Friday, December 28,
2012, 3:00 a.m. – I woke up very early this morning. The time on the clock
read 2:18 a.m. The song “Not Be Silent”
was playing in my mind. I tried to fall back to sleep, but to no avail. My
husband was wide awake, as well, so we both got up. Speak, Lord, for your
servant is listening. I read Psalm 66
(NIV 1984):
Shout with joy to God,
all the earth!
Sing the glory of his name;
make his praise glorious!
Say to God, “How
awesome are your deeds!
So great is your power
that your enemies cringe before you.
All the earth bows
down to you;
they sing praise to you,
they sing praise to your name.” Selah
Come and see what God
has done,
how awesome his works in man’s behalf!
He turned the sea into
dry land,
they passed through the waters on foot—
come, let us rejoice in him.
He rules forever by
his power,
his eyes watch the nations—
let not the rebellious rise up against him.
Selah
Praise our God, O
peoples,
let the sound of his praise be heard;
he has preserved our
lives
and kept our feet from slipping.
For you, O God, tested
us;
you refined us like silver.
You brought us into
prison
and laid burdens on our backs.
You let men ride over
our heads;
we went through fire and water,
but you brought us to a place of abundance.
I will come to your
temple with burnt offerings
and fulfill my vows to you—
vows my lips promised
and my mouth spoke
when I was in trouble.
I will sacrifice fat
animals to you
and an offering of rams;
I will offer bulls and goats. Selah
Come and listen, all
you who fear God;
let me tell you what he has done for me.
I cried out to him
with my mouth;
his praise was on my tongue.
If I had cherished sin
in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened;
but God has surely
listened
and heard my voice in prayer.
Praise be to God,
who has not rejected my prayer
or withheld his love from me!
Refining Process
In the process of refining silver, the scrap silver and
silver ore must be heated to a high temperature in a furnace specifically
designed for that purpose, in order to separate the pure silver from the dross
(trash; waste; junk). [Resource: eHow.com]
All throughout Biblical history, both in the Old and in the
New Testament times, God allowed or he brought upon his people times of trial
and hardship in order to test the purity of their faith in God, i.e. he took
them through this refining process. God did not need this in order for him to
know if his people were true to him or not, so the test was not for his
benefit, but he tested and tried his people in order to refine them, to mature
them, and to remove all the impurities (the dross) from their lives, i.e. to
separate the impure from the pure.
So, when we go through difficult times that test our faith,
and we allow God to work his will in our lives and to change us where we need
it, these trying times should strengthen our faith, should teach us perseverance,
should grow us and mature us spiritually, should deepen our understanding of
who God is and how he works in our lives, and they should also help to strengthen
our resolve to live holy lives committed unto God/Christ Jesus.
If and when we respond appropriately to God’s refining
process in our lives, the end result should be that God is able to remove the
dross (junk; trash; waste) from our lives, we should be transformed in heart
and mind, and we should be made new in Christ Jesus. This refining process is
not for the unsaved to find Christ in salvation, though that, too, may be a
result of this process, but this is to revive the hearts of professing
followers of Jesus Christ by moving them to willingly let go of all the junk in
their lives that stands in opposition to God’s holiness and righteousness, and
then for them to be refreshed spiritually in their commitments to obey Jesus
Christ in all ways and to follow him wherever he leads us.
How Awesome!
This psalm recollects God’s deliverance of his people from
slavery in Egypt and his miracle of parting the waters at the Red Sea so that
they could go across to the other side on dry ground.
When the king of Egypt was told that the Israelites had left
Egypt, “Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds” about letting the people
go, and they pursued them. When the Israelites saw the armies of Pharaoh
approaching, they cried out to God. Moses told the people: “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will
see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The
Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The
Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exodus 14:13-14 NIV 1984).
Moses, on God’s command, stretched out his
hand over the sea, “the waters were
divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of
water on their right and on their left.” Yet, when the Egyptians pursued
the Israelites into the sea, God commanded Moses to stretch his hand over the
sea again, only this time to send the sea back into its place. The Egyptians
who were pursuing the Israelites drowned in the sea, so God physically delivered
his people out of the hands of their enemies (see Exodus 14).
