Can you think of a moment in your life where someone said…”if you do this, then you will get a desired/ or not so desired result? It happens to most of us every day! We go to the doctor because we are sick…they give us a prescription and tell us “if you take this, then you will get better! ” We plan a meal and follow a recipe card that says “if you mix these things together and cook it for this amount of time, then you will get a desired meal!” My mom used to tell my brothers, “if you keep playing like that, someone is going to get hurt!” Sure enough, someone always did.
We can all think of a million “if this…then that” experiences in our life! There are many times in reading the word of God that you will stumble upon this type of instruction. Why is it that it is so easy to follow a recipe card for a desired result, but it is so difficult to follow the word of God. See the following excerpt from I Peter 3:10-12
” Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good, let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their prayers. But, the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”
So…this basically says if you want to love life, see good days and if you want God to hear your prayers then you should work to keep your tongue from evil and deceit (this is a broad command) It covers anything that comes out of our mouth, gossip, slander, anger, insecurities, ect…It also says we should live righteously. To be righteous means to be in right standing with God. So if we work to let EVERY area of our life please God,and if we pursue peace in our lives and relationships, then we will be able to truly love life and see good days and we can know that God is hearing our prayers (even if the answer isn’t always what we are looking for.)
Maybe if we all worked hard to trust the word of God as much as we trust our doctors, our cook books and our Moms (lol) we would all come out with a much more desired result in our lives!
