2008-07-25
Good Morning Cherished of God,
Last week, the Holy Spirit led me to continue writing about Christ’s list of do’s and don’ts in MT 6-7, part of His Sermon on the Mount. I’m led again to go on, this time discussing MT 6: 27, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” This question is the Lord’s way of saying, “Do not worry, for it’s a sign of weak of lack of faith.” The fact that He puts it as a question is designed to cause us to consider our approaches and habits, in an effort to see if they align with God’s will. I believe it was never God’s will to cause us to spend our lives worrying. He wants us to have deep, abiding faith in His promise to provide, to give counsel, to care for, and to see us through the challenges of our lives. Just look at these verses. On faith: HE 11: 6, “No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists and rewards those who seek Him.” What is faith? He answers in HE 11: 1, “To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.” On God’s provision: PS 37: 11, “But all who humble themselves before the Lord shall be given every blessing, and shall have wonderful peace.” PHIL 4: 19, “And with all His abundant wealth through Christ Jesus, my God will supply all your needs.” On God’s help in times of trouble: PS 46:1, “God is our Shelter and our Strength, always ready to help in times of trouble.” PS 34: 17, “The righteous call to the Lord and He listens; He rescues them from all their troubles.” And here’s a favorite of mine: PS 40: 1-2, “I waited patiently for the Lord’s help; then He listened to me and heard my cry. He pulled me out of a dangerous pit, out of the deadly quicksand. He set me safely on a Rock and made me secure.” On giving counsel: 2 TIM 3: 16-17, “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed.” PS 116: 1, “I love the Lord because He hears my prayers and answers them.” 2 THESS 2: 16-17, “May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, Who loved us and in His grace gave us unfailing courage and a firm hope, encourage you and strengthen you to always do and say what is good.” On caring for us: JN 10: 14-15, “I am the good Shepherd. As the Father knows Me and I know the Father, in the same way I know My sheep and they know Me. And I am willing to die for them.” 1 PET 5: 7, “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” JN 15: 13-15, “The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them. And you are My friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead I call you My friends, because I have told you everything I heard from My Father.”
These citations are only a sample of all contained in the Bible that are God’s promises to us. We can read the Bible from GN 1: 1 – REV 22: 21, but if we don’t believe what we have read, it is useless to us. The bottom line is that God’s word is the truth. The words and concepts need to travel from our brains to our hearts and then, to our hands. This is God’s will, as I understand it. Without really having faith, God’s wonderful promises, it is as 1 COR 2: 14 states, “the things of the Holy Spirit are seen as foolishness, because one has not received the Holy Spirit.” The Lord Jesus has told us that families may be split because of some members believing in Him and others rejecting Him, MT 10: 34-36. I know from all too painful personal experience the truth of these Christ-borne assertions. Our faith will be challenged. There will be times when we are called upon to make difficult judgments about relationships in our lives. There are tough choices that we must make in order to remain righteous. And yet with it all, we can be completely assured that the Lord will keep His promises. It may not be in the way or at the time we want, but it will be at His perfect time, His time to maximize the benefits of doing so. PS 138: 8, “You will do everything You have promised; Lord, Your love is eternal. Complete the work that You have begun.”
Worrying denies that God will do as the Psalmist pleads. It also denies the hindsight view that history gives us. If we ever worried that God will protect the true believer, look what happened to Paul and Silas imprisoned by persecutors in Philippi, in AC 16: 25-26, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a violent earthquake, which shook the prison to its foundations. At once all the doors opened, and the chains fell off all the prisoners.” Later, the jailer himself and his family were opened by the Holy Spirit, at Paul’s and Silas’ prompting, to faith in the Lord Jesus. PR 30: 5, “God keeps every promise He makes. He is like a shield for all who see His protection.” While miracles like that which happened to Paul and Silas cannot be ordered and conjured up by humans, God is willing to pull out all the stops in order to keep His promises. I’m sure He is careful not to make promises He can’t or won’t keep. Through the death of Christ and the Son’s ensuing resurrection, God has beaten the evil one’s desire to bring all mankind to spiritual death. Christ is the Victor over death, and that is why His words to us to repent and believe in Him are so valuable to true believers [HE 2: 14-15]. If we think about it, with righteous living and true faith, we have no need to worry.
PRAYER: O Lord, You place enough trust in us that You give us a list of do’s and don’ts in the Sermon on the Mount to tell us that there are certain judgments You want us to make. On the other hand, there are subjects, like the granting and taking away of human life, that only You should handle. As the Coordinator of a huge prayer chain, I received a request to pray for comfort for a Dutch family in which a newly widowed member went to her doctor to be euthanized [artificially have her life ended]. She wanted to “join her husband in death.” That flies in the face of Your teaching, and true believers have a hard enough time with it. This is because we know it has over-stepped Your rightful boundaries of judgment. Yet, You have given us problems, weighty for humans, which lead us to make difficult judgments. It is our hope that these decisions are in line with Your will. In the matter of worrying, You tell us “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” [MT 6: 27]. That question begs us to meditate upon Your utter sovereignty in the matter of life and death, Your ultimate power to give us wise advice. PS 76: 9, 12, “You made Your judgment known from heaven; the world was afraid and kept silent, when You rose up and pronounced judgment, to save all the oppressed on earth…God makes men fear Him; He humbles proud princes and terrifies great kings.” PS 147: 5 reveals Your omniscience. “Our Lord is great and very powerful. There is no limit to what He knows.” With such power used for good, it is illogical for believing mankind to worry. With a life lived in accordance with Your will, Dearest Abba, we can settle in to a close, personal and trusting relationship with You. PS 21: 11-12, “They [God’s enemies] make their plan and plot. He will shoot His arrows at them and make them turn and run.” We love You and offer You our praise and thanks for Your marvelous presence and availability in our lives. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen.
Next week, we will continue examining the list of do’s and don’ts in MT 6-7. At the end, I will give a summary of them, so they can be seen altogether. If there is something that gives me personal comfort, it is knowing from the Scriptures about God’s attitude toward the promises He makes. PHIL 1: 6, “And so I am sure that God, Who began a great work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus,” Paul wrote. Think about this. The Day of Christ is the Day we are taken up to heaven in our glorification. The great work in us, our sanctification, was begun when Christ atoned for the sins of the world on the cross, and we came to believe in Him after repenting of our sins. We were justified, i.e. deemed acceptable in the Lord’s eyes, at that time [GN 15: 6; RO 4: 3, 5]. God’s toil to sanctify us, i.e. perfect us, has been on-going ever since we came to faith. PS 66: 10-12, “You have purified us with fire, O Lord, like silver in a crucible. You captured us in Your net and laid great burdens on our backs. You sent troops to ride across our broken bodies. We went through fire and flood. But in the end, You brought us into wealth and great abundance.” That wealth is not earthly material wealth; it is the spiritual and eternal wealth of life in close fellowship with You in heaven. That is our future glorification. The road of sanctification is hard work on both God’s part and ours. We can be forever grateful to Him that He cares enough for us to do it [1 PET 5: 7]. He wants us to know Him better, so “He constantly renews us in His own image” [COL 3: 10]. Yes, our God teaches us to live righteously, make reasonable judgments minding His boundaries, and models for us the perfect Promise-keeper. Live according to His will, and there is never a need to worry. PS 121: 8, “The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever.” Praise be to Him!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn