And they returned and sought earnestly for God.
35 Then they remembered that God was their rock,
And the Most High God their Redeemer.
36 Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth,
And they lied to Him with their tongue;
37 For their heart was not steadfast with Him,
Nor were they faithful in His covenant.
38 But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity,
And did not destroy them.
Yes, many a time He turned His anger away,
And did not stir up all His wrath;
39 For He remembered that they were but flesh,
A breath that passes away and does not come again.
Psalm 78:34-39
Some passages just disturb me from the start. This is one of them. Not because I do not understand or relate to it, but because I so well relate to it. In many ways it has been the story of my relationship with God. See if you too find yourself in the psalmist’s words.
When we are hurting, when we feel that we are receiving the just discipline for our wrongs we run to God. We earnestly seek him as it says in verse 34. We cry out to God for salvation! We run towards Him. We call Him our father, . . . oh even better, . . . we do as Christ did and uses a most intimate reference to Him, we call Him “Dad”, “Poppa,” or even “Poppy.” We run to His word. We return to Him and we earnestly seek Him. If we have been looking at stuff we are not supposed to, we stop. We remove bookmarks, we cancel subscriptions to magazines, services, etc. We don’t return the calls from that one we know that we would fall for, indeed may have just been in bed with the week before. We work diligently for our bosses. We watch our finances closely, we may even give a gift to the church or feed a minister (fried chicken is not that expensive, right? . . . LOL). We don’t speed; we don’t run lights, and we turn off the TV before all those soft porn movies come on late at night. In short we earnestly seek God. We do this with the confidence that He does not lie and He has side that if we draw close to Him He will draw close to us. So we draw close.
We remember that “God was our rock, and the Most High our Redeemer!”
Awesome!! Right? A TRUE revival in our hearts!
No.
“. . . Nevertheless they flattered Him with their mouth, and they lied to Him with their tongue; For the heart was not steadfast with Him, Nor were they faithful in His covenant.”
Flattering words, lies with the tongue and a heart that is not steadfast . . . a heart that is not TRULY settled on the course. Obedience . . . continuing the same ordered direction consistently, without changing – being steadfast to the course. And they, us, were not faithful to HIS covenant. Who cares? Right? Its HIS covenant to me, not mine to Him. No. HIS covenant is a two way street. It is a mutual covenant. God cares. Our part, spoken by Jesus:
27 So he answered and said, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27
And obviously if we can flatter, lie and not be steadfast to His word, well we must not be doing our part of the Covenant. And what does God do . . He forgives. He does not destroy us. He turns His wrath away.
We do a dance of joy, knowing or at least thinking . . . I got away with it again!
The whole purpose of this writing today is to get to the last verse above. It is that verse that disturbs me the most. It states the reason God forgives, does not destroy us, and turns His wrath away.
39 For He remembered that they were but flesh,
A breath that passes away and does not come again.
Did you see it? Did you see just how temporal our joy in the midst of doing the wrong thing is? Did you see that we “passes away” and “does not come again.” Are we really getting away with the wrong? Have we really fooled God? Have we fooled ourselves? Have we escaped judgment? God lives on. His word survives. Our deeds die. Our lives are quick to be extinguished. No life.
There is also a certain amount of finality in our choices. We do not have the chance to walk this way again. We do not have the ability to change the past. We simply have to live with the consequences in the future. And if you think that there are none, and that I may simply be whistling Dixie, well if you read on you will see that God pulled from them the blessing originally intended for them.
Did the love of God change for them. No. And it doesn’t for us either. What may change is the intended blessing. Note that I said it may change. That is truly up to Him. What is up to us is how we respond to the prompting of the Lord through His word, to His spirit. See if we are so weak, we need to rely on the one who is so strong. If we are but the wind, a breath that passes away, and does not come again, we need to lean on the one who is the rock. We need to turn and grab hold of the one who is and ever will be, the Christ who lives and lives forever. Continue to earnestly seek God. Keep reminding yourself that He is our Redeemer. Stand true, steadfast and faithful to His covenant.
Got it?
Got Word?
Love yah,
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