Although no person is excluded from troubles, saints have historically understood that God extends mercy as He divvies out life’s trials.
Men tend to fret over the motives behind others’ actions. Instead, men should trust the Lord to deal with the motives at the judgment seat of Christ.
The world is driven by self-preservation and self-promotion. Individually, the natural man is guided by self-serving motives. This should not be true of saints.
Many who understand the wickedness involved in murder fail to realize that the scripture also warns “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.”
At times, God called people to enter into war with the goal of killing their enemies. The Bible clearly distinguishes between this type of killing and murder.
The Old Testament Law declares and expresses the mind of God. It demonstrates God’s hatred for sin and His desire for just judgment.
Every person has done sinful things for which he was ashamed even prior to salvation (Romans 6:21). Some of those things are so wicked that the apostle Paul would not even mention what they were (Ephesians 5:12). The life of a Christian was never intended by God to be that way. According to verse 5 above, the Christian life is to be a life void of shame. This type of fulfilled life is only possible when hope is present for “hope maketh not ashamed.” Yet, every Christian must come to understand that hope is the outcome of a sometimes lengthy spiritual process. Here is the biblical sequence. If one properly endures tribulation, he learns to have patience. Patience, in turn, brings experience, and experience brings hope. All these things work together in the life of the believer to keep him from living a life of shame. There is truly no shame in a life lived with hope!
When David chose to take Bathsheba to himself, he sinned against the Lord. Sometime thereafter, the Lord began to work in David’s heart convincing him of his wrongdoing. David described this painful process as something like having his bones broken (Psalm 51:8). The convicting work of God confirmed David’s “bloodguiltiness” (Psalm 51:14). It assured him that he had sinned against God and needed to repent. This conviction brought great fear to David’s heart (Psalm 51:11). At the same time, this conviction led David to acknowledge his transgressions (Psalm 51:3), seek God’s mercy (Psalm 51:1), and ask God to renew a right spirit within him (Psalm 51:10).
Increasingly, the world is driven by the desire for more perceived outward beauty. Some people have gone so far as to change everything concerning their appearance in hopes of turning out more beautiful than previously perceived. Beauty, however, is an area where God and man think quite differently. God sees beauty as a matter of the heart, while man thinks beauty involves the putting on of more makeup (2 Kings 9:30), or changing hair color or hair style, or having some cosmetic alteration done to the teeth or body. In the end, the Lord says that man’s idea of beauty is actually quite vain. While men praise outward beauty, the Lord says that “a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.”
As violence escalates, the dependence of the saints upon the Lord for safety becomes increasingly apparent. David serves as a wonderful demonstration of this truth. Seemingly, he constantly found himself threatened by violent men. Shortly after the Lord’s deliverance from the hands of Saul, David wrote a song in which he praised the Lord for saving him from violence (2 Samuel 22:3). Not only was safety from violence the subject of David’s songs, but it was also the theme of his prayers (Psalm 140:1-4). David understood the inevitable presence of violence but also understood that his safety was of the Lord.
