Traffic Signals on the way: Warning - Detours

Traveling can be adventurous and educational besides getting you to your destination if roads are good and necessary directional signs are carefully placed to indicate any changes, curves or detours. All signs are meant to direct you and they are to be heeded!

A few years ago some of our missionary friends lived and ministered in a limited-access nation in the mid-east. On a very dark night while traveling home at midnight from a gospel meeting in a nearby city, the missionary family and national pastor with his son had just reached the top of a steep hill and started down the other side when suddenly they came upon a large truck stalled in the middle of the road before them, without lights. With no time to go around the truck successfully, their car immediately slammed into the truck. All three of their young daughters were thrown out of the car as well as the national pastor's son, and all four were killed. The missionary wife suffered with many broken bones. After several hours, they were found and everyone was taken to a nearby hospital. Fortunately the missionary and his national pastor were not injured seriously. The three daughters were later buried in that foreign land. A year later the wife learned to walk again. They now reside in the states. The accident might have been avoided if road flares or a detour sign of any kind had been on the road a short distance before approaching the hill, but there was nothing. The tragedy was caused by neglect!

In our walk with the Lord, there will be times when the Holy Spirit will warn us of problems ahead and we must heed the warning and perceive He provided a detour. The detour will cause us to avoid the thing that we could not see immediately. To ignore His warning is to neglect His prompting, His desire, His assignment from our heavenly Father to protect and warn us throughout our Christian journey. Warnings come to us through God's Word; but the decision to heed them is ours: whether we will listen and obey or regard His Word and prompting as not necessarily important at the moment.

The Holy Spirit wants you to remember: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for INSTRUCTION in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16.) There is instruction for you every time you read God's Word! The Word will speak to your inner man and direct you in specific day to day dealings and events. Reading your Bible daily and balancing it with prayer will enable the Holy Spirit to bring back to your rememberance the Word of God that will bring instruction and warning when you need it.

Among the commandments and instructions in scripture, one that gets our attention quickly and stands out as a warning concerns the word neglect.

The area where neglect can be noticed quickly is the road on which we travel most, every day. We can see if maintenance and upkeep were handled on a timely basis. A road that has not been properly serviced by the city can cause small or great accidents or delays.....all because of neglect. Likewise, those who are in the body of Christ, which includes you and me, who have not diligently kept all the Word (the commandments and instructions) can be responsible for lack of growth in the lives of younger believers God has placed in your path. Neglect can be the reason for the lack of vision for the purpose of God in your life, your home or your church. It can be the reason for weak faith: --faith that is not strong enough to produce healings or miracles and it can be the deciding factor for indifference to the preaching of the Word. It's a sobering fact but it's true! When neglect is evident, there are little or no results, and no readiness for the Second Coming of the Lord. Again, the reason is neglect! On your journey of life, detour away from neglect before it affects your relationship with the Lord.

"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard lest at any time we should let them slip. How shall we escape IF WE NEGLECT so great a salvation." (Hebrews 2:1, 3.) Our salvation includes working toward full obedience and fighting the good fight of faith to be ready for the work and ministry that the Holy Spirit desires to do through us!

On several occasions, the Israelites asked God why He did not help them as He had promised since they did prepare and offer their offerings and sacrifices. God told them it was because they ignored his prophets and continued to serve other gods AND Him. He was no longer THE One and Only Lord of their lives! Their hearts were not in their sacrifices and offerings! It had become only a form to them without their hearts involved in true worship. Though believers do not offer sacrifices of sheep and goats as the Israelites did, God would speak to us today and in essence His Words would be, "You see what you want to see in my Word, and change its interpretation to fit the level of your present spiritual condition." Take a detour around the status quo traveling on the road with you if those people pretend to serve the Lord but He is not THE Lord of their lives! Let nothing cause you to neglect the Lord of your life being the Only God of Life to you!

Is it possible that the Lord would visit a church in the disguise or form of a crippled person, a homeless and/or a dysfunctional person, someone in a wheel chair, a blind person, one recently restored from prison, a weathly millionnaire, perhaps a football star or any other person of renown...to see our response or neglect to each one? And if He did, would you recognize Him? If so, how would you respond? Could or would you be God's hand extended? Would you take time to be His hand extended? Do you scale down the Word of God to someone when witnessing to him so he will not be offended? Have you ever asked the Lord to use you to touch the life of a hurting person, or to be His hand extended?

We will one day be judged according to the Light we received and how we passed it on. If the Word of Truth is powerful in your life and understanding, let it be powerful in your speech, action and example! Sometimes we are tempted to "strain at a nat and swallow a camel...." Do we talk about serving God according to rules we made but neglect the needs that are important to God? Neglect!

I think often of a time after the Rapture, when we will stand before the Lord at the Bema Judgment. To some He will say, "I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick and in prison, and ye visited me not." (Matt 25:42-43.) Then our Lord will answer: "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not unto Me." (Matthew 25:44-46.) Why would He say this? Could it be that we might be selective in our work for the Lord, even in our friendships, those we help or things we do for them for God?

When a person has neglected his personal relationship with God, there will soon be signs of neglect in his obedience to certain instructions in the Word. The signs of disobedience will develop into carelessness, and carelessness will cause him to rearrange the commandments he once loved, to fit his strained life style. This is the way some churches and even pople move away from Truth and get into error. The gospel becomes diluted so that it has lost its power to change and transform lives. Neglect can bring change that will cause one to let down his standard of holiness and his love for God. Eventually he will look toward returning to the very things he was once delivered from.

The good news is, God is always merciful to hear our cry of repentance and for help to return to Him so we can be restored. His Word declares, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (Isaiah 55:7) Yes! He will abundantly pardon! What a comfort! Today is a good day to think on these things and examine them carefully in your life!