Originally posted 11/20/20
The world is a loud place to live. It seems to only be getting louder and more volatile as time progresses. I sometimes find it difficult to tune out the noise that isn’t from God. Sometimes it becomes difficult to decipher truth from lies. How do we discern who to listen to, who to believe? It seems as though 2020 has been exceptionally loud. First we had the threat of a pandemic coming to our country, then the pandemic reared its ugly head and really made a lot of noise. Of course we had the loud bantering back and forth of the to wear a mask or to not wear a mask, which still seems to be making some noise. Now we find ourselves in November and we hear one side declaring victory while the other side is shouting fraud. Do we have a president elect or not that seems to be the question everyone is competing to answer. All this noise about viruses, presidents, cheating, and scandals has really worn me out. How about you? You tired of it all yet? What should we do? How should we, as Christians, respond?
God showed me the answer to all those questions this morning. I encourage you to go read all of Psalm 37. I am going to take a few parts and discuss what God showed me.
Do Not Worry What Others May Do
Psalm 37:1-2 (ESV) says, “Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.” God reminds us not to worry about what other people do that is wicked. The wicked will soon fade away and wither like the grass. Just look back in history. There were plenty of evil rulers who came on the scene and did plenty of damage. They are all now dead and have no power at all. We as Christians are not to worry about what people do that is evil.
Remember what Jesus said, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” Matthew 5:44 (ESV) Even if the wicked are persecuting you, we are told to pray for them. What do we do when people we perceive to have destructive motives come into power? We pray for them. Remember that Jesus came to die for them just as much as he came for you. Pray that God will soften their hearts and minds to his truth. We pray that they come to salvation and are radically changed to become servants of Jesus. I find when I start to pray for people who are supposed to be my enemy, I come to love them. They may still be persecuting my fellow brothers and sisters, they may still hate me simply because I love Jesus. They may even kill me given the chance. I still choose to love them and pray that God will reveal himself to them so that they can be agents for good instead of evil.
Don’t forget about Paul. Before he gave his life to Jesus, he was a huge enemy of God. The Christians in that time would definitely put him in the category of an evildoer. After all, he made it his mission to kill anyone who called themselves a follower of Jesus. He did this all the while thinking he was helping God! That is messed up!
Trust In The Lord
The next three verses in Psalm 37 says, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”
We trust that the Lord will do good. Live where God has planted you and learn to be friends with faithfulness.
How do we befriend faithfulness? We do so by learning to be faithful. Has God given you a job that you love, or a job that you wish you could leave? Be faithful to show up everyday with a good attitude. God has probably placed you in that job to show others the love of Jesus, and likely tell someone about his gift of salvation. When we are faithful with the small things, like showing up to work everyday, then God will give us more responsibility. Would you allow your kids to stay home alone all weekend if they trash your house after being left alone for just a few hours? Probably not! Your child didn’t show responsibility the few hours you were away, how can you trust them to be responsible for an entire weekend alone? Likewise, God is looking for us to be faithful with the simple things before he will bless us with bigger roles.
Delight In The Lord
Next we are told to, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” According to Dictionary.com delight means; a high degree of pleasure or enjoyment; joy; rapture. We take great enjoyment in being in communication and relationship with God. Do you enjoy spending time with Jesus? If your answer is no, pray and ask God to show you how enjoyable it is to be with him. He will answer that prayer because he says that when we delight ourselves in him, he will give us the desires of our heart. Asking God to help us be delighted to spend time with him, and making that a desire of our heart is definitely a prayer God is excited to answer. Jesus tells us in John to abide in him and we will bear fruit. I wrote about abiding in Jesus a few weeks ago. To read more click here.
Commit Your Ways To The Lord
The next verse is my favorite from this passage. It says, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” I love this verse because it reminds me that I don’t have to do the hard work. When I commit my way to the Lord, and trust him, he will act. All year I have heard Christians quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 (ESV) “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” This verse sure sounds like committing our way to the Lord and he will act. Humbling ourselves to prayer shows that we no longer want to try and fix things on our own. We recognize that we can’t heal our land, only God can.
It is only through the power of God we will have unity in our land once again. A few days ago I was praying over our country. I saw a vision of a big, blue wave coming from the Atlantic Ocean and sweeping over the US. Behind that wave I saw an even larger red wave that came and overtook the blue wave. Finally, an even larger white wave came and overpowered both the blue and red wave. I felt in my spirit that the white wave represented the revival that is coming. Unity will come when the blue and red waves, which represent human inspired ideologies, come under the authority of the white wave, which represent the ideology of Jesus.
So, we choose to not worry about people who are set on doing evil. Recognize that they will soon fade away. We trust the Lord to do good. We are faithful to do the work God has given us. Perhaps most importantly, we delight ourselves in the Lord by continually humbling ourselves in prayer, knowing that God will act and heal our land.
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