*Photo Photo by Daniel Reche from Pexels

It’s important to know that while many people make commitments to follow Jesus Christ, actually, sticking to him for the rest of our lives is very slim. In fact, in some cases it could be less than 10% of people that make commitments to follow Jesus will actually do something about it and, and even less percentage of that will actually remain following God for a few years, even a smaller percentage of that will actually remain following God for decades. The key here is we want to ask ourselves: what will it take for me to run the race of faith well, and not be overcome by sin and not fall back into my old temptations?

We have to know that the major goal of the enemy is to steal, kill, and destroy us. We have to make sure that we don’t allow ourselves to succumb to any of the enemy’s plans. We have to realize that this is warfare that we’re stepping into when we follow Jesus.

We also have to know that the enemy has been using some of the same scheming and plotting since the beginning. The Bible teaches us how to fight against the enemy in every single circumstance known to man. The more that we know what the Bible is saying, the more we’ll be able to understand how to not give in to the enemy. That’s why the book of Deuteronomy is so powerful because some of the laws teach us how to get away from sin.

Kings Must Not Take Many Wives

Deu 17:17 (NLT) The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.

One of the major places of downfall that we can fall into is immorality, and the opposite of immorality is faithfulness. The enemy wants us to have thoughts and idols of many people versus just having one, which would be our husbands or our wives. Faithfulness is the attribute that God has, while adultery is the attribute that the enemy has.

Jesus taught that adultery doesn’t start when we actually commit the action, but it begins within our hearts. For us to really get a hold over the immorality that the enemy is trying to make us fall into, we have to not allow an ounce of immorality to be inside of our life.

One of the major reasons why God wants us to not have unfaithfulness and immorality in our lives is because that will ultimately take us away from our relationship with Jesus Christ. It’s impossible for us to have an unfaithful relationship and an impure relationship with other people and be remaining faithful with Jesus Christ.

Another thing that happens when we give ourselves to an unfaithful lifestyle is that we allow that unfaithful lifestyle to begin influencing us. For example, if we are dating somebody or in a relationship with somebody that doesn’t follow Jesus Christ, then we open our hearts to whatever they believe in, and then that becomes what we believe in. We end up taking their vision and value for life then and their habits and then we make that our vision and value for our habits as well.

When we are in a relationship with somebody that doesn’t follow Jesus, that relationship should be a ministry, it should be evangelism and it should be witnessing. When we are in a relationship or when we are allowing someone to influence our vision and values, that should be fellowship. Ministry and evangelism are for a believer to an unbeliever. Fellowship is from a believer to a believer. And we have to establish that early in our relationship with God, or it will ultimately corrupt our hearts.

David, when he started growing up as a king, he started taking on many wives and ultimately this corrupted his entire calling with God to the point where after he fell into adultery, he could no longer get back up to the place of being used by God, the same way that he did when he was younger.

He Must Not Accumulate Large Amounts Of Wealth 

Deu 17:17 (NLT) The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.

God is ultimately the provider of wealth. He is the one that owns all of the wealth in the entire world. In Genesis one, God creates the entire earth, and therefore he is the owner of all of it. All of us are just stewards, whether we know that we’re stewards or not, isn’t really the question. But for us, since we know the word of God, we should know that we are stewards of wealth.

Having wealth is neutral, it doesn’t make it evil. Where the issue lies, is when we have wealth and we begin using it for our own good instead of using it for God’s will.

That is why God warned David, ‘do not accumulate wealth for yourself.’ He was warning David that once you start taking in wealth for yourself and using it for yourself, then you will become corrupted by greed and lust, and you’ll be getting corrupted by your own bodily appetites.

The way of the King is supposed to be that the wealth and the resources that you have, and the influences that God has given you is supposed to be used to advance his kingdom, give him glory, and please him with everything that you do. If you stay on that narrow path, then you won’t end up becoming destroyed by the resources that God has provided.

Learn The Fear Of The Lord

Deu 17:18-20 (NLT) 18 “When he sits on the throne as king, he must copy for himself this body of instruction on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. 19 He must always keep that copy with him and read it daily as long as he lives. That way he will learn to fear the LORD his God by obeying all the terms of these instructions and decrees. 20 This regular reading will prevent him from becoming proud and acting as if he is above his fellow citizens. It will also prevent him from turning away from these commands in the smallest way. And it will ensure that he and his descendants will reign for many generations in Israel.

God told David to copy for himself, a body of instruction. What God was telling David and other Kings was that I want you to meditate on the Word of God every day because you won’t survive off of bread alone, but you’re going to survive off the Word of God. If you don’t survive off the word of God and you’re surviving off the world, then ultimately you will not be used by God and your spirituality will die.

He wanted to do this in the presence of the Levites. The Levites represented the presence of God. They were the ones that were in the presence of the Lord all the time. God wants us to be in the presence of the Lord all the time as well. He wants us to, in the fear of the Lord, be reading the Word of God. What I mean by the fear of the Lord is to read the Word of God and repent when it is necessary. The repentance shouldn’t be coming from a place where we feel like God hates us, but the repentance that we are doing should be coming from a place where we know that God loves us and he wants the best for us.

We are to always keep that copy – That means we should always have the Bible that we’re studying every single day throughout the day, taking directions from the Bible as well, and doing that throughout our entire lives.

We should also begin having a lifestyle where everything that we do is based on the Word of God. This is going to secure us on the path of God and make us not fall astray to pride.

Leaders can often think that they are better than everybody else. But when we read the Word of God and we realized that God is God, and we are his creations and we are his servants, but we are also people that are intimately attached to him in a relationship, then it puts us in the position where we know that we’re not better than everyone else. That is why God wants us to meditate on the Word of God. It’s because he wants us to have a place of humility, grace, love, forgiveness, for those around us, especially as a leader.

God also wants us to, in the smallest way, not drift from God. If we allow any small place to make us drift, then ultimately our life will drift away, and see this in the life of David and other Kings. God wants us every single day to be completely in alignment with his will so that we never drift.

God promises us, descendants, will be able to walk in the blessing of the Lord if we, as leaders continue this walk as well. We need to use that promise and hold onto it, knowing that God will always take our lifestyles that are completely given to him and use that for the blessing of other people around us.

God even says next generations. God is saying that it’s not just you, that will be blessed, or even your parents and your family, that will be blessed, but it will be for generations after generation, after generation, that would be blessed. That is ultimately God’s heart. He wants not just us to be blessed, but he wants hundreds of years later, everyone that comes from our family line to be blessed in the abundance of God’s love and provision and spiritual rewards in heaven.