Wednesday, December
19, 2012, 7:09 a.m. – the Lord Jesus woke me with the song “Not Be Silent”
playing in my mind. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Psalm 37 (quoting vv. 1-9; 39-40 in the
NIV 1984):
Do not fret because of
evil men
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass
they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.
Trust in the Lord and
do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
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 do this:
He will make your
righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday
sun.
Be still before the
Lord and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.
Refrain from anger and
turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For evil men will be
cut off,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit
the land…
The salvation of the
righteous comes from the Lord;
he is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The Lord helps them
and delivers them;
he delivers them from the wicked and saves
them,
because they take refuge in him.
Do Not Fret!
If we “fret” about something, it means we fear, worry,
agonize, upset ourselves, and/or we are “irritated or agitated about something”
(Encarta). Worry is the opposite of faith and trust. The New Testament has much
to say on this subject:
“Therefore I tell you,
do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body,
what you will wear… Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?…your
heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (see Matt.
6:25-34).
But even if you should
suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not
be frightened” (1 Pet. 3:14).
“There is no fear in
love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 Jn. 4:18).
So we say with
confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to
me?” (Heb. 13:6)
“Do not be afraid of
what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in
prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful,
even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev.
2:10).
This passage in Psalm 37 offers us at least five solutions
to this problem of fear and fret:
Trust in the Lord
The remedy for or the antidote to fear is faith and trust in
the Lord, that he is who he says he is, and that he will do what he says he
will do. So, when we find ourselves - and I preach this to myself - starting to
fear or to be anxious over the circumstances of our lives, we need to step
back, evaluate, pray, and examine our own hearts. And then we need to give
these worries one by one over to God. I had to do some of that myself
yesterday.
We need to pray for wisdom to know the right types of action
that we are to take, including knowing when it is time to just wait on God’s
perfect timing. God gives us these emotions for a reason. Anger and fear are
great motivating emotions that should drive us to some type of action, whether
to quiet rest in the Lord and nothing else, or whether in trusting the Lord for
the wisdom to know the right steps to take next. Either way, what we do is
based in trust and faith in the Lord and not in our own resources, human
understanding or strength. Our dependency is completely on the Lord to show us
what course of action we are to take next. And, sometimes he answers “wait,”
and so we must wait on his timing.
Delight in Him
For us to delight in the Lord, it means that we have “great
enjoyment and pleasure” in him, and that we “derive joy” from him. When we are
worrying and fretting over the circumstances of our lives, our eyes and minds
are on the situations of our lives, and we have gotten our eyes and minds off
of the Lord Jesus. So, if we want to cease worrying, we need to replace our
fears with times of praise and adoration of God in song, in prayer, in word and
in deed. We need to concentrate on the goodness of God and all that he has
provided for us, and we need to take time to just enjoy our Lord Jesus!
This does not mean we cease being concerned over the things God
is concerned over, and that we now focus our minds and attention on
self-pleasure and enjoyment as a way to escape the realities of life around us.
Yet, it means we trust the Lord, we pray, we place everything in his hands, we
seek his face for wisdom and understanding to know what steps we need to take,
and we choose to rejoice in him and to enjoy him even in the face of all kinds of
stuff that may be going wrong around us. Singing hymns and spiritual songs
lifts my spirits so many times! And many times, when we are receptive, God will
send us his messengers to speak his words of encouragement to us at just the
time when we need them. He did that for me today! Thank you Jesus!
Commit your way to
Him
If we commit our ways to the Lord, it means that we “pledge
devotion or dedication” to him or we “promise resources” “such as time or money”
to him. A commitment basically is a pledge or a promise to obligate ourselves
to something or to someone. Yet, it also means to “entrust; give; hand over; or
turn over” our lives to God in full surrender to his will and to his ways that
he has planned for our lives. So, this isn’t about us just doing things for God
according to our wills and decisions with regard to what we are willing to do,
but this has to do with total surrender of our lives to God (see Rom. 12:1-2).
