Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:1-4 NKJV)
Psalm 37 is an acrostic poem, meaning that the first letter of each phrase begins with a successive letter of the alphabet, so not only does it communicate a message of hope in the face of evil, but it is beautifully and intelligently written. Our God is an intelligent God who is looking for people who use their reason, in a world that is every day more controlled by the feelings of the heart. Though we’ve invented many things as human beings, though we’re living in a modern world with amazing gadgets, we frequently act like we’re still in the Dark Ages by allowing emotions to rule over us.
Why should we fret or be envious of evil people? Don’t we believe in God? Isn’t He much greater than the devil and the evil around us? We don’t need to be worried about the evil, unjust people around us because their day is coming, according to God. They will be cut down like grass and wither like green herbs. They are not like us—trees planted by streams of water that do not fail to bear fruit and whose leaves do not wither. When evil people attack us or succeed by unjust means, we need to pray for them, ask God to have mercy on their souls, and pray for their salvation. But we should NEVER fret because of them or envy them. Whenever we do we show that we have forgotten who we are and how big our God is. God guarantees to do much, much more for us than the devil does for his people.
By the way, the devil is thrilled when we fret and are envious—it’s as if we had thrown him a great banquet. Do we really want to do that?
God wants to give us the desires of our hearts (or inner being). When we surrender to Him, many of our thoughts and desires change and merge with His, but we still have desires of our own… things that we would like to see come true in our lives, in our family, in our career—and each of us has different desires. When we DELIGHT ourselves in the Lord, He promises to give us those desires. When we honor Him by delighting in Him, enjoying His presence, and loving His commands, He turns around and gives us exactly what we’ve always wanted.
Think about what you need to do to delight yourself in God. This is not a function of our emotions, but of our mind… deciding that you love to follow Him, to obey His word, and that He is deserving of praise. — May the desires of your heart come true as you delight in Him.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. (Psalm 34:8-10 HCSB)
These verses are a guarantee of what we can expect when we believe in and trust in God. He is not afraid to challenge us to taste and see His goodness, because He knows that we will not be disappointed. In fact, our mission in life is to taste and see His goodness and be living proof to the rest of the world of what happens when people do. Throughout the Old Testament Israel went through periods of ups and downs that were caused by their trust or distrust of God. Whenever they feared Him and obeyed His commands—every single time—they would prosper, overcome their enemies, enjoy health, and would be an example of God’s greatness. And whenever they lacked the fear of God and decided to do what they felt like doing, everything would fall apart.
Interestingly, this verse addresses “saints”—people who believe in God already—because our trust and fear of Him are constantly under attack. This world hates it when we trust and fear Him. Demons hate it, our family makes fun of us when we do, and co-workers and friends frequently exclude us from their circles when we get serious with God. No one complained when we spent entire weekends in bars or high on drugs in our old life, but now that we go to church every week they accuse us of being religious fanatics, all in an attempt to weaken our trust and fear of God.
Fearing God does not mean that we run away from Him out of fear of punishment. The fear of God is healthy. It means that we respect Him, that we’re afraid to do anything that would jeopardize our relationship with Him. When we fear God we realize that we need His help to make it through life, and because of this attitude, God supplies all our needs.
The last phrase of this passage is one of my favorite of the entire Bible. Lions are one of the bravest, fiercest, most powerful animals in the world, but compared to those who seek God they are nothing. In spite of their fierce, powerful nature, they will experience times of lack and hunger, whereas we will not. This does not mean that we will never go through hard times, that everything will be easy. We all know that life involves problems. But God is promising that the problems we have will not destroy us. Because we are His, we will eventually overcome every single time.
Lesson? We need to see ourselves as powerful, and our needs as already met. If you are not overcoming and blessed, you will be very soon. Trust + fear of the Lord = a good life.
