKJV) “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  As I understand this commission, it is conditional.  If we want the Lord’s presence as we serve Him, we must make disciples, baptize them and teach them.  I believe the order of the command as given here was the order carried out in the Acts of the Apostles.

God does not Hide from Us

When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid themselves from God.  God did not hide Himself from them.  God did not hide himself from Jonah, Jonah fled from HIm.  I wonder how many of us are hiding or fleeing from God because we don’t like His commands.  And yes, He has commands.  The first is to love God and we can’t do that when we are deliberately disobeying Him.  Then we are to love our neighbors, and that can only be accomplished when we let God tell us how to do the loving.

But, it all starts with the one command to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.”  That command is not to believe about Him but to trust in Him.   One of the pains of eternal damnation for the unbeliever is that they are separated from the presence of the Lord forever.

A Profitable New Year’s Resolution

I personally believe that the best way to start this new year is to commit to reading and studying the Bible (the Christian’s constitution), and then asking for the help of God to not only read but to understand and obey what God has said.

Bruce Collins

Meditation for the week of January 5, 2025