Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 73:18-22
Ps 73:18-22
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. 19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies. 21 When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, 22 I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
James 4:2-5
2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
It is so easy for us to be envious of those around us. We see ourselves as trying to do what is right, trying to be generous with what we have been given but things do not go well for us. We see others who are going their own way, with no regard for others and without ever giving thanks to God for what they have and yet they seem to prosper with little or no problems. We as the Psalmist, begin to envy them and doubt our God. This is just as ignorant for us as it was for him.
When he entered the sanctuary of the Lord, he realized that our purpose on life is not to amass material possessions or to just fulfill our lusts for pleasure. We cannot be friends of this world, following the wisdom of this world and be friends with God. Jesus said we cannot serve two masters because we will love one and despise the other, hang on to one and throw away the other one.
It is in this context that Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will wear or eat but to trust God for all things. He then says we are to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all the material needs will be supplied. We are to be single minded in our service to God. Jesus said the first and the greatest commandment in the law is to love the Lord God with all of our heart, soul and mind.
Heavenly Father, I have been praying for some who were facing surgeries and other problems and I want to thank you for your protection over those who have successfully come through with good results. When things don’t go as I wish, give me faith to accept your will and to give you honor and thanks for doing what is best. Help me keep my eyes on Jesus and the things above so I will remember that my life is not about now and the pleasure and the things of this world. Give me strength to put you first in all things so I can say that Christ is living in me and I am not living for myself. Make me your servant. I pray in the name of Jesus.
Robert
