When Obedience Appears Idiotic

For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Wherefore dost thou prophesy, and say, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it; And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall behold his eyes; And he shall lead Zedekiah to Babylon, and there shall he be until I visit him, saith the LORD: though ye fight with the Chaldeans, ye shall not prosper. And Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Behold, Hanameel the son of Shallum thine uncle shall come unto thee, saying, Buy thee my field that is in Anathoth: for the right of redemption is thine to buy it. So Hanameel mine uncle's son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the LORD, and said unto me, Buy my field, I pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance is thine, and the redemption is thine; buy it for thyself. Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD. And I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle's son, that was in Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. (Jeremiah 32: 3 – 9)

One thing you notice when you read the book of Jeremiah is the certainty of the seventy year captivity, even the reality that there would be no exceptions, that anyone who failed to go to Babylon would not escape death and destruction.

Then God ordered Jeremiah not to get married or have children due to that fact.

From that we can be clear that there were close to no chances of Jeremiah being around when the captivity ended, at least strong enough to till.

Then God tells him to buy a piece of land, even requiring him to summon witnesses to the fact!

What would you have done if you were Jeremiah?

How do you use money to purchase something you will never be able to access or use? What is the purpose of spending your hard earned cash to waste on something that could as well be a useless investment as it has no capacity of benefitting anyone you know in the immediate or even remote future? Why buy land whose documents would be irrelevant at the time it will need to be taken possession of?

What will you tell the witnesses is the reason you are buying that land, the same witnesses you have been telling to expect and even prepare to be deported to Babylon? Would you not be sending a signal completely negative to the message you have been sharing for decades? How will you tell the people the fact that you are doing something completely opposite to the reason you are in prison?

Would that not be a waste of money?

To say it appears foolhardy will be an understatement. It would appear idiotic. It would be like pouring money down the drain where it has no capacity of benefitting anyone.

Why does God allow, even command someone to use money that wastefully? Is He not the one who requires stewardship of us? Why does He command something that is directly ‘opposite’ the demands of that stewardship?

I think this brings us clearest to who God is. He is the creator; and not a creator like He made us to be because He does not require anything to create. He created everything out of nothing. Resources are therefore not a concern to Him as they are to us as He owns everything, seen and unseen. He therefore does not require stewardship because it is exhaustible or in limited supply. He can create anything and everything.

Do you think God is interested in the depleting ozone layer for the same reasons we are? Can’t He recreate it with a word like He did the universe? Does He have the limitations we have when He looks at the world we live in? Do we give to churches and ministries because God is short of supply? Why do we give? Let me give another verse that also appears illogical to our experience.

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. (Ecclesiastes 11:1)

Why does the Bible ask us to cast our bread upon the waters where we have no capacity of knowing who will benefit from it. Is it not an attempt at wastefulness? Does it not appear as if God is asking us to live contrary to His revelation in the rest of scripture?

Behaving and teaching as if God needs our giving lowers His status as God, the creator of all. Preaching that the lack of our giving is the reason ministry is lacking is an indirect way of saying that it really is ministry or that we are senior partners in that enterprise and that it will collapse if we decided to revolt.

God looks at waste differently from the way we look. That was the reason He tells Jeremiah to put his money to waste to pass a message. The message was more important than the money as an object lesson is more powerful than a discourse. And silver and gold are ALL His.

That explains why God is more interested in the commitment than the amount. That was the reason the poor widow outgave all those tycoons who gave fat envelopes as she gave that smallest amount from a connected heart. That was the reason Jesus rebuked His disciples for complaining about the lady who had ‘wasted’ a year’s earnings on His feet. This is the reason He said that it is very hard for the rich to inherit the kingdom of heaven, I think because they think the amounts they give are treated in heaven as they are by men.

We are deceived if we treat God as one of us because then He really would be our idol and not our Lord, Master, Redeemer, Savior, Creator, absolute God.

He did not require any assistance from us to die for our sins. He did not require any support from Abraham to call him from His past. He did not ask for a gift before transforming a conman (Jacob) to a worshipper (Israel). He did not take anything from David to transform him from herding sheep to governing Israel.

He does not look at money the way we do. He does not look at land the way we do. In fact He never looks at anything like we do and it would be instructive for us to be aware of that single fact.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55: 8, 9)

God does not withhold because He lacks. And He does not require us to give because He needs. It is His higher purpose that determines everything from wastefulness to thrift. And do not for one moment think it is because His supply is limited. Look at this.

There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. (Proverbs 11:24)

That is the dynamic that drove the order to throw good money to the drain to Jeremiah.

