{"id":71159,"date":"2019-08-21T04:19:39","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T09:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prayingpint.com\/?p=71159"},"modified":"2019-08-18T23:47:16","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T04:47:16","slug":"2-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/21\/2-s\/","title":{"rendered":"2.s. \u201cYou are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

2 Chronicles 23:16\u00a0 <\/span>And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself and all the people and the king that they should be the Lord’s people. Then all the people went to the house of Baal and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal before the altars.<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 26:17-19<\/b><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0\u00a0You have declared today that the LORD is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice.\u00a0\u00a0And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,\u00a0\u00a0and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joshua 24:21-25<\/b><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0And the people said to Joshua, \u201cNo, but we will serve the LORD.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Then Joshua said to the people, \u201cYou are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him.\u201d And they said, \u201cWe are witnesses.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0He said, \u201cThen put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0And the people said to Joshua, \u201cThe LORD our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Multiple times throughout history there have been people of God declaring their intentional choices to serve Him, walk in His ways, keep His commandments, statutes, rules, and obey His voice.\u00a0 <\/span>They did this as a personal choice and as one voice collectively.\u00a0 <\/span>For some, this may have been a shallow commitment and for others, it was heart and soul-deep.<\/p>\n

When the commitment is shallow you still may not see any difference between them and others with deep commitment.\u00a0 <\/span>For all outward appearance looks the same.\u00a0 <\/span>They may have gotten caught up in the moment and gave lip service to make this commitment.\u00a0 <\/span>We see this today when a seed of commitment is acted upon it to trust Jesus Christ. Yet the seed does not take root and over time withers dies.\u00a0 <\/span>Jesus gave a parable about this and we should take note of the importance of it.\u00a0 <\/span>It is up to those with heart and soul-deep service and obedience to nurture and help water and grow these shallow seeds.\u00a0 <\/span>This can only happen when there is continual growth and maturing.\u00a0 <\/span>And this can only happen when there is a desire to do so.\u00a0 <\/span>An intentional choice that is made every day.\u00a0 <\/span>An intentional choice that places service to Jesus Christ first.\u00a0 <\/span>An intentional choice to feed on His word, to listen to the whispers of the Holy Spirit, to trust Him when chaos and confusion attack, and to take every thought captive and ensure it is in line with God\u2019s word.<\/p>\n

Every small decision over time will yield good or bad.\u00a0 <\/span>These insignificant decisions in our mind have long term effects for both now and eternity.<\/p>\n

We can rejoice when there has been a commitment made to trust, serve, follow, and obey but we must help and encourage each other in this life long commitment or we risk drifting away.\u00a0 <\/span>We don\u2019t have to read far after each of these personal and nationwide commitments to see a drifting and falling away from serving, following, trusting and obeying God.\u00a0 <\/span>Be mindful that our sinful nature and self-centered interests are always being tempted by Satan or self to leave our commitment to God.\u00a0 <\/span>Our commitment is more than a one and done decision.\u00a0 <\/span>It is an intentional, mindful, heart full, and soul-deep choice every moment of every day.\u00a0 <\/span>Stay in His word, serve Him, follow Him, trust Him, listen to Him, and obey Him.\u00a0 <\/span>In doing this we are able to fight the good fight and encourage, lead, and instruct our brothers and sisters in Christ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Chronicles 23:16\u00a0 And Jehoiada made a covenant between himself and all the people and the king that they should be the Lord’s people. Then all the people went to the house of Baal and tore it down; his altars and his images they broke in pieces, and they killed Mattan the priest of Baal … Continue reading “2.s. \u201cYou are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him.\u201d”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11238,1011,390,2985,97,11234,11236,80,11239,11231,6447,11235,11232,1322,5369,894,2209,913,11233,3159,288,10704,8282,11237,5568],"class_list":["post-71159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-prayers","tag-against-yourselves","tag-baal","tag-chosen","tag-commandments","tag-covenant","tag-declared-today","tag-holy-people","tag-honor","tag-incline-your-heart","tag-jehoiada","tag-joshua","tag-keep-his-statutes","tag-lords-people","tag-obey-his-voice","tag-possession","tag-promised-you","tag-rules","tag-serve-the-lord","tag-tore-it-down","tag-treasured","tag-walk-in-his-ways","tag-we-will-obey","tag-we-will-serve","tag-you-are-witnesses","tag-your-god"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71162,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71159\/revisions\/71162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prayingpint.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}