29/11/07

Do You Have A Stiff Neck?

"For you are a stiff-necked people." Deuteronomy 9:6


It is impossible to be righteousness together with being stiff-necked. What does it mean to be stiff-necked?

Being stiff-necked refers to someone who follows the arbitrary feelings of his heart and his own subjective thinking even though the Word of God will show him with clear proof that his thinking is incorrect and will cause him loss or harm. He will not turn to God, as if his neck were as hard as iron and he is physically unable to turn it this way or that. Instead of listening to reason, he continues to follow his own emotions.

A stiff-necked person is also someone who knows the truth or his guilt is holding against him but is still not willing to change his negative ways.

A person has to be willing to act according to his understanding. If a person's original way of thinking was mistaken and someone pointed it out to him, he should resolve to make the necessary changes. Many people, though, find this very difficult to do. It is so much easier to continue to behave as you have done previously. It takes a strong act of the will to make positive changes in one's behavior.

Be flexible and open. Be willing to change anything that needs changing. Anyone having this positive trait will continue to grow and improve throughout his entire life.


[ Prayer for the Day ]

Lord, forgive me for not heeding to your Word. You have been again and again speaking to me through various means but yet I have been disobedient to your call. Lord I want to surrender myself to You, renew my being and help me to be like Jesus. I ask this prayer in Jesus' mighty Name. Amen.


[ Reference Scriptures ]

Deuteronomy 9:4-6
⁴ Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
⁵ Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
⁶ Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

The Word of God was given free to us, therefore we should also share it freely with others. (All rights are with God)