Tuesday, September 9, 2014

WORRYING PEOPLE DO NOT PRAISE GOD!











GOD IS IN TOTAL CONTROL EVEN WHEN WE FORGET

Psalm 97:1-5
The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire goes before him
and burns up his adversaries all around.
His lightnings light up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the Lord of all the earth.

What kind of desperation would envelop our lives, if we didn’t know and believe that God reigns! What kind of fool believes that destiny is in his own hands? We say that we believe that God reigns, but then we continue to worry. We lay awake at night, we run around in the day, as if we could control our future or the events that happen around us.

We worry about things that are not true. Worrying about the future includes our creative imagining about what the future will look like. We are not prophets! We worry about our ability to come up with solutions to the future catastrophes that we have invented. What a vain and unedifying way of thinking!

Nature is in the hands of God and trembles at His power, so why do we fret? If our fear is that God will allow bad things to happen to us, then the psalmist reminds us that righteousness and justice are the foundations of His throne. Everything God does is perfect. No man can question it.

You and I are living the situations that God has ordained for us; our future will be filled with only what God will allow. God is the Lord of all the earth!

Matthew 6:25a
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.

Matthew 6:27
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
           
Matthew 6:34
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Jesus, Himself, commanded us not to worry. Our worry produces nothing good, and causes us to carry weights that distract us from the responsibilities of the day.

The unbelieving world lives, daily chasing their own gods.

Psalm 97:7
All worshipers of images are put to shame,
who make their boast in worthless idols;
worship him, all you gods!

Psalm 14:1
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none who does good.

Living without an awareness or belief in God produces only sin. Our lack of trust in God and our fear also produces sin. Why would we ever allow our finite minds to rule our lives?

Psalm 97:10-12
O you who love the LORD, hate evil!
He preserves the lives of his saints;
he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
Light is sown for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name!

What God wants us to do right now is to love Him, and therefore hate all that is evil. Our trust, our rest, needs to be rooted in God and His promises. God wants our paths to be illuminated by His word. God does not expect us to walk in darkness. Matters and events we don’t know about are hidden to us, because God is preparing us for when they will be made known. And He will then give us grace to live through what He has ordained.

The believer should rejoice in the Lord, who will do all in complete control and justice. Only thankfulness should spring out of our hearts, because although we do not know the future, we do know the One who holds it. And we know that He will not allow us to go through anything that He has not prepared us, with His grace, to bear.


When you and I start to worry, we must repent and fill our minds, instead, with the Word!

No comments:

Post a Comment