“Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;
all day long an attacker oppresses me;
my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many attack me proudly.
When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me?
“All day long they injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
They stir up strife, they lurk;
they watch my steps,
as they have waited for my life.
For their crime will they escape?
In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
“You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?” (Psalms 56:1-11 ESV)
I live in the United States of America, so a lot of this today is going to be geared toward my nation, but the overall message can apply to any nation, for it applies to all of us with regard to whom we are placing our trust.
If we could all see our nations and our governments through the eyes of God and through the lens of reality, I believe we might be surprised at finding out who our true enemies are and who they are not. Especially this is true for us here in America who have been taught from very early on in our lives to put hand over heart and to pledge (vow) allegiance (loyalty, devotion, worship) to the US flag and to the republic (form of government) for which it stands.
And this pledge states that we are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That just isn’t true. And if we do some research on our beginnings as a nation, I believe we would learn that we have never been one nation of people under the one true and only God of this universe who created the world and all that is living on the earth. For our national religion was also founded on Free Masonry and Unitarian Universalism, so very eclectic. And much of Washington, D.C., is patterned after Greek, Roman, and Egyptian gods and goddesses and their temples of worship.
Anyway, we were brought up that when we are told to stand and to say the pledge of allegiance (worship) to our government, that we are all to stand, put hand over heart, and vow our undying loyalty to our government. And then we were also taught to sing patriotic songs to our nation, which are songs of worship of our government. And we were trained to honor our military as our heroes and as our saviors who are going into all these other nations with guns, et al, in order to protect us against “our enemies.”
So, we were brought up to believe that America, we are the “good guys,” and that we have to go to war with all these other nations because they are the “bad guys,” or that we need to go to war in these other nations to take out “the terrorists” in order to protect our own people. And so we are led to believe that our nation is the “good guys” and that our leaders are all working for our good to protect their own people and to do what is best for us. But what if that is all a lie? And we have been deceived? And we are not the “good guys,” but we are really the world’s worst terrorists?
For you see, things aren’t always as they appear to be, and liars abound everywhere – in the news media, in the world of entertainment, in the government, and even in “the churches” (human religious institutions). So we can’t really trust that people are really who they say that they are, or that our government is really who they say they are. So we should test everything. And if we pray about this earnestly, and we seek God’s face, and we ask him to show us the lies that we are believing, I believe he will show us the truth and the lies, if we are honestly desiring to know the truth.
But it is good if we are willing to do this, for some of us may be believing lies and not the truth, and we may have this idea that we can trust our government(s) and the media and the church to tell us the truth. And we may also have wrong thinking with regard to who our true enemies are, too, so that we end up on the wrong side, being against those who we are persecuting (as a nation) while supporting those and pledging our devotion to those who are really our enemies, and who are not looking out for our good, and who are not telling us the truth about what they are doing.
Now if someone is physically or mentally or emotionally abusing you, you can say with certainty that this is someone who is trampling you, for you are an eyewitness to what is being done against you. But be very careful about assigning blame where you don’t really know what is going on but all you have to go by is what you are being told, for those people could well be lying to you and deceiving you. For you may be rising up against those who are the “good guys” while you are supporting and giving your loyalty to the true “bad guys.” And besides that, we are not to put our trust in humans.
And that really is the bottom line here. For those who we think are on our side may really be our worst enemies. And human beings are bound to fail us. And they may lead us in the wrong direction. And we could end up worshiping “the beast” without even realizing it, if we are not listening to the Lord and asking him to open our eyes to separate the truth from the lies. So we really need to be taking all these matters to the Lord in prayer, especially as this is an election year in the USA, and so many people are looking to man to save them, when those same men may be their true enemies.
Make the Lord your trust. And if you are going to say, “In God I trust,” that means that you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ to do his will and purpose for your life, and to now follow him in obedience wherever he leads you, even if it means standing alone, or not standing and pledging allegiance to a human government when everyone else around you is standing with hand over heart and making that vow of loyalty to this government of the USA. For we are not to vow our unquestioning loyalty and devotion to human beings but to God alone. For we may be unknowingly worshiping “the beast.”
Myopic
An Original Work / August 19, 2013
Based off 2 Peter 1:3-11
Jesus has given ev’rything
Needed for life and godliness.
His great and precious promises
Free us from our sin and distress.
Add to your faith His goodness;
Knowledge; patience; godliness;
Brotherly love and mutual affection;
Kindness and unselfishness.
If you possess these qualities,
Growing in your maturity,
They will keep you from vanity.
You will bear fruit effectually.
Nonetheless, if you lack them;
Forget you’ve been cleansed from sin,
Nearsighted are you; you can’t see Jesus.
You have closed your heart to Him.
Therefore, beloved, confirm, then,
Your calling and your election.
Do this by showing diligence:
Obey your Lord; be repentant.
Practice all these qualities
God provided on a tree.
He died for our sins so we’d be given
Life with Him eternally.
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