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
“Consider,” according to dictionary.com means: to think carefully about, especially in order to make a decision; contemplate; reflect on.
It appears that many people don’t consider the consequences of their actions soon enough to avoid the consequences.
This may be small, like not considering how difficult the next day is going to be if we stay on the computer playing games all night. Other times we may buy something expensive, not considering how we will pay for it, the braces the kids need, or 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 without thinking about the effect on others, we take a job not considering economic factors, 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.
These failures to “consider” may even be fatal. Many sins are very tempting but very dangerous. Consider the consequences before falling into it.
We even do this as a nation. Christians sit quietly and have failed to consider the consequences of killing so many innocent children through abortion. We vote men into elected offices based on their appearances in public and not their hearts. We are silent about what public schools have decided to teach children that is anti-Christ. As a nation it seems that we 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, he was facing similar problems in their culture as we are in ours. He said, “But they do not regard the work of the LORD, Nor consider the operation of His hands (Isaiah 5:12 NKJV).” These people had not considered that God would send them into exile for failing to consider what He had done for them in the past.
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 the consequences of every decision we make. We also need to think about the consequences of believing what we hear – from school teachers, political leaders, our Pastors, University Professors, and even our own Christian friends and family.
Does what they say 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?
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