Assurance In Troubled Times

"Lord, how my foes increase!

There are many who attack me.”

Psalm 3:1

This Psalm was written by David at a time of perhaps the greatest trial he ever faced. 2nd Samuel chapters 15 to18 tell the whole story. 

His favourite son, Absalom had started a rebellion against him and David was in danger of losing everything-his palace, his throne, his reputation, his life. Absalom even slept with all his father’s concubines in a tent on the palace rooftop (2^nd Samuel 16:22). Can you imagine facing such ingratitude and impudent callousness blended with brazen public display of ungodliness by your own son? Absalom had also won over the hearts of the people (2^nd Samuel 15:6, 13) and the same people who had just a few years before sung the praise of David when he defeated Goliath had now turned against him! He only had a few men supporting him. 

Those must have been very dark days for David. Fear. Anguish. Turmoil. Heartbreak. Shame. Rejection. Disgrace. All of these would have been the feelings David certainly would have been experiencing. There was also a bleakness regarding his future, he had an uncertain future at best.

But in the midst of it all, David turned to God: “Lord, how my foes increase…” He may have had other options. He had human allies like Hiram King of Tyre, one of his trading partners (2^nd Samuel 5:11) or some other Kings of some territories around Israel whom he could have summoned to come to his aid. David did not take those other options. He turned to God, “Lord, how my foes increase…”

It wasn't only in this scenario in his life that David displayed such an attitude of turning to God. He must have made it a practice all the while when he was tending his father's sheep. Those must have been the formative years of his relationship with God, times he spent in fellowship with God. Remember even when he faced Goliath, David drew from the experiences he had with God while tending the sheep (1^st Samuel 17:34-37).

We must realize that only a practice of personal communion with God helps us build confidence in Him and ensures that even in our great trials, we have no other recourse but God Himself. The product is a confident assurance that makes us able to say with the Psalmist:

“God is our refuge and strength,

A helper who is always found

In times of trouble.

Therefore we will not be afraid,

Though the earth trembles

And the mountains topple

Into the depths of the seas,

Though its waters roar and foam

And the mountains quake with its turmoil.”

Psalm 46:1-3

Is this also your sincere confession? Does your heart cry first to God in difficult circumstances rather than turning to other options? Has personal communion with God produced in you such confident assurance in His ability? Muse with me on the Psalms this week and practice personal communion with God to reach a place of assurance in Him even in troubled times.

Strive For Excellence (7)

We will be concluding our discussion of the topic of striving for excellence this week and to recap, the main points in the previous posts have been:

a.     Striving for excellence is not a desire for superiority over others

b.  While striving for excellence, have a disposition that views excellence as a direction and not a final destination

c.    Striving for excellence for God’s people should be done with a realization that we have a divine seed of excellence

d.    Striving for excellence requires some crucial internal attitudes:

1.      Determination

2.      Faith in God

This week I will go on to highlight a third crucial internal attitude required to walk in excellence

3.      Humility

One of the challenges that people who strive to walk in excellence face is pride. It really does not matter in what area or segment in life it is, pride just very easily creeps in. Once you begin abounding, there is a real temptation to become conceited and become self-congratulatory. With pride comes a desire to show one’s self better than others. Proud people usually have an exaggerated estimate of their achievements, attainments or status and they usually despise others or even treat others with contempt. Some of us become proud based on our previous achievements and some of us actually even display “spiritual pride”. 

The problem with pride is that it prevents us from reaching further, limits us from abounding further. That is not surprising as Scripture warns us:

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” 1^st Peter 5:5b New Living Translation. 

You can also look up James 4:6, Psalm 138:6, Proverbs 3:34 and Proverbs 29:23.  

The only antidote to pride is humility. Maintaining a humble disposition is the only thing that can keep us from the nasty scourge of pride. Biblical humility is an internal attitude that accepts God’s estimation or assessment as true.