There is only one thing that moves God; our obedience and commitment to His purposes. And that is what should drive our giving, and everything else we do, for it to be acceptable to Him.

You see, He does not need our willingness to take what He wants from us.

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: but the prayer of the upright is his delight. (Proverbs 15:8)

Remember the recently popular verse that the wealth of the wicked is kept in reserve for the righteous? Does God require their willing submission to transfer that wealth? Is it not His wealth to do as He wills with what is His own?

Compare this with the owner of a conglomerate. Does he require anyone’s permission to transfer any of his staff or resource wherever he wills? Will he be answerable to anybody if he decided to close or transfer even a whole branch or department, however foolish it might look to everybody else?

But with God it even more so. He created everything and holds it all together.  That is why He does not require old age or disease to take one’s life. He simply does what He chooses the way He chooses with whatever He chooses. Your stinginess or lack of it is no obstacle to God’s purpose.

That is the reason God requires obedience from us. It is because it connects to His purpose. We then become partners flowing in the same direction. We will therefore enjoy the flow of God in our lives as we are not at cross purposes with Him, unlike someone who eventually flows with the tide even as he swims aggressively against it.

God will fund His enterprise using His resources, not ours. He will use ours when we are attuned to His revelation and not because we are willing givers. He will take from me when He needs whether I agree with Him or not. That is why it is the height of presumption to preach that God will require our giving to fund His purpose because He can take it even without our giving.

We do not trade with God when we give. Neither do we bribe Him when we give. Only giving in obedience is accepted in His sight.

That is the reason giving, however generous is an abomination to God if our lives are not submitted to His will. Giving lands and other property as an excuse (or bribe) to walking in sin offends God. Yet that is how ministers are ensnared into accommodating sin and dread speaking against it because the ones offering the fattest envelopes and cheques happen to be people with questionable lifestyles and they fear drying that very bountiful well. That was the reason Ananias and his wife died. They gave very generously but with a wrong spirit.

God does not have to receive from us to fund His enterprise. I will repeat it again and again. Only obedience moves Him. Only submission to His revelation makes our resources useful to His purpose as we then become willing partners.

Even poverty should be looked at in the same way. From the Bible we are able to see that a nation submitted to the rule of God will be able to deal with poverty and need. In fact God said that if they completely submitted to His commandments there will be no poor among them.

Poverty is therefore the product of our lack of connectedness to God’s purpose and revelation because we then become materialistic, eventually becoming the worshippers of Mammon, the ruthless tyrant who shifts our focus from God to himself. I believe he is the one behind this doctrine that God must have our giving to bless us because it shifts the goal from obedience and worship to business deals and bribery with God. And it ends in frustration and disillusionment because God is never bound to rules from anyone else.

And it is not only material giving that is affected by this mindset. Giving our bodies and talents is one area we see a lot of excesses in the wrong direction.

Haven’t you seen children dancing to eros the god of lust on pulpits and they are applauded. You see them gyrating vigorously in ways that are indicative of sex instead of worship and none seems to notice the spiritual disconnect between the pronouncements and the action.

We should be careful to ask God what it is He needs us to do with our bodies and energy to bring glory to Him as well as point people to Him. Once again it is not just the intention that satisfies God. He needs us to walk according to His revelation to please Him.

We see musicians singing and playing instruments that are applauded for their mastery instead of leading people to recognize the God they shout themselves lame to say they represent. A gift in our hands does not automatically become worship if we mention His name or quote a verse in or out of context. It becomes worship only when it is totally released to Him and then allowed to function according to His instruction.

That body and gift are from God. It means that He did not deplete His store of gifts to plead with you to offer Him that gift. The only terms He accepts that gift is if it is offered according to His direction as opposed to using our feelings or emotions.

What am I getting to? Obedience is the key to getting God to accept our giving, whatever it is we give. And we can get that revelation if we spent a lot more time on it by reading His word consistently. Then we will get to pray for revelation more than we pray for provision because that is what God values. Taking Him as only the provider will again lower Him to an NGO or something worse because He even meets the needs of those who hate Him and live contrary to everything He represents.

Another error we can sink into is in taking Him as a remote God who does not communicate to those who are willing to seek Him. And I will give us verses to prove this.

Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29: 12, 13)

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10:27)

It is surprising that many are convinced that God will answer their provision prayers yet do not expect Him to answer their revelation prayers. We are scared to pray that He reveals Himself to us when we are always praying for Him to give this and the other.

Will you desire to know God beyond His provision?