THE LORD SPOKE (August 9)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: Psalms 31-34

Most of us can handle most of the stuff that comes at us. There are maybe some times when we’re particularly fragile and even the littlest things can get us down. But normally we know enough, we’ve been through enough, we’ve walked with the Lord enough, that we’re able to deal with the big stuff in the power of the Lord. But have you ever noticed how it’s usually a little thing that can get us down. It’s the little pebble in our shoe, like the proverbial straw on the camel’s back, that makes us limp or flat out stops us in our tracks. This psalm promises repeatedly that the Lord delivers us from all our fears (Ps. 34:4) and all our troubles (Ps. 34:6,17,19).

Think about David’s life at the time he wrote this. The superscription (Ps. 34:1) tells us it came just after his experience with Achish, king of Gath. Actually, it says “Abimelech” but that’s a dynastic title used by several Philistine kings (see Gen. 20,21,26). The story is told in I Samuel 21:10-15. David had been running from Saul for months. Some of his own Judeans had ratted on him to Saul by revealing his hiding place and he’d finally gone over to the Philistines. After Gath, he holed up in a bat-infested cave and 400 men joined him - “all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him and he became their leader” (I Sam. 22:2). Now, instead of one trouble (Saul), he had 401 troubles.

Go back to Psalm 34:6-10. Speaking of himself, David says, “This poor man called and the Lord heard him; he save him out of all his troubles.... Taste and see that the Lord is good [advice for the distressed]; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him [in a cave?]. Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing [advice for those in debt]. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing [advice for the discontented].” Or, look at it this way:

• Taste the Lord (Ps. 34:8)
• Fear the Lord (Ps. 34:9)
• Seek the Lord (Ps. 34:10)

“A righteous man may have many troubles [401?!], but the Lord delivers him from them all” (Ps. 34:19) when he walks with God as David did.


New Testament: James 4

Finish this sentence: “God helps him who helps __________.”

Conventional wisdom says, “God helps him who helps himself” and turns it into a phrase for praising independent initiative. In other words, don’t be dependent on someone else. Don’t be a moocher. Get busy and get the job done yourself. Then God will help you. He doesn’t help a lazy bum.

But James put a different twist to it and the message is nearly the opposite. Quoting Proverbs 3:34, James tells us that God helps him who humbles himself (Jas. 4:6,10). Rather than promoting independent self-reliance, James is recommending quiet submission.

This is a message that rings out from many Scriptures. Here’s how God said it through Isaiah some 700 years earlier: “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Is. 66:2). Or consider the message through Peter, who also quoted Proverbs. 3:34 and went on to say: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s might hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (I Pet. 5:6).

Of course, our next question should be, how? How are we to “humble [ourselves] before the Lord”? James gives us ten quick commands (Jas. 4:7-10) - all imperatives in Greek - to tell us how:

1. submit to God
2. resist the Devil
3. come near to God
4. wash your hands
5. purify your hearts (#4 & 5 have to do with cleansing)
6. grieve
7. mourn
8. wail (#6-8 have to do with repentance)
9. change
10. humble yourself before the Lord

James then follows that with two examples of how to put this into practice:

1. Don’t slander or judge your neighbor (Jas. 4:11-12). In doing so, you set yourself above him. In fact, you set yourself above the law as if you were the judge. There is a Judge to do that - not you.
2. Don’t boast about tomorrow (Jas. 4:13-17). Go ahead and make plans - that’s not wrong - but always preface them with “God permitting”. Remember that He is in control - not you.