Humility is not a rejection of anything good. Some people think that is what being humble is about. They have such an inferior view of themselves and constantly refuse to see themselves as being any good. True humility is an attitude of not having any exaggerated opinion of one’s self but accepting God’s estimation (Romans 12:3).

Again in the life of Joseph (remember we have been looking at Joseph and Daniel as examples of people who walked in excellence), we find this lesson of humility. Throughout his journey Joseph learnt humility and at the point when he was to be promoted to that elevated position, he displayed humility as he spoke with Pharaoh (Genesis 41:15-16).

 

Humility keeps us teachable (James 1:21). Humility makes us seek to improve and abound further as we walk in excellence. In my life personally, I’m learning to maintain this attitude. As a believer in Christ Jesus, I am reaching forth to things ahead, I know I can be better. As a husband and a father, I am focused on being better in my relationship with my wife and daughter. As a Pastor and preacher, I am constantly seeking to be better in both pastoring and preaching, I never think that I’ve attained the best I can be at those. As a Medical Doctor, I also have the same attitude. I encourage you to have the same attitude in all that you do.

Remember as I wrote at the beginning of this series: whatever stage you are in life, God is calling you to abound. God’s desire is for you to excel and He has given us resources to enable us achieve just that.

Strive For Excellence (6)

Last week, we start started looking at the important internal attitudes which are required for us to walk in excellence.  We considered determination as one of these requirements. This week, we will go further by considering another important requirement:

2.     Faith in God

Faith in God is a quality of the heart that accepts what God says as true and takes decisions based on this. Our determination must be alloyed with faith in God for us to walk in excellence. In fact for the believer, it is our faith in God that should fuel our determination.

To illustrate this point, we could consider the woman with the issue of blood (Luke 8:43-48). According to the Law of Moses, she should not have even been mingling with the crowd because she was unclean and anyone else who touched her was also unclean (Leviticus 15:19-27). In spite of this, she pressed through the crowd of people that had thronged our Lord Jesus to touch the border of His garment. She was determined but Jesus commended her for her faith (Luke 8:48). It was her faith that made her overcome the obstacles in her way-she should have been ostracised due to her condition and also probably physically weak from 12 years of haemorrhage but her faith energised her and helped her to go beyond the limitations she faced. So you see, faith in God is crucial to our determination.

As believers in Christ Jesus, not only do we become children of God by faith, we are also to live and experience the transformed life by faith (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 11:6, 2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith is what allows us to cooperate with God and participate in the wonderful things He accomplishes.

Returning to Joseph again as an example of one who pursued excellence, he is mentioned in the “hall of fame of faith” as one who walked in faith (Hebrews 11:22). Though it was not directly mentioned in the Genesis narrative of his life, Joseph must have maintained the same faith in God through his tortuous path to greatness; from being his father’s favourite to being thrown in a pit by his own brothers, to slavery in Egypt, and then a brief period of relief as Head Servant in Potiphar’s household before his eventual imprisonment (for not succumbing to Mrs Potiphar’s sexual seductions) which then led to his elevation to the position of Prime Minister in Egypt.

One major thing that constantly dissuades us in life is doubt. Over and over, we are faced with different situations that seem to tell us that we cannot abound beyond our current attainments. Sometimes we are reminded of our pasts and that makes us have a very small or restricted view of the future. The only antidote to the crippling effect of such doubt is faith. We need to maintain our faith in God.

Faith in God enables us to look forward to the endless possibilities no matter our current or even past circumstances. Faith in God accepts the reality of God’s seed of excellence in us even if external circumstances seem to suggest otherwise. Faith in God enables us to walk in the reality of the divine resources God has made available to us.

Let me encourage you this week to return to the word of God over and over to re-affirm your convictions (Romans 10:17). That is how you can maintain your faith. God is who He says He is, He can do what He says He can do and you are who He says you are. You have to accept all these realities and walk in excellence by faith!

To be continued…