Back to the basics...

I was in the shower yesterday and the chorus of an old hymn just came out of nowhere! Now if anybody knows me, I love a good hymn or old school song but I hadn’t been thinking about this particular song. The chorus says “Lead me, guide me along the way! For if you lead me, I will not stray. Lord, let me walk each day with thee. Lead me, O Lord, lead me!” I just kept singing it over and over. I began to talk to the Lord and asking Him to lead me but also to show me what he wanted me to get out of reminding me about that particular song. I pondered on it most of the day and then I heard my pastor say a key phrase yesterday. He said we are getting back to the basics! That was it! We get so caught up in the books and the music and the sermons of the current day but sometimes we need to go back to where we first began! We need to go back to where we first fell in love with Jesus. We need to go back to prayer. We need to go back to simply asking God to lead and guide us through our day. We need to go back to the Word.

Psalm 11:3 says “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”(NKJV) David was a man after God’s own heart. He didn’t do everything right and he suffered some dire consequences but he always went back to the core plan and that was to seek God’s face. If we don’t have a solid foundation on which to build our relationship with God, how can we go to the next level? If we take the time to learn how to study the Word and pray, we are far more prepared to fight the battles that the enemy puts before us.  We have made a lot of things complicated that don’t need to be. It’s really pretty simple. Seek God’s face. When we do that, we won’t get in our own way because we’ve heard what God had to say on the matter.  We have to get back to the basics.

“But the Lord is in his holy Temple; the Lord still rules from heaven. He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth. The Lord examines both the righteous and the wicked. He hates those who love violence.  He will rain down blazing coals and burning sulfur on the wicked, punishing them with scorching winds.  For the righteous Lord loves justice. The virtuous will see his face. ” (Psalm 11:4 – 7 NLT) God wants us to know that we have been spending too much time trying to figure out how to fix this and that when He already sees. He has known us since before we were in our mother’s womb. Psalm 139:4 says “you know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord”(NLT) He knows what we are thinking and he knows what we are planning. But He also gave us free will to make decisions and choices and those are often the things that we struggle with the most. So now its time to stop making everything so hard! You know the old saying...KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!  God still rules the heavens. He is still in control. Let Him handle it!

It’s time for us to return to the foundation of our relationship with God. I look at my girls and they will learn a song and sing it with excitement and enthusiasm. They will jump and dance and sing “My God is AWESOME!” and it is pure because they haven’t gotten to a point where they have let the world dim their praise. They are at the basic point of knowing that God loves them and He is awesome. We need to go back to that place and start fresh. I would be willing to bet that you will start to see things more clearly. Go back to reading your Word for the knowledge and revelation and not just to use for something or against someone. Go back to spending quality time with God through prayer. Go back to the songs of your youth…sometimes a good hymn can bring breakthrough. Go back to the basics and you will see results.

Andre Crouch had a song back in the day that I think is appropriate to close out with. Sing it with me and ask God to do it for you! There’s a healing and release to remembering the early days of your love affair with God.

Take me back, take me back, dear Lord! To the place where I first received you! Take me back, take me back dear Lord where I first believed…

AMEN…