The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)
We can promote a cheerful heart by dwelling on the bright things of our lot; by counting up the mercies which are left, rather than dwelling on what we have lost. When the heart is full of the light and love of God, can it be other than cheerful? How can this be obtained except by a living union with Jesus Christ. In Him there is an infinitude of supply of peace and joy, sunshine and light. Let us open our hearts to him, and put on these things as we array ourselves each morning in our garments.
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. (Psalms 37:5)
On day three we talked about what it means to “delight ourselves in the Lord”. Today we will look at what it means to commit ourselves to the Lord and to put our trust in Him.
Commit. Would you agree that commitment these days is a rare find? You only have to look at the breakdown of the family to know that people are mostly committed to one thing: self. I’m not just talking about the divorce rate, although that is certainly disturbing, but divorce is a symptom and a result of the real issue: a lack of respect for the institute of family structure. I won’t dig into the specifics, you know what they are.
Society’s general attitude is “what I want, when I want it, how I want it”. Sadly, this is the world in which we live; sadly it is an attitude that plagues even the Christian community. Very sadly, this same attitude can extend to our relationship with God. We call on Him to solve our problems (as we should) but do we, as the Psalmist instructs, commit our ways to Him? One aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is faithfulness. A search of the word “faithful” in scripture has two applications; God’s faithfulness toward His people and the people’s faithfulness to God. God always holds up His end, but do we?
Trust. What about trust? If God is always faithful, which He is, why is it we struggle so with putting our trust in Him? Isaiah records the word of the Lord, “It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. (Isaiah 65:24) and in 58:9a), “Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.” We could find many, many more verses with God’s assurances that we can trust Him. We may not be able to trust other people or even ourselves, but we can, without reservation, trust God.
The Psalmist words are plain, commit to God, trust God and He will not only meet all your needs, He will fill your life with love in abundance, peace beyond understanding and joy beyond measure.
Lord, help us to be committed to You in our daily walk. Help us to rely on Your faithfulness, to put our trust in You. Lord, help us to see that the victorious life begins and ends with You.