As I have reflected on these things I was thinking about Lot but specifically Lot's wife and how she turned back on the Lord. I know their family weren't very good Christians back in their time but bear with me. If we think of Lots wife as a Christian and the Lord directing her and her family a certain way that would be in the center of HIS will. But we see in scripture that she turned her back on God we see her turning back to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for several reasons. First we see her turning away from God her Fame in the book of Genesis chapter 19 verse 1 states that her husband sat at the gate of the city, which makes us to realize he was a man of high standing and high position (vs1) in the community which in turn he was doing well in prosperity (vs3) she didn't want to leave her well being in the city and having to go up the ladder of fame again and having to rebuild her reputation and didn't want to forgo the affliction that she faced when she first came to the city many years ago and made her forget God, D.L Moody said "We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God." Prosperity made her to suffer in her spiritual walk with God and caused her to forget God. The next thing we see is that she couldn't bare the thought of leaving her Future, she had much possessions in Gen.13:5-7 it states that her husband had so much in an abundance that the Land was not able to bear Abraham and Lot at the same time. And Lot and their family chose the more fertile and selfish way and allowed Abraham the not so easy way. Jerry Bridges said "Materialism wars against our souls in a twofold manner. First it makes us discontent and envious of others. Second, it leads us to pamper and indulge our bodies so that we become soft and lazy." Materialism makes us greedy, discontented, lazy, and just plain lustful and unless it is by God making us this way and that we keep our eyes on HIM not on others or things but on HIM. The Third thing we see is her Family that she had to leave in Sodom because they didn't want to go with them. The family is something that always suffers weather great or small it may be. The closeness of family seems to be a thing of the past and not always being as close as we should or a supportive as it should be. She wanted them to be safe out of harms way and they chose not to come or grow close to the Lord which in turn made her turn back. She wanted a change but didn't have it, Ronald Reagan said "All great change in America begins at the dinner table", she wanted fellowship and communication and lost it. Fourth we go over into the book of 2 Samuel chapter 13 verses 1-14 we see that Friends can cause us to turn from God. It is wise to associate yourself with friends of wisdom and know Christ who will help all of us in our daily walk with Christ. No truer words can be said than that of George Washington when he said "Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation. It is better to be alone than in bad company." And last of all we see the Face of destruction which we see later in Genesis 19 Lot's wife looked back and she faced utter destruction and we see later on in the 2nd book of Samuel that Amnon was destroyed, they both looked back on God, and they didn't want HIS perfect will for their lives where it would be safe from anything saten threw at them., but instead decided to go their own way which lead to destruction. It comes down to this will we quit and look back at what could have happened and instead look for the future and plan on what could happen and plan on getting done and make our goals to accomplish that or will we keep to the past ? If we never set any goals we most certainly won't ever hit anything ~ Asher Neal
I for one am going to look to the future to serve the Lord and to not turn back on Him , will you do the same for this new year for 2019 no turning back???