Thursday, April 17

THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014

Joshua 15:1–63

Luke 18:18–43

Psalm 86:1–17

Proverbs 13:9,10

 

 

“Teach me your way, O Lord,

                and I will walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart,

                that I may fear your name.

I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;

I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your love toward me;

                you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.” (Psalm 86:11–13)

 

“Pride only breeds quarrels,

                but wisdom is found in those who take advice.” (Proverbs 13:10)

 

 

As I continue to study God’s Word, I marvel at its timeless applicability for our lives.  While the cultural mien of 21st-century Fairfield County differs from Biblical Israel, people’s hearts have fundamentally not changed.  As David urges, and Solomon observes, we need God’s grace to walk in humility and to avoid the shipwrecking ravages of pride.

 

Pride tells us to seek the best for ourselves before considering God’s truth or others’ interests.  While there is scope for protecting ourselves from hurtful people and situations, the Bible teaches that love requires a measure of vulnerability and openness to walk beside those who are struggling.

 

God demonstrates these principles most clearly through His Son, Jesus Christ, Who humbly departed from the right-hand throne in heaven to suffer rejection, a brutal physical death, and excruciating spiritual separation from God (during the time on the Cross).  We remember the physical death quite deeply on Good Friday, but we should not forget the darkness of Jesus’s spiritual abandonment by the Father.  This abandonment occurred so that, once for all, Jesus might take upon Himself the sin that the redeemed rightly deserved.

 

Fighting against pride in our lives seems a hopeless battle, as it often rears its ugly head.  Pastor Scott gave us a helpful warning about struggling with sin a few years ago:  HALT.  He explained that, when we are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, we are more prone to give in to sinful tendencies.  These emotions stoke our self-seeking behavior and draw us away from God and other people.  Of course, we will always face bouts of these emotions, but I took away that we bear responsibility for seeking God (the right kind of self-care) and resting physically and spiritually in order to protect our hearts from pridefulness.

 

Even David, who walked closely with God, struggled with bringing God’s truth to bear in all aspects of His life.  For this reason, he calls upon His Father to “teach me your way,” “give me an undivided heart,” and “praise you… with all my heart.”  These three goals (achievable and God-focused) sound like a great blueprint for each day of our lives.  Were we to manage these three objectives each day – and only by God’s grace – we would have achieved blessed success!

As I am writing this entry from a Washington, D.C., hotel room, a picture of Abraham Lincoln from the Lincoln Memorial hangs over the desk.  Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address covers the humility of wound-healing together so beautifully and encapsulates the type of humble obedience that we are seeking to bring into our lives:

 

“Neither party [the North and South] expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained.  Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease.  Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.  Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.  It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.  The prayers of both could not be answered.  That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.  ‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’  If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?  Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.  Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’

 

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

 

 

Lord Jesus, help us to walk humbly with you and to be peacemakers and champions for both justice and mercy.  May we, in our pride, not turn away from Your Word.  Guide us in Your paths for Your honor and glory.  In Jesus’s Name, amen.

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