Complacency Is A Dangerous Emotion

Zephaniah 1:8-9 -  “On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice I will punish the officials and the king’s sons
and all those clad in foreign clothes.  On that day I will punish all who avoid stepping on the threshold,
who fill the temple of their gods with violence and deceit.

 

God gave Zephaniah the hard words of his judgment.  He was going to sweep away everything in all the land….man and animal…..all the ones who had worshipped any other god….especially Baal.  He told them to stand in awe…that judgment was coming.  It would be the darkest time they had known…a terrible day of gloom…desolation and weeping…that they would be helpless to do anything about.

 

God knew the heart of these people…that they would not repent.  They had allowed the nations around them to water down their beliefs. They had become polytheistic…. taking on a god for every need they had. Yahweh had become a part of their collection…not a part of their heart.  They had become indifferent…developing a complacency that caused them doubt God or declare their unbelief of him all together.

 

It is a reminder to me to never hold anything more important than God.  If I do…I run the risk of that ‘thing’ becoming an idol to me.  If I allow my heart to believe in anything as much or more as I believe in God…then I too might become indifferent…complacent….watered down in my beliefs.

 

I will admit that I have been in that spot before. Years ago…when I had prayed for God to fix my first marriage…I stopped going to church.  He wasn’t answering me in what I thought was a reasonable time…so I stopped praying…stopped reading my Bible…stopped hanging out with people who always talked about how great God was to them. I became indifferent.  I gave up on God and my marriage.

 

Here the great thing about God.  He used the divorce to lead me back to him. I remember going to church the Sunday after I drove away from that house…it lifted me and gave me courage and comfort. God never left me…even though I left him. He has taught me since that I simply cannot do without him. Each day with God has been a new lesson in how to change and transform all the mess I created when I tried to do things on my own.

 

Father…thank you for the reminder that I need you to be in complete control of my life.  Forgive me for the times that I have left you altogether…or tried to mix your love with other things.  Help me to love you more and more each day so I will never be comfortable leaving you behind again.  Help me to identify the things in my life that make me complacent or indifferent to anything you need me to do. Amen.