Trust ye in the LORD for ever
Isaiah {26:2} Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in. {26:3} Thou wilt keep [him] in perfect peace, [whose] mind[is] stayed [on thee:] because he trusteth in thee. {26:4} Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH [is] everlasting strength
Which keeps the truth.
The truth.
There are fundamental aspects to the Bible we keep coming back to. There are certain aspects in the Word of God that are prominent and shout for attention.
The truth shouts loudly and demands to be heard.
Only a righteous nation will keep the truth. Only righteous people will keep the truth.
Jesus is the truth.
All other rigteousness is deception.
When we hear people loudly proclaim that we are being too limiting in our demand that Jesus is the Truth, we know they are being led by Satan. Maybe not completely trapped by Him but led by Him. I'll readily agree that I let myself be led by Satan for a long time. That I was one of those who readily accepted the belief that God would save good people no matter what. That God to be a loving God would have to save all those who had good intentions in their hearts because He knows the heart. I believed it didn't matter what you believed, even if you practiced devil worship and hurt no one doing it as long as you did it with a good heart God would understand. It sounds so idyllic. Believe what you want and as long as you're a nice person you're saved. Where is that in the Bible? Oh, that's right, who needs the Bible, all you have to do is be nice, have a good, kind heart and that's that.
We can't seem to acquaint niceness with evil. The two are at odds, opposites like black and white. We see a nice person and we think good. We see a bad person and we think evil. If niceness is good, then the murderer with his nice smile helping an old lady with her groceries every week, checking on her every afternoon to make sure she's okay and needs nothing, then is he good or bad? His niceness is surely good, but his evil isn't. When he strangles that young woman every month or so it's pure evil, right? And yet he has on the guise of goodness.
Not all goodness, not all those who are super nice people we would never dream of being bad, not all those who live in harmony with the world and people around them- not even the people who are truly good and are murderers in disguise, will be God's.
We can't equate niceness with salvation.
We can't point a finger and say, my friend so and so is sooooo sweet, they're definitely saved. We can't say that of anyone, we don't know the hearts, we don't know the walk they have with Christ.
We sometimes can know that they don't believe in salvation by grace through Jesus Christ our Lord, they'll tell us they don't believe in the God stuff. But even then we cannot judge their eternal life as if we know for certain they'll never accept Jesus as their Savior.
We see through a glass darkly--
1 Cor. {13:12} For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
We don't see the eternal, we only see bits and pieces of lives people choose to let us see and no more.
There are truths, basic truths and the Bible is very big on the truth because it is the truth in Jesus that saves us. It is the truth that sets us free.
Christ is our righteousness and this is the Truth. Truth is our righteousness. Keeping the truth in Jesus Christ, keeping that and holding it dear to us, keeping it as we breath in air, such as sustains our lives, this is what will give us eternal life.
Isaiah {26:3} Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
Like the air we breath, we live by the grace and mercy of Jesus, trusting in Him now and forever through all.
Perfect peace in a world full of turmoil seems all but impossible. Perfect peace when the world comes crashing down around you and threatens your very ability to sustain your life, impossible? When all hope seems gone, hope is all we have to cling to. Our hope in Jesus. Our trust in Jesus. Our faith in Jesus.
Why is it call perfect peace? Because any other peace is imperfect. All the peace the world offers to us is imperfect and can be taken from us in the blink of an eye. Peace that is dependent upon Jesus and Jesus alone is perfect peace.
When our minds are stayed upon someone we can't stop thinking about them. We think about them during all we do.
Remember being newly in love? Remember that feeling of having thoughts of another bring a smile to your lips? Remember being caught day dreaming away? Remember waking up and thinking of someone? Remember having the hope in you of seeing that person, hearing from them, of constantly living in the hope of being with that person? We place our hopes on them and then when things interfere we get upset because we aren't able to be with them, to hear from them, and it just brings a weight down on us until we can once again renew the hope of a future meeting, until we can grasp hold of the anticipation once more and place our hope in that future.
We understand this on a human to human level and we need to understand it on a human to human/God level. We need to have our minds stayed upon Jesus.
Stayed upon meaning we can't take our minds off Jesus, they need to be stayed upon the Hope, the Way, the Truth, the Life, Jesus Christ our Savior!
{26:4} Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH [is] everlasting strength
By the grace and mercy of Jesus, may our trust in the Lord be forever, may our minds be stayed upon Jesus, and may we find peace in Jesus.
Amen.
3/9/10
Deu 8:11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments...
We aren't raised to worship. We aren't. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that most of us aren't raised to worship God. I must had God because we are raised to worship at the alter of self-serving. Worship as I was growing up meant getting dressed in my Sunday best and going off to Sunday school for an hour and then to Sunday service for another hour and then once I returned home off came the Sunday best and it was put away until the next week. Two hours with a little extra for travel thrown in, so let's round it off to three hours and then worshipping God was all over. The rest of the day wasn't a normal day though, not really. It was the day to get in all the fun we could because the next day was a school day and everyone knew that school interfered with having fun. At worst, the rest of the day meant cramming in the free time fun and possibly a few hours of homework study before school came all too fast the next day. We were taught to compartmentalize God into that two hours and into before dinner prayers, and a quick learned by rote night time prayer. God was in our lives just put into little time slots.
A day of restful worship of God wasn't always a day of restful worship but rather a few hours of rest in worship and then back into the grind of things. Even my father used that day for yard working and my mother for preparing nice meals- work. A day of worship didn't mean a full day of worship and so the reality of God setting aside an entire 24 hour period seems almost ludicrous. 24 hours spent worshipping God? But how? What happens after the two hours of worship with others (if that is what one does in light of all the knowledge out there)?
Why am I dwelling on this one commandment when Deuteronomy 8:11 says - 'Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments...'
I think I'm dwelling on the fourth commandment because it's the only one prefaced with the word- REMEMBER.
We do forget the Lord our God. We do it all the time. We compartmentalize Him and His place in our lives. If you have 24 hours in which to worship Him it's very hard to forget Him during that time whether or not you are worshipping Him *rightly* so to speak.
Set aside the Sabbath day- sundown Friday to sundown Saturday and use it only for the glory of God. You'll realize quickly how much of your life is centered around yourself and your own devices and not God. How do you worship for 24 hours? It's easy to worship ourselves all the time we just have to sit back and do whatever it is we want to do for whatever reason we want to do it. Yes, we have to work, but after work is over it's play time, or free time, even if it's just to rest for ourselves, take a nap, read a book, take a long hot bath. We've perfected the art of self-worship. Is it different for those raised to worship God for a full day? Or do they tend to fall into the same trap in a different way? Do they get bogged down into a lifeless routine?
There is danger of forgetting God in many, many ways. People live their entire lives without thinking of God or caring to remember anything He might have had to say let only keeping His commandments.
There is a danger in forgetting God, in forgetting His commandments, His ways. If we forget God we will be forgotten by Him. It's a sad, sad situation that we will be in because the pain and heartache of this world is all we truly have here mingled with a few ups that lull us into believing that it's a good enough life that we don't need God in it to mess things up. A life devoted to God is a life of extra hardship but it's reward far outweighs anything even remotely satisfying to us on earth now.
May God bless us and help us to learn to worship Him as He commands, a worship that is filled with rewards for us if only we'd truly see it that way. Let us not forget the LORD our God.
By the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior now and forever.
Amen.
3/9/11