Walk Of Life – Day 31, October 2022 – Thoughts From The Book Of Psalms
Psalm 83
That they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord, Are the Most High over all the earth – Psalm 83:18
This psalm begins with instruction given to our Lord that He should not be silent and he should hold His peace. This is the Psalm of Asaph. I’m amazed with the zeal that he has for God. He was not asking God to act because he was having some trouble but it was because the enemies of God are acting against him. He is listing out the names of those who have to be dealt with and it is all because that they have said
Let us take pastures of God for a possession
Why the revenge has to be taken also he explains. It is because “That they will know about God who alone is the Lord and is the most high all over the earth.”
What a zeal Asaph portrays here. Our Lord should have been really proud of Asaph.
History is filled with men and women who were called mad by the world because of their zeal for God. Hudson Taylor, David Livingstone, William Carey, William Seymour, General William Booth, Aimee Semple McPherson, and many others.
All of these people were accused of being mad and ridiculed for their passion for Jesus. However who were the mad ones?
These people gave up the smugness and ease of contemporary life to give themselves to something more significant. By doing so, they ended up reaching millions of people with their zeal.
Who had a more satisfying life? Are not the same ones who are trying to keep you from being zealous for God the same ones that are complacent, smug, and self-centered? Are they not the ones that are so self-focused that they have become tired of life and even tire of themselves?
The way Asaph showed his zeal is the pattern of the old testament doctrine. but the New Testament doctrine is completely against revenge. I surely God will not encourage Asaph’s ideas of
1. making them as swirling wind like the chaff before the wind.
2. To pursue them with the tempest and frighten them with the storm.
3. To deal with people in order to destroy them.
but Like David Livingstone let us work to change the people who have always acted against God.
Like Mrs. Gladys Stanes who showed better zeal by forgiving the person who brutally killed her husband and two sons.
Look at Romans 10:1–2 with me: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” They’re not saved. “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God.”
At the end of this tenth month shall we take a decision that we will be zealous for the Lord in the way He expects us to be.
