Consider This

Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.  Deuteronomy 4:39 

“Consider,” according to dictionary.com means: to think carefully about, especially in order to make a decision; contemplate; reflect on: He considered the cost before buying the new car.  2.  to regard as or deem to be: I consider the story improbable.  3.  to think, believe, or suppose: We consider his reply unsatisfactory. 

Today I was thinking about thinking.  It appears that many people don’t think about the consequences of their actions before they step into something.  From a Biblical perspective they are failing to consider where the path they are on may lead. 

Sometimes this is something small like not considering how difficult the next day is going to be if we stay on the computer playing games half the night.  This is generally seen in young people who haven’t had enough really hard days brought on by their own stupidity – I grew out of this in college.  Other times we may buy something with a really big price tag not even thinking about how we will pay for it, the braces the kids need, and any unforeseen emergency expenditures.  People have gotten into some great debt by failing to consider the future. 

Then there are the even bigger decisions – we make a major move across the country without thinking about the effect on others, we take a job not considering how it will be affected by a failing economy, or, rather than do the hard work to fix a marriage or another broken relationship, we decide to run, failing to consider that it might be harder than the work to fix it would be. 

These failures to “consider” may even be fatal.  We know of a young  man who failed to consider that he was so drunk when he got in his car that he might not recognize that he was going the wrong way on a major interstate.  He lived but the man he hit did not.  He had failed to consider jail in his future. 

I have been watching and listening to politicians more closely for the last few months.  I am watching as the riots in Europe bring out to the open that things aren’t so great in our country financially.  I am reminded of the failure we have as a nation to consider what it means to allow and even encourage the killing of thousands and thousands of babies every year.  We vote men into elected offices based on their appearances in public and not their values in their own hearts.  As a nation it seems that we just fail to consider that God is still God of the universe and is not unaware of what we are allowing and how we are living. 

We have failed to consider the consequences of taking God out of so much of our culture that He would have to  remind us who He is.  As Isaiah was pronouncing woes on the wicked of Israel who were facing similar problems in their culture as we are in ours he  said, “Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them! The harp and the strings, The tambourine and flute, And wine are in their feasts; But they do not regard the work of the LORD, Nor consider the operation of His hands.”  Isaiah 5:11 -12  These people had not considered that God would send them into exile for failing to consider what God had done for them in the past. 

God promises that He is faithful to His people.  He was faithful to Israel and after 70 years of refining them in captivity He returned them to the land He had promised them.  He is also faithful to His people today but He warns us to consider our steps, to consider His wondrous works, to consider that His word is True, and to consider that if we want to be wise we will consider what God has done for us already to remind us who He is and what He will do for us in the future. 

Proverbs 14:15 says, “The simple believes every word, But the prudent considers well his steps.”  This says to me that we need to consider –  to think about – the consequences of every thing we hear – from our political leaders, from our Pastors, from University Professors, and from our friends.  Does what they tell us honor God and line up with His word?  Do we know in our hearts that what they are saying will lead to destruction but we follow them anyway?   Are we more likely to consider what man thinks than we are to consider what God thinks?

Only fear the LORD, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what  great things He has done for you.  1 Samuel 12:24