In the parable of the ten bridesmaids, we learn that,
- God, as a husband, does not care for wayward/careless/unprepared brides.
- Don’t have exit clauses in your covenant relationship with God. Where He goes, you go. Do whatever it takes to follow Him until the end.
- The extra oil the wise virgins took was fuel for the burning lamp. Our hearts are to be ready to meet the Lord at any time.
- Finish the race He’s marked out for you.
In the parable of the three servants, we see that,
- God, as an employer, does not care for feeble excuses.
- He cares about what you do for Him, even if your ministry looks small to you. He will question you only about what He asked you to do.
- Finish the work He assigned to you.
In the verses describing the final judgement Matthew 25, we learn that,
- God, as a Judge, has gone through whatever you have gone through.
- He understands completely what other people did or didn’t do for you.
- You can rest assured, He will secure justice for you.
- There is a finish. Be ready for it.
Our journey towards Christlikeness should begin with key attitudes to prevent deterioration over time. What we have begun, we must finish. We cannot be the Just Abouts!
The Just Abouts – They are those who heard the call of God but could not enter into the new future. They lacked a few key ingredients required to finish what they had started.
- They lacked trust
Example Rachel
God called Jacob, Leah, and Rachel to leave Laban’s home and return to their country.
Genesis 31:12 – 16 The angel said, ‘Look up, and you will see that only the streaked, speckled, and spotted males are mating with the females of your flock. For I have seen how Laban has treated you. I am the God who appeared to you at Bethel, the place where you anointed the pillar of stone and made your vow to me. Now get ready and leave this country and return to the land of your birth.’” Rachel and Leah responded, “That’s fine with us! We won’t inherit any of our father’s wealth anyway. He has reduced our rights to those of foreign women. And after he sold us, he wasted the money you paid him for us. All the wealth God has given you from our father legally belongs to us and our children. So go ahead and do whatever God has told you.”
Rachel started from her father’s house and died on the way to where God was taking them. She never made it.
Why?
Rachel had stolen her father, Laban’s, household gods.
Genesis 31:19 At the time they left, Laban was some distance away, shearing his sheep. Rachel stole her father’s household idols and took them with her.
Why?
Rachel was bitter over what her father had done.
When you hold on to bitter thoughts about what others did to you or your family, you end up carrying the things they idolize. Whatever they worship, you carry them in your heart. These things become a snare to you.
Jacob and Leah trusted God to provide for what Laban deprived them of. It takes trust to leave it all behind and move forward to grander beginnings curated by God.
Your blessing is in your enemy’s bad intentions. God is an expert in turning the worst that happened to you into the best. Trust Him.
2. They lacked Imagination
Example Lot’s wife
Genesis 19:14-26 So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city! The LORD is about to destroy it.” But the young men thought he was only joking. At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out right now, or you will be swept away in the destruction of the city!” When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the LORD was merciful. When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!” Oh no, my lord!” Lot begged. “You have been so gracious to me and saved my life, and you have shown such great kindness. But I cannot go to the mountains. Disaster would catch up to me there, and I would soon die. See, there is a small village nearby. Please let me go there instead; don’t you see how small it is? Then my life will be saved.” “All right,” the angel said, “I will grant your request. I will not destroy the little village. But hurry! Escape to it, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.” (This explains why that village was known as Zoar, which means “little place.”) Lot reached the village just as the sun was rising over the horizon. Then the LORD rained down fire and burning sulfur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation. But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.
God’s angels delayed judgment from falling on Sodom just because they wanted Lot’s family out of Sodom. God wanted them alive and safe, not to be swept away by the judgment.
Yet, Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. She never made it.
Why?
Lot’s wife could not imagine a better future, a future in a place where God would lead them, provide for them, and their children.She clung to all her hopes and aspirations built in that sin-soaked place.
When you love the world, then you build your treasure in this place that is destined to be destroyed. We cannot cling to the things we see, but rather look to the things that are unseen.
We should look forward with joyful anticipation to the things that God has made ready for us in the future.
It takes clear imagination to look towards what God can provide. He made you. He knows what you need better than you do yourself.
3. They lacked hope
Example Orpah
Ruth 1:6-14 Then Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. But on the way, Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the LORD reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. May the LORD bless you with the security of another marriage.” Then she kissed them good-bye, and they all broke down and wept. “No,” they said. “We want to go with you to your people.” But Naomi replied, “Why should you go on with me? Can I still give birth to other sons who could grow up to be your husbands? No, my daughters, return to your parents’ homes, for I am too old to marry again. And even if it were possible, and I were to get married tonight and bear sons, then what? Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters! Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD himself has raised his fist against me.” And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye. But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi.
Orpah and Ruth both started back to God’s place along with their Mother-in-Law, Naomi. Ruth was determined to go on and eventually became an ancestor of Jesus. Orpah returned to her Moabite home. She never made it.
Why?
When Naomi painted a dreary picture of a future with no hope, Orpah had none of her own supply of hope to draw from.
Hope causes us to rise up every morning and do what is good, not just what feels good. Hope keeps us moving forward. We need hope to look past our pathetic present towards a future that God says is glorious.
The finisher – Ruth
Ruth 1:16-18But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more.
Ruth 2:2 One day Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go out into the harvest fields to pick up the stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.”
- Ruth imagined a better life with God
She could see beyond the hopeless widow standing in front of her. She was able to tell her, “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” What people? She had the imagination to look beyond the painfully single, depressed lady and see a whole community and their glorious God.
- Ruth trusted that God was able to take care of her and her hopeless circumstances.
She trusted that God would do something new and fresh. She trusted that He watches and rewards those who do right. She was able to say, “May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!”
- Ruth’s heart was full of hope, and that moved her.
She moved forward into the unknown with hope. “Let me go into the harvest fields to pick up stalks of grain left behind by anyone who is kind enough to let me do it.” New land, new people, new situation. Yet Ruth hoped.
And, rest as they say is “His Story.”
Rehoboth 