FreeTruth

So in Psalm 37:4 we are told to "delight in God and He will give us the desires of our heart." As mentioned yesterday this is a way of saying that when evildoers seemingly have the upper hand (which is the case in Psalm 37 and today), believers must gaze at God with affection and delight rather than at their surrounding circumstances or the powers that be.

In so doing their fear, fretting, and fuming will dissipate, and their desires (for more of God and grace and joy) will increase. The spiritual formula is really quite simple, even if not always easy to apply. Here it is: In hard times, delight in God. When times grow dark gaze at the Light. When times are tough, turn to the bright, pleasing, satisfying Wonder, whose name is God.

When you do, fear will be expelled and desires satisfied.

One reason why so many Christians today are all hot and bothered to the point of spiritual distraction is because they are spending far more time gazing at problems than at the God above those problems. Time doesn't permit me to expound at length about how to remedy this, but can I suggest a simple piece of advice (which I know you're all smart enough to figure out how to apply)?

For every ten minutes you spend watching the news, evaluating economic and political theory, critiquing politicians, reading the lastest alarms from conservative watchdog groups, or keeping current on the latest scandal in Washington or on Main Street, spend an hour delighting in God.

I'm not exaggerating or kidding. Ten minutes watching the news should be preceded or followed by an hour in the Word of God or prayer or fellowship with believers or reading a book extolling the attributes or gospel or grace or glory or sovereignty of God.

Delight in God and he will give you the desires of your heart. Wallow in the gutter of political thuggery and theory or cultural decay and you will only get mad and afraid.

I heard yesterday (in a conversation) about a local civic leader apparently taken down in an FBI investigation. Guess what: in a total of five minutes of conversation and follow up reading I knew all I needed to know about it. If I spend any more time on it, I lose joy, fuel anger, get weak, start sinning.

I can get all the news I really need daily in a very few minutes of headline reading. More than that and I'm headed for the gutter. Instead I choose to spend my time beholding the One whose glory fills the earth and whose hand rules the nations.

Delighting in God, I get more of God and all the joy he gives, even when the world is upside down with corruption.

Today's thought.

Labels: christian life, Culture War, Faith, Joy in Trials, Persecution, Social Action, Trust

Psalm 37:1-40 is as good a soul-antibiotic as you'll find anywhere to remedy the disease of discontented rage infecting Christians in our topsy-turvy world today.

The first call of the Psalm is for us to trust; to trust God and commit our way to him. But why trust God? What do we know about God that is worthy of such trust when jobs are lost, careers screech to a halt, freedoms are curtailed, politicians remake our country, evildoers conspire in back rooms, and cultural morals sink lower (and stink more) than a cess pool?

I count no less than a dozen promises from God and about God that David passes on to us to undergird our trust in him. Let me point out a few:

1. God will break, crush, wither up, laugh at, obliterate, cut off, and in all other ways destroy the wicked (Psalm 37:2, 9, 10, 13, 17, 20, 34, 36, 38). God doesn't put up with wicked nonsense for long. There will be a day--in this world and in the next--when they will meet their end.
2. God will act (Psalm 37:5). I love that. Aslan is on the move. God moves, acts, works, does, rules, all to enact his plans. God is not silent and he's never still.
3. God will make justice blaze like the noonday sun (Psalm 37:6). Are we really being wronged? It'll be made right. Are our rights really being violated? God will not let that stand. Is injustice really happening? We need not fuss, fume, and fight for our rights. God will never let it go unresolved.
4. God is multi-generationally committed (Psalm 37:18, 25, 26). God loves us and our children. While evildoers will come and go, our children will remain forever, the blessed of the Lord. Friends: don't worry too much about your children's future in this mixed up nearly bankrupt world. They'll be fine. God has promised to see to it himself.
5. God is a spiritual hedonist (Psalm 37:4). Delight yourself in God (we hope to discuss how to do that tomorrow) and he'll give you your desires (i.e.-your delights and cravings). Think about that and you'll realize that it means that if you delight yourself in God, making him you highest desire and joy, you'll get more of God. God knows how to make his children happy, filling them with pleasure. It's by giving us himself during the raging afflictions of life.

Friends: don't curse the day or bemoan the times. Today's crises fuel the furnace out of which the pure gold of knowing God and delighting in God emerge. God loves to please us, so he's promised to give us our deepest desire: to know and be known by him. The Bible and experience tell us that trials, tribulations, thieves, and thugs do not diminish the believer's joy; they accentuate and increase it.

So let us embrace these troubled times as a gift from God through which he is going to give us more of himself! Do not fret over evildoers, for what man means for evil, God means for very great, very enjoyable, very satisfying good.

Labels: Culture War, Faith, Joy in Trials, Persecution, politics, Trust

I'm tired and a bit worn, but I don't want another day to pass without checking in with you friends. Here are a few unpolished thoughts.

In preparation for worship yesterday morning, I thought that in asking our folks to come and sing together in the shadow of the deep trials of recent days, we would be asking for a miracle of grace. Who feels like singing for joy when their hearts are racked with grief?

Then it hit me with prophetic-like force (at least as I understand NT prophecy) that this is what God does in the hearts of His children. "Singing from a dungeon" was the image which came to mind. God reminded me of the Paul/Silas dungeon experience in Acts 16:16-25. Here were two saints--slandered, beaten, hated, falsely accused, left in a dungeon, unsure what the next day would bring. As darkness descended and the open wounds of their beaten backs festered, midnight struck.

What does a God-entranced Christian do when midnight strikes in a dungeon, and wounds are festering in body and spirit? These Christians sang. I don't think this means they "liked" where they were or what was happening to them. I don't think they thought: "Hey isn't this fun?!"

But they knew God and that God was in it, would be with them through it, and would be at the end of it. And they could sing hymns as a result. They were happy and sad at the same time.

So I arrived at our place of worship yesterday asking God to put a song in the hearts of all his saints as they still hung in the shadows of recent griefs. I asked God to help a song to emerge from the midnight dungeon of our griefs. And it did.

Tears, both of sorrow and of joy "flowed mingled down" as we sang and praised and grieved and trusted and hoped and loved all at once.

This is the mystery of grace, the wonder of knowing God and loving His church. People often ask me how I'm doing in life and ministry. And I simply have to be honest to say: "I'm always happy and always sad." There is not one hint of exaggeration in that response. It is the full honest truth.

Not a day of my life passes in which I do not feel a fulness of hopeful joy in the love, grace and sovereign all-wise plan of God. And not a day goes by in which I do not feel a deep tearful sadness in my soul over the sorrows and sins in my life and in the life of the family and flock entrusted to my care. Give me 60 seconds and I could cry either way.

When Paul says: "I'm sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (see 2 Corinthians 6:1-10), I know exactly what he means, and so does every caring, sensitive, God-trusting and others-loving heart. Friends, I encourage you this day to weep, and to weep with those who weep, but at the same time to feel the joy of knowing and loving God, and knowing that you are loved by Him.

That way you and others can hear songs being sung, even in the midnight dungeon hours of our trials. In this people will know that the Lord is enough for us, even as he leads us through the night.

Grace and peace to you.

Labels: Joy in Trials, Suffering