Therefore, submit to God. But resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. (James 4:7,8 HCSB)
So many people complain that God doesn’t do anything for them. They believe in God, pray, go to church, help others, and are genuinely good people, but are frustrated because God doesn’t answer their prayers. Some have given up on miracles completely, concluding that He doesn’t do what He did in the past. Others have given up on church because they don’t get anything out of it; they still believe in God, but their relationship with Him is on the back burner because they’ve never seen Him do anything great in their lives, or in the lives of anyone around them.
But today’s verse teaches us something great. Both promises are precede by a necessary action on our part. The devil will flee, but we have to resist him; God will draw near to us, but we have to draw near to Him; the devil will flee, but we have to submit to God. This means we have to clothe ourselves in the armor of God, say “no” to temptation when it comes, do the opposite of what the devil tells us to do, and trust that God is in total control.
The devil and his demons are weak. They were defeated 2000 years ago. But many good people still feel bound by evil and far from God because they’re not doing their part. I don’t say this because I want you to feel guilty, or feel like a bad Christian. I say this because submitting, resisting, and drawing near to God are actions that are very much within our reach... we can do this! These actions are not reserved only for the super spiritual; they’re for the ordinary, run of the mill Christian, for you and me! All three are common concepts that we practice on our jobs, with our family, and out on the street every single day. We routinely submit, resist, and draw near in ordinary, physical situations; we are not totally unfamiliar with these attitudes. The challenge is to apply them to the unseen, spiritual world around us in a manner that will bring results with God, the devil, and demons.
God promises that the devil will flee. He promises that He will draw near to you. These two promises are very clear. If we want them, we have to do our part.
The December 1956 edition of TIME magazine had an article that mentioned how schoolteacher Everett Storms of Kitchener, Canada had recorded the number of promises in the Bible during his 27th reading of the book. It took him a year and a half to complete, and he came up with 7,487 promises of God for humanity... and 9 promises of the devil.*
Isn't this proof of how much God wants us to be free, powerful, and blessed? God didn't have to make us even one promise, and yet he gave us more than 7000! The problem is, so few of us are experiencing these promises in our lives.
Because of this, for one year beginning May 2014 I will compile 365 promises of the Bible and comment on them. I will choose my favorite promises, and will use suggestions from my wife Evelyn and my father Forrest — all in an effort to see them come true in my life and yours.
Stick with me in this journey and it will be impossible for your life to stay the same.
* Dr. Herbert Lockyer, All the Promises in the Bible; (1886-1984)
God promises that the devil will flee. He promises that He will draw near to you. These two promises are very clear. If we want them, we have to do our part.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your graciousness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:4-7 HCSB)
This verse is sung by many Sunday school children as a happy-go-lucky tune. But for jaded and skeptical adults, this command to “rejoice,” can sound simplistic when it comes to the complex and painful problems they face every day. But the fact is, it’s God’s command. And the next command is worse: “Don’t worry about anything.” How can God expect us to stop worrying? How can we be gracious to everyone when everyone is so irritating? How in the world can we be so naïve to rejoice when we know full well that so many things are going wrong? But within the obedience to God’s commands, we find power. His commands often go against everything that we think is sensible, but they always come with the fulfillment of amazing promises.
As tough as it seems, we have to choose to reject worry and rejoice ALWAYS, despite all the problems staring us in the face. It’s an exercise in faith, proven by the extreme resistance we get while trying to accomplish this. Thoughts that we’re living in a fantasy, in denial, that we’re being irresponsible and just plain ridiculous, bombard our minds. But none of that is the case when it is done based on His Word and His promise.
The promise we can anchor ourselves to, is that His supernatural peace will guide our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. The peace of God is something of substance. It’s based on the reality that our prayers are being answered and that there is absolutely no basis for worries at all. His peace is nothing like the artificial peace people chase after through hobbies, partying, drinking or any other emotional escape. Supernatural peace is linked to answers, results of our prayers being worked out in the spiritual world and materializing in our physical world, because we acted in faith.
