Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God. – Joshua 14:8
How many times have you heard words from someone that you did not want to hear? I’m not necessarily talking about bad news, but just general conversation. Perhaps you wanted to go to one fast-food chain and they picked another. You wanted to go to one movie, but they wanted to go to another. It’s pretty common in life to have differing viewpoints about things.
So many times we want to take those differing viewpoints and essentially shop them around. We want to go find someone who believes that our way is right, or our desires are a good idea. Even if we know what the other person told us was the truth and we needed to hear it.
As Christians, we often look for guidance from God for things in our lives. We pray for knowledge and wisdom, but when God sends it, we don’t like it. Maybe we question God and ask why. Sometimes we may just ignore what He says altogether and do what we want anyway. That seems to be a point that Paul describes here.
Throughout our society, we have people that know what God has said. They know that things they are doing are sin according to the Bible. Maybe they even know that they are going directly against the will of God in their lives. Instead of following God, God’s way, and God’s doctrine, they have decided their way is better.
You will always be able to find ways to justify what you want in your mind if you leave God out of the equation. Among the world, you will find people who are willing to “melt your heart” as the verse says here. But can you say that you are wholly following God? He doesn’t want certain parts of you while you hold on to other areas. God wants all of you.