Both the Old and the New Testaments speak to this issue of
God not being pleased with our “sacrifices” we are willing to offer to him, but
what he is pleased with are broken and contrite hearts and lives given on the
altar of sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, no longer conformed to the ways
of this world, but transformed in mind and heart by the working and power of
the Holy Spirit of God within us. When we commit our ways to the Lord, we give
it all to him, and we choose to walk in his ways from this point on, allowing
him to lead, guide and direct our paths day in and day out according to his
plans and purposes for our lives.
Be still before Him
I think that Americans probably have difficulty with this
concept of being still, because we live in such a fast society with high speed
internet access, fast food service, instant this or that, and we are always
looking to make everything faster and more time efficient. Even in the church
we can be loaded down with activity after activity to where we wear ourselves
out just “doing.” TV programs, commercials, the internet, smart boards in
schools, video games, movies, smart phones, electronic tablets (like I-Pads), etc.
prepare our minds to have to have things constantly moving and on the go. I
think, perhaps, one of Satan’s greatest weapons against us is to keep us so
busy and electronically plugged in all the time to where we don’t take the time
to just sit quietly before God to hear him speak.
We have to have those times with our Lord each day, and I am
not speaking merely of a five to fifteen minute quiet time each day while the
rest of the day is spent doing what we want, either. We need to stop and be
still before the Lord periodically throughout the day and even in the night
just so we can hear him speak to our hearts. When we find our minds racing
ahead with all the stuff we have to get done or all the activities with which
we are involved, we need to slow down, breathe in and breathe out, and we need
to just reflect on who God is and why he created us and what purpose we are to
serve on this planet earth in the time he has allotted for us, and we just need
to listen to his voice and then obey him.
Refrain from anger
When we fail to exercise trust, faith, delighting in and
enjoying the Lord, committing our ways to him, and being still before him and
waiting patiently on him, and we allow the circumstances of our lives and our
fears about them to compound and to build up inside us, it will come out either
in anger, frustration, hateful speech, bitterness, depression, exasperation, an
uncontrolled tongue, misunderstandings and/or outbursts of other kinds. We can’t
stuff it forever. The Bible says that out of the overflow of the heart the
mouth speaks. What is built up in our hearts is bound to eventually spill out,
and that is most often not a good thing.
So, if we want to avoid these kinds of “overflows” from our
hearts, then we need to guard our hearts and minds against giving way to fear
and to worry, and we need to regularly practice deep breathing and being still
before God and giving the circumstances of our lives over to him in complete
surrender, praying for wisdom to know when to just wait on God and when God has
something he wants us to do, but never to take matters into our own hands,
thinking we know best. When we try to resolve our own problems, often times it
will just blow up in our faces. This is not to say that following God’s
directives always turn out like we might hope, i.e. without difficulty, but
when we place our hope and trust in the Lord for the results, then we can be at
peace, knowing God will accomplish his purposes.
Our Salvation
The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord. This
salvation is not speaking necessarily of our salvation from sin, though it is
part of it, but this has to do with being rescued from our times of trouble and
distress. Because Jesus Christ died on the cross to save us from sins, nonetheless,
and he has come to indwell the lives of believers in Jesus Christ in the person
of his Holy Spirit, we have our Lord with us and within us all the time giving
us all that we need to withstand difficulties, giving us strength and purpose
in all of our troubles, and granting us wisdom from above to know how to rest
in him and in his many promises to us, and in how to trust him with the
circumstances of our lives. He is our stronghold in times of trouble and
distress!
The Lord Jesus will deliver us, though not necessarily out
of the circumstances themselves, but he will show us the way out from
underneath the burden of them so that we can find rest in him. He may not
physically deliver us out of the hands of the wicked – case in point found in
Revelation 13 – but he will deliver us from the fear of man and what man can do
to us by giving us the correct perspective on life and on our relationship with
him. He can help us to see that our lives are secure in him no matter what man
does to us, and so we rest in our faith, and we trust the Lord completely with
our lives that he will work everything out for our good. Amen!
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!
Notation: All
word definitions came from Encarta Dictionary.
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