When we refuse to obey the simple command to rejoice and to put an end to our worry, we block supernatural peace and answers to prayer. Why would we want to block the very things we are so eager to find? For those who don’t yet know how to live by an intelligent faith based on God’s promises, and how to reject emotionalism, today is the day to begin this great journey of basing everything you do and are, on His Words!
This now completes one year of the favorite 365 passages of my father, Forrest Presnell Higginbotham. He is 84 years old, walks two miles a day, has pretty much as much hair on his head as I do, and has an undiminished, fiery faith in and love for God. He still has a desire to save souls, and visits men in prison as much as he can in an attempt to lead them to Jesus. This year of going through Dad's book, leaving some devotionals as they were, and changing others, has taught me a great deal and has strengthened my faith, and hopefully yours too.
Beginning tomorrow, I will begin one more year of daily devotionals, but will concentrate on the Promises of the Bible. Dad will still be a part of this because as far back as I can remember, he always taught us about them. In fact, I will ask him to include 100 of his favorite promises, and will identify them as his. I look forward to one more year with all of you!
Thanks Dad, for the amazing faith that you passed down to me. It's the best inheritance anyone could have.
“Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. (John 14:1-3 NET)
The future of all true followers of the Lord Jesus is to be with Him forever in His Father's house. At that time, when He comes back to the earth for His people, God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, there will be no more death, no more sorrow, no crying, and no more pain. We will live with Him, will be His people, and He will be our God. The Bible states this plainly in Revelation 21:3,4. In today’s passage, Jesus encourages His disciples, because in a short time they would see Him nailed to a cross. He told them to believe in God and to believe in Him, and told them not to allow their hearts to be distressed. They would need to use their faith to overcome fear, when they saw Jesus, and all He did and stood for, apparently defeated.
Even though the disciples were going to see Jesus again after His resurrection, over the next forty days He was not going to be with them 24/7 as He had been before. At the end of those forty days of appearances and teaching, He would ascend back into heaven and sit on the right hand of the Father. One reason He gives for going away is that He will prepare a place for the disciples, and of course, all His people.
It is impossible for our minds to conceive of the wonders and glory of that place, where we will live in the actual presence of Jesus our Savior and God our Father. That is our confidence and firm hope—eternal life with God! Hold on firmly to this hope, mind and heart. Whatever temptation the world throws at you, whatever trouble you face, this hope will spur you on to faithfulness and victory. Nothing that the world has is of any value when compared to eternal life in heaven.
The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. They began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, “Do not be afraid, people of Zion; look, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt!” (His disciples did not understand these things when they first happened, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that these things had happened to him.) So the crowd who had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead were continuing to testify about it. Because they had heard that Jesus had performed this miraculous sign, the crowd went out to meet him. (John 12:12-18 NET)
Jesus was given the reception He deserved as He went into Jerusalem on what is usually called “Palm Sunday.” There was great excitement as He entered the city; the people were praising Him as the Messiah or Christ—God's anointed king. Many of the people were there because they had heard about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
Less than five days later the crowds who had been shouting “hosanna to the King,” were now shouting, “Crucify Him!” He had been arrested at night, tried in secret, and put on the cross about 9 o'clock in the morning. Most people in Jerusalem were totally unaware of what was going on until it was too late. But Jesus arose from the dead, victorious, and glorious. His resurrection proved that He was truly the King of Israel and the King of the universe.
We can’t be impressed with mere words, even the emotional words of others who swear their loyalty to God. A moving testimony or proclamation of great faith doesn’t necessarily mean that they truly love and serve God. Loyalties based on emotion are easily swayed and can crumble away to nothing, just like those who shouted their hosannas to Jesus. Even the disciples faltered and fled when He was crucified, and the significance of His entry into Jerusalem was lost on their fleshly minds. True faithfulness is found when there is a life of continued sacrifice. When we sacrifice our pride, our selfishness, our possessions and surrender the control of our lives to God, we become empowered with His Spirit—an experience the disciples had weeks later that continues to change the world until today.
