YOU HAVE COMPASSED THIS MOUNTAIN LONG ENOUGH
by Jeff Archey
YOU HAVE COMPASSED THIS MOUNTAIN LONG ENOUGH
Beginning another year of daily Bible reading, I am using a plan that goes to Deuteronomy one day each week as the new year begins. I am once again reminded of the journey of the children of Israel through the wilderness. God declared divine instruction through Moses, “Ye have compassed this mountain long enough…” (Deuteronomy 2:3). In other words, you have gone around the base of this mountain for several days, it is time to move onward!
In another sense, there are “mountains” in life we compass or go around and around. We stay in the same old direction that we direct, but we need to listen to God and turn a better direction, friends! A new year is upon us…why not resolve to do so? I challenge us to follow what God directs today. It is time we cease compassing the mountains!
Wasting time is a mountain we compass. “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:16). As Robertson puts it, “We all have the same time. Paul goes into the open market and buys it up by using it rightly.” There’s the factor: it is imperative we use our time wisely and rightly. God forbid any of us be like Felix in Acts 24:24, 25. He sent for Paul but afterwards trembled at what he heard. No example from the scriptures where Felix came to Christ. We go around and around not using time wisely. Schedule carefully and prioritize with importance.
Apathy. Simply not caring. Can you imagine? No emotion, no compassion, no concern for anything or anyone. In Revelation 3:14—16, the church allowed the things of the world to dictate their comfort and the Lord commanded them to repent! Indeed, a mountain that takes us around and around with no direction and no concern. Oh, “turn northward,” friend!
Worry is a never ending compass. Around and around with emotions all torn. “Be careful (or anxious, JA) for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). Turn it over to the Lord…the worry, concern and strife. Always remember a rule of thumb concerning worry: If you can’t do anything about it, worry won’t change it and if you can do something about it, then work and don’t worry!
Ignorance is a mountain (Hosea 4:6). Ignorance is destructive. Those at Berea did not allow ignorance to permeate their lives (Acts 17:10, 11). Ignorance and refusal to learn is as one that is “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 3:7). Let us grow in our knowledge and put it to use (2 Peter 3:18).
Wasting precious time, apathy, worry and ignorance. Oh, there are so many throughout the world that compass these mountains and get nowhere. Praise to God that we have a direction to go! Dear friend, do you have that right direction and plan?
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