Getting off the Fence~

              

Growing up I knew at a young age, God was in my life. Saved at the age of 6 and baptized in the Holy Spirit at the age of 7, God had a destiny for me. When God has a plan for your life, the devil comes in quickly to destroy it. God’s word tells us in John 10:10” The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; ( but Jesus tells us ) I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Jesus came to give us life and in doing so has a plan for each and every one of us.

As a young child, it was exciting to tell anyone and everyone I came across about Jesus. However becoming a pre-teen to teenager that was a different story. There was no way I was going to school and telling all my “cool” friends about God. That was the beginning of the ol saying “Riding the fence” The good news is that even though I was riding the fence…GOD does not ride the fence! 

Teenage years are C-R-A-Z-Y!! Peer pressure, hormones, trying to figure out who you are in this world. What direction you are going in, how you are going to get there. And the whole time you have the devil using your peers to help him push you into a direction that GOD did not lay out for you.  If a person is not rooted in God’s word even as an adult, it is so easy to be misguided and led down the “WIDE” path.  ( You know the one that everything looks so grand and “fun”)

When you are riding the fence, it is easy to be convinced that living for the world is ok. There are so many lies that are told to make a person believe they are living “right”. I can say I was one of those teenagers and early adult kind of people. I knew what the bible said, I knew that God would not approve, however I was under the misconception that since the bible tells us how God is such a forgiving God that I could keep on “riding” that fence and when I was “grown” up I would stop my partying life style and do what was right.

Wow…can you say MIS construed!!!! We never know how long we have on this earth.  God tells us in Lamentations 4:18 “ People stalked us at every step, so we could not walk in our streets. Our end was near, our days were numbered, for our end had come.”

Also in Daniel 5:26 “Here is what these words mean: Mene : God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.”

Our days are NUMBERED!!!  Out of the grace of God, I am still here. There were plenty of times in my life, where I jeopardized my safety. When I stated I was “riding” the fence, that to me means one foot in the world and one foot on my bible ( just in case I got into real trouble I could pray my way out of it) It’s amazing to me that I even had that mentality , but I did.  I still prayed and gave thanks to God but I did not surrender my whole life to him, I never let him take full charge of me. By doing that, I had constant turmoil in my life, bad relationships, and strife in my household, struggling to make ends meet, anger, bitterness, doubt and fear. None of things come from God. They all came from the devil; He knew if he could keep me on that fence I’d eventually fall off on to his side of the play ground and be lost forever.

However the GOOD news is that God never quit on me! He had a plan for me and he wasn’t about to let me fall. There were some many times in my life God would allow someone to walk into my life, even for a short season, and remind me of God’s love. To remind me of my place in the family of Jesus. To softly whisper into my heart that I was loved unconditionally no matter my past choices and that I still had a destiny from God.

God knew I loved him, but he also knew I loved the world as well.  God’s word tells us in Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

For me the word “money” in this passage represents all the sin I was committing in my life. The unhappiness I was feeling was from me trying to server “two” masters. I would sacrifice my relationship with God for the worldly things, (for me that would be unhealthy relationships) among other things.

God tells us in Revelation 3:16” So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

That is a pretty strong statement!! God would rather us be HOT for him, or COLD for him, but to be “lukewarm” is worse in the eyes of God.  “Lukewarm”…..in other words, “riding the fence” will get us spit out of the mouth of GOD!!!!!

To have knowledge and do nothing with it in a sense is a “crime”. It keeps a person stagnant; there is no forward process, no direction. God expects us when given the knowledge concerning his ways and how as his children we are to live; we are to implement those ways into our daily life.  To chose not to do so, is the “lukewarm” It’s like playing Russian rue let with our eternal lives. We never know when our last day will come, when our last breath will be taken. However God does and he with all his wonderful mercy and grace gives us, his children , many chances to come off that fence, because he loves us all so much. However the choice is ours to make as to when our “fence” riding days are over. When we finally realize that serving two masters causes destruction in our lives, and that God’s plan for our lives is far better than anything this world has to offer.

I have a little saying I have always told my girls “Do not let the world tell you who you are, tell the world who you are through Christ Jesus”

I believe we all should apply that to our own lives. In doing so, we don’t give the devil a foothold in our lives, a chance to run us off the path God has for us!

To get off the fence is making the choice to live for God, to allow his word to manifest in our lives, to become the solider in Christ he has called us all to be.

Many times we are told we have gone too far, we have sinned too much; God will never take us back…that is a lie straight from the pits of hell. As long as you have breath in you, it is never too late to turn to God. NO matter what sins have been committed in your life.

God’s word tells us in Romans 4:7-8 ⁷ “Blessed are those
   whose transgressions are forgiven,
   whose sins are covered. ⁸ Blessed is the one
   whose sin the Lord will never count against them.

God does not count our sins against us once we repent and ask for his forgiveness. Once we get off that “fence”.  The devil will try to remind you of your past, to trip you up, to get you back in the fence riding ways of your past life. However God tells us 2 Corthians 5:17 ¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: ^[a] the old has gone, the new is here!

It doesn’t matter what we have done, when we become a new person through Christ, the old ways are gone!!! The “fence” is knocked down!!!!!!!!!

I did come down off my fence. I chose God! The good that came out of my fence riding days is that I am able to stand before you and tell you of God’s grace through all my bad choices, his mercy through all the times I repeatedly made the same sinful error over and over again. What the devil meant for evil, God has turned to good to glorify his kingdom.

I challenge each and every one of you, to come down off your fence, to choose life over death, to choose love over hate, to allow the one and only person to heal you of any past offenses, to put joy in your life instead of worldly strife.  It’s not too late as long as you have a single breath in your body! If you feel like your fence is too big, ask God to knock it down for you! He will catch you, HE LOVES YOU!

Much love~

Stacey