Nahum 2:12-13 - O Nineveh, you were once a mighty lion! You
crushed your enemies to feed your cubs and your mate. You filled your city and
your homes with captives and plunder. "I am your enemy!" says the LORD
Almighty. "Your chariots will soon go up in smoke. The finest of your
youth will be killed in battle. Never again will you bring back plunder from
conquered nations. Never again will the voices of your proud messengers be
heard."
Nahum was given the task of pronouncing Nineveh’s end for
the second time. As completely as they
had repented of their sins when Jonah preached to them….they fell once again to
the sin that once gripped them. They had
taken advantage of God’s people….and this time they did not repent. Their choice to stay in sin signed their
death warrant…never again to rise as a people or nation.
Sin has a way of sneaking back into even the most repentant hearts.
It sneaks in through the door we open to satan with a simple white lie….a
justification not to tithe…an excuse that we don’t have time to serve God in
some way….or just telling our self we are too tired to go to church and
participate in worship just one Sunday. He gets his invitation that we are
weakening our resolve to be bold and faithful…then he uses his skills of reasoning
to talk us into even bigger sins…like he did Eve when she ate that apple.
It reminds me to be extra careful to constantly repent and
ask God to identify the little sins that satan can use to read my heart…for if
sin gets such a grip on my heart that I don’t see it as sin anymore…I run the
risk of being just like Nineveh. Satan loves to introduce new ways for pride to
take up more room in my heart than humility…then he can have more control of my
thoughts and actions than God.
Jesus taught them in Matthew 12:43-45 that evil only leaves
us for a time….and when it returns to see our clean heart…it brings reinforcements.
It says…. “When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert,
seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, 'I will return to the person I
came from.' So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and clean. Then
the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter
the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That
will be the experience of this evil generation.”
Father…thank you f or the reminder to keep humility at the
center of all I do and think. Forgive me for the times that I have been like
Nineveh and let sin return even stronger in my life than it was when God
removed it. Help me pray daily for you
to identify all sin…so I can ask you to forgive me and remove it…and keep my
heart so clean and strong that satan can’t find any cracks to sneak in by. Amen.
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