In Thee

In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed:
deliver me in thy righteousness.
Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily:
be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.
For thou art my rock and my fortress;
therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me.
Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me:
for thou art my strength.
Into thine hand I commit my spirit:
thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
Psalm 31:1-5

Words like these are so true and so tender, revealing the heart of God for us. He is our Rock. He is our Fortress. He is our Defense. And yet, how inadequate are these words to convey the totality of God’s love for us. This psalm of David’s reveals David’s heart for God as well as God’s heart for His people. David speaks to God of his troubles, but he does not forget that God is his source of strength and safety. It is a praise, a prayer, a song of joy.

These things should be our daily reminders also.

God – Let me remember your guidance. I pray that I may be always trustful of You. You do hear my prayer. You do lead me into the place of safety. You are a place of refuge for me. I need to lean on You more often. I need to lean on You more completely. I need to make You my strength, and reject the strengths that I see in the world around me. The lure of the secular world leads me away from You, but still You are ready at any moment to give me guidance. If only I accept it.

My commitment to You is greater than yesterday, but I still do not rest in trust. Like a baby rests and sleeps in loving arms, so should I rest in Your strength and guidance. That is a true commitment of the spirit. I long for closeness with You, greater closeness every day. As I reach up my hand to You, I know that Your hand will be extended back to me in guidance. Thank you for Your redemption, Your deliverance and Your guidance.

Sign of Rain

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Matthew 5:45

Wouldn’t it be convenient if God was good only to the Good and the righteous person? Wouldn’t it be great if only the good person’s business prospered or if only the righteous person’s wealth increased? How simple it would be, to tell if someone was really good, really righteous. Just look at farmer Jones, he must be unrighteous, his garden didn’t get any rain last night, but farmer Smith’s garden has been gently watered all night! And the new store in town must be owned by a righteous man, because his sales are increasing. But the owner of the old store must be doing something evil, because no one buys from him anymore. Well, now we know who God approves of and who He does not!

And each of us would know the minute we did something wrong or walked away from God. We could go out every morning and see and feel the sunshine of God’s approval, or know that God had placed a cloud overhead. And how simple it would be to convince a person to accept Christ and become a believer: look, you want to prosper, to do well in life? Just become one of God’s children, and He will remove all your problems and give you ease and wealth. How convenient, how easy it would be for us!

But how hard-hearted this would make us. No need to love farmer Jones, he’s obviously an evil man. No need to make a choice to behave with consistency to all people; just ignore the unrighteous. And for ourselves, no need to search our own heart, no need to examine our own lives. Just look for that cloud to see if you are doing God’s will or not. And if the choice to become a Christian was based on material prosperity, would we value the sacrifice of Christ? How would we feel about a Savior who died so we could prosper in business?

God gives rain to all and He makes the truth of His Word available to all men. This shows the goodness of God. But it also means that we must make the choice to love others, even when others are failures, even when others reject God’s truth. It means we are in charge of our own daily walk. God doesn’t treat us like trained animals, who do tricks for a reward. We choose to be the children of God because He loves us. We choose to believe His promises because they were bought with a great price, and the result is a reward we will not see until the return of Christ.

A Fountain of Life

The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life,
to depart from the snares of death. Proverbs 14:27

God’s Word is renewed like a fountain. It provides an unending flow of pure life-giving water. God’s blessings are renewed continuously, like a fountain. When we fear (reverence) God, we remember this, and we put our reliance on God and His promises. And God does promise to send us help. He promises a powerful help, one that will save us from death and give us life that flows without end.

Only through the belief in the statements God makes can a human being be given eternal life. There simply is no other way. No other “god” or belief system holds out the possibility of eternal life to everyone. And no other “god” or belief system proposes that a reward after death can be obtained without great effort or sacrifice. God gives us this promise because He is good, because He is a good Father. Good fathers want to be with all their beloved children. Being in the presence of a good father is never so difficult that many children will fail to achieve it. A child might reject the father’s presence, but children are immature, and do not always know what is the greatest blessing.