When we respond in faith and obedience through this refining
process God allows and/or brings about in our lives, we, too, will experience
the awesomeness of God in how he works in our behalf. And, we will experience his
deliverance on multiple levels, too.
Deliverance from Sin
The most important deliverance we will ever come to know in
this life is our salvation from death to life by God’s grace through faith in
Jesus Christ, God the Son. Jesus Christ came to earth, took on human flesh,
became a man, suffered as we suffer and was tempted as we are tempted, yet
without sin, and then was hung on a cross to die, although he had committed no
wrong but had done only good. Yet, this was God’s plan that he would suffer and
die for our sins so that we could go free, not only from eternal damnation (the
ultimate penalty of sin), but so we would be free from slavery to sin, and so
we would be free to live for God in true righteousness and holiness.
We come to faith in Jesus Christ via repentance and
obedience (see Luke 9:23-25; Eph. 4:17-24). We willingly choose to die to our old
lives of sin, to be transformed in heart and mind by the working and power of
the Holy Spirit of God within us, to turn to follow (obey) Jesus Christ with
our lives, and to surrender our wills to the will of the Father in heaven. When
we do this, and we allow the Holy Spirit of God to do his work in our hearts in
taking us from death to life in Christ, then we are delivered from slavery to
sin, which the Israelites’ deliverance from slavery in Egypt symbolized. And,
we are brought into God’s eternal kingdom, which their crossing the Red Sea and
the Jordan River also symbolized, as they were being brought into the Promised
Land, which symbolized our eternity with God.
Daily Deliverance
Yet, they did not immediately enter into the Promised Land.
God took them through a time in the wilderness in order to test them. Most of
them flunked the test. They chose, instead, to follow the gods of their own
stomachs (appetites), they disobeyed God, they turned to other gods, and they
grumbled against Moses, God’s servant.
As well, when we invite Jesus Christ into our lives to be
our Lord and Savior, by faith, we don’t immediately die and go to heaven (our
Promised Land). Most of us will still have time on this earth in which to grow
in Christ, to serve our Lord faithfully, to be his witnesses to the regions
beyond, to love others, to share the truth of the gospel, to teach others to
obey Christ and his commands, to fellowship with Christ’s church, his body, and
to draw near to our Lord in close communion with him, at which time we will
listen to what he says, and then we will obey what he shows us. This time on
earth between our initial faith in Christ and our ultimate reward in heaven
will bring along with it hardships, persecutions, famine and sword, i.e. trials
to test our faith and to refine us like silver, in order for us to be refined
and purified by God’s grace in order to make us holy.
And, God has many levels of deliverance in mind for us
during this time, as well. His deliverance from sin at our salvation is not the
end of the story. Daily he delivers us from temptation, if we let him, and he
gives us the wisdom, strength and power to resist Satan and to draw near to
God. He supplies us with spiritual armor (see Ephesians 6:10-20) with which to
fight off Satan’s attacks against our minds and hearts, and he daily fills us
with his calm reassurances, reminders of his many promises to us, and his love
and his peace. As well, he counsels us and directs us in the way we should go. How
awesome are his works in our behalf! How awesome are his deeds! All we have to
do is to listen and to obey, and his grace supplies us with the ability to even
do that and so much more!
Not Be Silent /
An Original Work / December 3, 2012
Based off Psalm 30
O Lord my God,
I’ll exalt You.
I called for help,
And You healed me.
O Lord my God,
You brought me from
the grave.
You spared me from
hell.
Sing to the Lord,
You saints of His;
Praise His holy name
today.
Weeping may
Remain for a night;
Joy at break of day.
Our debt He did pay!
O Lord my God,
I said, “I will
Ne’er be shaken.”
Secure, I felt.
O Lord my God,
You forgave me.
Confident I stand in
You.
When I could not see
Your face I was
dismayed.
I called to You.
O Lord, You are my
help.
You were merciful to
me;
By Your grace set
free!
O Lord my God,
I’m so thankful for
Salvation through my
Jesus.
You turned wailing
Into dancing;
Clothed me with
Your joy today,
That my heart may sing
To You and not be
silent.
Praise Your name.
O Lord my God,
I will give you
thanks forevermore.
My Lord, I adore!
No comments:
Post a Comment