7/1/13 - "DOES EVERYTHING JUST HAPPEN FOR A REASON?"

Gal. 6:7 Don’t be misled. Remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow!

Gal. 6:8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful desires will harvest the consequences of decay and death. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.

One of the statements that I hear often from people is, “Everything happens for a reason”. This is not a biblical statement when implying that God is always behind whatever happens. Often believers who have not been taught properly will make this statement in response to things that happen in their lives that may be difficult to deal with or hard to explain. But scripture paints a completely different picture and I want to share with you why it is so important to understand that in fact things happen because of choices.

When you think that everything happens for a reason you automatically do several things. First of all if what happened was in fact a work of satan then he gets to stay under the radar doing his destructive deceptive work and never gets caught, not to mention that God is the One that is usually getting the credit for what has happened. Satan loves to feed people this lie because his desire is to turn people away from God.

When people think everything just happens for a reason and God was behind it they are declaring that God in fact was the one that either was the source of why things happened, or He was unwilling to do something about it. There is another thing that happens when assuming this lie. If in fact man is the one responsible for what happened through a choice he makes then he is not being held accountable.  When people who are responsible are not help accountable then nothing changes.

Look at so much of what is going on today in our country. On almost every topic where our money is being spent for lavish parties, to reporters having their personal emails monitored, and on and on, no one wants to become accountable. Because no one wants to be accountable nothing is being done and therefore nothing is going to change.

Let’s start by looking to our foundation text of scripture and talk about first and foremost the responsibility man has in the outcome of his own life and what happens. Paul clearly states in Galatians 6:7 that those who try and make a mockery of God, or in other words ignore what He has said, they are not going to get away with not being accountable for their decisions. Whatever a man sows he is going to reap. It is really that simple.

If a man chooses to not get up and go to work each day, but instead decides he will stay home and watch T.V. and just be lazy, he is going to lose his job. That did not happen for a reason in the sense that God must have not wanted him to have that job. That happened because of a choice that man made to be lazy and stay home. If someone loaded a gun and chose to point that gun at his foot and pull the trigger, that didn’t happen for some unknown reason, that happened because he chose to point a loaded weapon at his foot and pull the trigger.

People make wrong choices everyday. Those choices have consequences, but man has never liked taking accountability for his actions. From the very beginning of time man has always wanted to place the blame of his choices on someone else. Doing so is a way for man to try and avoid acknowledging that what he did was wrong. Then the blame gets shifted to an innocent party in which the innocent party is then often viewed as the “bad guy”.

Gen. 3:8 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.
Gen. 3:9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
Gen. 3:10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Gen. 3:11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
Gen. 3:12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”

Adam was told by God to walk in dominion over all the earth and to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam then following after Eve ate of that tree. Then when God came down in the cool of the day to fellowship with them they had hidden themselves from God. When God questioned them about eating the forbidden fruit, notice in verse 12 Adam’s response to God. “The woman You gave to be with me”. Adam was implying to God that if He had not given Eve to him this would have never happened. He was not willing to take responsibility for his wrong choice, which then had consequences.

When Adam sinned the authority God had given Him in the earth was in fact given to satan, now allowing him the opportunity to bring about into the earth his very works of darkness. We see this manifested early on between Cain and Able. Through this transfer of authority satan now had the ability to do his work here on the earth. Adam was supposed to kick out of that garden anything that was not to be there. It was his responsibility to exercise the authority he had been given.

Man was given the right of choice, a free will to do what he wanted. Because of the free will of man God allows us to make choices, whether good or bad. Without that right of free will you would not truly have the opportunity to love God, for love is a choice. You would be nothing but a robot if God would not have given you this free will to choose. But what you choose God must allow, because He had given man authority over the earth.

James 1:22 But be doers of the Word [obey the message], and not merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves [into deception by reasoning contrary to the Truth].

Here even James reveals a powerful truth about man’s choices. No one has to obey the Word of God. We can read it, hear it preached, declare it, and yet still choose not to do what it says. That choice is up to us. Some today claim that when you teach others about obedience to the Word of God that is a form of bondage. But in fact if you teach people to live by the Word of God you help to lead them out of self-deception. Being obedient to the Word of God is what walking by faith is all about. You recognize that God is smatter than you, and you therefore “CHOOSE” what you know is going to be the better path to take.

When we hear the Word as James states above but we only listen and we do not obey what it says, we are betraying and deceiving ourselves. When this happens people are actually reasoning contrary to the Truth, thinking they know better than God. Sound familiar? How about when you were younger and your parents who had lived longer than you told you things for your benefit but you instead chose to do your own thing because after all you knew better then they did. I can tell you every time I chose not to obey my parents I suffered the consequences, not because God had a reason for it, but because in my high and mightiness I thought I knew better than my parents. So it is with God.

2 Cor. 11:3 However, I’m afraid that as the snake deceived Eve by its tricks, so your minds may somehow be lured away from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

We must also be careful as well that we don’t blame satan for everything bad that takes place in the earth. The old saying of Flip Wilson, “The devil made me do it”, is not true. If you are not over 40 don’t worry about that last illustration. Satan can’t make you do anything you should not do unless you begin to fall prey to his deceptive ways. In doing so he can through that deception begin to take advantage of your life and even lure you away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

All of a sudden doing the things that believers do out of a love and devotion to Jesus for all He has done for us doesn’t matter anymore. Going to God’s house, reading the Word to fellowship with God, and spending time with Him is no longer a priority. Instead our time becomes consumed with things that have no eternal value and before long we are being taken advantage of by satan and don’t even know it. Our love for God becomes weaker and our desire for the things of this world becomes greater.

Jesus made a powerful statement in John 14:21. Those who have His commandments and keep them (obedience to what God’s Word teaches us as Christians), it is he who loves Him. The motive for obedience to the Word is our love for Christ. If that is not the motive, we will eventually walk away.

So don’t believe the lie that everything happens for a reason as a reference to God being the One that brought it about or allowed it to happen and chose not to help us. Man has the power of a free will and we make choices everyday. Those choices have consequences. Make right choices and you will reap the benefits of what God has for you.

See You Again Next Week For More “Weekly Wisdom”

May God’s Best Be Yours!

Pastor Darryl Baker