We forget that our source of life is God, and that He alone can provide a full abundant life. A full and abundant life starts not with us, but with Him.

Citizenship

And be not conformed to this world… Romans 12:2

We are not citizens of this world. We have become God’s people, with citizenship in a new place. And yet, our bodies, our fleshly beings, are still present in the world. Our bodies are full of worldly needs, but our spirit and our inner being longs for God. No wonder we have conflict in the world. Our own nature wars against itself. Our mind tells us that we must live our lives by the rules of this world if we are to survive and to thrive. But God tells us that we do not belong here.

When we try to fit in to this world, we find the fit is very uncomfortable. The discomfort comes because when we try to conform to the world, we deny our own true nature; we deny that our citizenship is with God. Comfort comes when we act like what we are – God’s people. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the world or pretend that we have no interaction with it. We’re here – we’re just visiting.

Acting like one of God’s citizens is a lifelong learning process. It takes us years to learn about being a citizen of America, why should we expect to be instant citizens for God? To become a knowledgeable citizen of this country we study its history, laws and customs so we can act with understanding; in other words, we read the manual, and then put it into practice. Becoming God’s citizen is no different; read the manual, God’s written Word, and then put it into practice.

Prepare for the Blessing

Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours,

even empty vessels; borrow not a few. II Kings 4:3

This woman was in need. She was in need to the point of desperation. She had no way to pay the debts left by her husband when he died. The creditors were coming to take her two sons to be servants to pay off the debt. So she appealed to the prophet Elisha. Her only resource was a small amount of oil in a pot. From this seed, Elisha found a blessing for her to pay all the debts and still have money left over.

But first, a place had to be prepared for the oil. Elisha told her to borrow all the pots and vessels she could from her neighbors. This act of believing was in direct proportion to the size of the blessing her received.

And Cornelius waited for them,

and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. Acts 10:24

Cornelius also prepared to receive a blessing. He sent his servants to invite Peter to come and preach in his household. Before Peter arrived, Cornelius was so confident of receiving a blessing that he invited his kinsmen and friends to share it. What if Peter had refused to come? What if the servants were unable to find him? But Cornelius was full of belief in the surety of the blessing, and he also made a large preparation to receive.

…prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts,

if I will not open you the windows of heaven,

and pour you out a blessing,

that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Malachi 3:10

If you ask a blessing of God, prepare to receive it. Make a place for it. Both Cornelius and the widow woman took three crucial steps in obtaining a blessing. Each first asked. The widow asked Elisha and Cornelius asked Peter. Then each prepared the place for the blessing. Finally, they each acted to reach out for the blessing and take hold of it.

I Form the Light

I form the light, and create darkness:
I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:7

How can God, who is good, create darkness and evil? And we know that God is good; His goodness does not stop, but continues without change or end. His Word proclaims that …the goodness of God endureth continually… Psalm 52:1

The light that God creates is not just physical light. His Word, which is truth in spiritual matters, is light. Think of a room in late afternoon, when the light of the sun begins to dim. At first, your eyes adjust to the dimness, and you continue as when the light was brighter. But when you turn on the first lamp, shadows are created in the corners. The difference between light and dark becomes distinct. The far corner is no darker than it was before the light was turned on, but it appears darker because of the contrast with the light.

So does God’s Word reveal the untruth of the world around us. God does not create evil any more that you created darkness when you turned the light on. It is simply that His light reveals the darkness and makes it distinct from the light. We often become used to the uncaring world. We begin to expect the worst from people, and shrug off evil as something we must get used to. But like turning on a light in a dim room, the light of God’s Word reveals the evil around us, and makes us realize that it is evil. God also gives us a way out of evil; He promises us His goodness.

Our Help

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth. Psalm 121:1-2

The pagan altars were located on the hills. The Psalmist looked up and saw that he was surrounded by the worship of idols. But he knew that God does not dwell on the hills. God is not worshipped on the hills, and so our help does not come from there. Instead our help comes from God.