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The Root of All Dysfunction
Jeremiah 7:18
"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."
Years ago cars used to have a part called the distributor cap. The distributor cap was the place where the spark plug wires would connect so that you could get spark to fire the engine. Whenever changing the distributor cap, it was important that you get the spark plug wires in their proper order. If you placed them in wrong order, then your car would misfire and often times not start.
I have always been one to do as much work on my car as possible so that I can save money. The first car that I owned was due for a tuneup, and I had this bright idea to do the work myself. When I changed the distributor cap, I didn't pay as close attention as I should have to the alignment of the spark plug wires. When I tried to start the engine, it wouldn't start. After trying for a while to figure out the problem, I asked my father what I did wrong. He came and looked at the placement of the spark plug wires on the distributor cap and noticed that I placed them in the wrong order which caused the car to misfire. Two wires were not where they should have been. Two wires caused the whole car not to run properly.
Most of life's problems are created when we take things out of their proper order. You will notice in the verse above that one of the problems was that the children were leading the fathers. Notice that the children gathered the wood. In other words, they were leading their fathers instead of the fathers leading the children. Most of the problems that Israel faced were when they got things out of God's divine order.
Christian, one of the things Satan constantly tries to get us to do is to take God's order and rearrange it to fit our desires. Satan knows that a dysfunctional society is caused by taking things out of God's divine order. If he can get the Christian to ignore God's diving order, then he can cause the Christian to live a dysfunctional life.
For instance, God's divine order for the home is that the man is to be the head of the home, the wife is to submit to her husband, and the children are to obey their parents. However, when you look at society, you will notice that they have fought against this order. When the wife will not submit to her husband, then she causes the home to be dysfunctional. When the husband won't lead like he should, then he forces his wife to lead, thus creating a dysfunctional home. When the parents follow their children instead of leading them, then the result will be a dysfunctional home. The only way to avoid having a dysfunctional home is to keep God's divine order.
Furthermore, God's divine order for finances is to first pay your tithe, then your bills, then purchase your needs and if anything is leftover, then you can purchase your wants. One of the reasons our society is so dysfunctional in the financial realm is because we have not followed God's divine order. We have spent lavishly on wants and desires, ignoring the bills that would eventually come due, which resulted in a financial meltdown. You cannot avoid financial dysfunction when you mess with God's divine order of finances.
Space won't allow me to go into every divine order that God has for our lives; however, you must be careful about keeping God's divine order in every aspect of your life. If you want your life to be functional and to run smoothly, the only way this will happen is to follow the order that God has set up. Following God's divine order always leads to a happy and functional life.