Take Responsibility

The glory of God rests upon a man that does and remains in the will of God. You cannot be praying for His glory when you are not standing in His will. When the Lord placed man in the Garden of Eden, He gave man the mandate to tend, guard and cultivate it. It was the responsibility of man to make sure that the Garden was in tip top condition. Strangers were not meant to come into the garden, neither was he to stop or resign from his duty post. When he and the woman fell, the Lord came looking for him at his duty post but he was not there. The Lord called out to him asking him where he was because the glory was gone. Till this day, God has being calling out to man asking him where he is. Is it that God did not know where he was? God knew! However man had left his duty post and the Lord needed to draw his attention to the fact. When a man leaves his duty post, a fall is imminent.  

The ministry and life of Eli the priest in 1Samuel 4 ended in Ichabod - no glory. A truly sad and tragic end to a life that was marked with faithfulness and alertness to the Lord. The question that boggles the mind is: a Priest of Eli standing, a no nonsense man observant to the things of God in chapter 1 of 1Samuel could not discipline his sons in chapter 2? He could not impact the training he had received of the Lord into them. At this point Eli became false and a hypocrite. By the time he summoned courage to counsel them, it was too late because the evil had gone on for too long, that by chapter 2:25, the Lord was determined to kill his sons for their wickedness. Eli failed in his responsibility as a father and he destroyed his lineage. When a person shirks from his responsibilities he becomes a wicked man. No wonder, when people do not follow God completely in the Bible, the concluding statement of their lives is that they did wickedly. Such people allow the things that ought to die live, the things that ought to live die. When a man refuses to stand up to his responsibility, death and decay creeps in. We cannot be careless but operate in the manner God wants us to or we become false and hypocritical.