Psalm 85:8 “ I will listen for what God, the LORD, has to say; surely he will speak of peace to his people and to his faithful. May they not turn to foolishness!” This episode discusses how important it is to listen to the Lord and not turn away from Him. It also talks about how important it is to not judge others. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Take The Log Out Of Your Own Eye First
Psalm 85:8 “ I will listen for what God, the LORD, has to say; surely he will speak of peace to his people and to his faithful. May they not turn to foolishness!”
May they not turn to foolishness, seems like a pretty tall order. It seems in the Bible God’s people are always turning to foolishness. Right now in the Bible in a year podcast with Father Mike, we are finishing up the books of Chronicles and Kings. We have gone over a long line of kings since we began these two books. One thing that most of these kings had in common is that they turned to foolishness. Some of the kings started out as great kings and then they turned away from the Lord and started to worship other gods. They all turned to foolishness. One of the first kings to do this was King Solomon. He really wanted to be a good king. When God told him that he could ask for whatever he wanted and God would give it to him, he asked for Wisdom. That sounds like a great thing to wish for. He wanted to be a fair and just ruler and so he asked for wisdom to rule his people. However, along with wisdom, he also got the wealth and the strength as a reward for making such a selfless request.
Doesn’t this story sound like King Solomon is set up to be a really great king in the sight of the Lord? The problem is Solomon starts to really like the riches he is collecting. He builds up his army, he started to accumulate horses and chariots, which God has instructed kings not to do. He also started accumulating wives and concubines. God told his people not to intermarry with the people of other nations as they will turn your hearts away from God. Solomon didn’t listen, he had seven hundred wives of noble birth and 300 concubines. Think about that for a minute. That is 1000 woman that Solomon had under his care. If you thought it was difficult to keep your husband or wife happy, imagine if you had 1,000. Of course with this many wives, it was bound to happen that Solomon’s heart would be pulled away from the Lord. He wanted to keep his wives happy so he allowed them to build an alter to their Gods and he would worship with them. God gave Solomon so much, it was clear that God was walking with Solomon, and then he turns to other Gods, it makes no sense to me.
Then yesterday we learned about another king named Joash. Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest. Jehoiada was his advisor and mentor and helped Joash follow the Lord. However, when Jehoiada the priest dies, Joash turned to the false God’s of the people he conquered. It’s interesting because God helped him win the battle. He was close enough to the Lord to listen to His advise in battle and to trust what God told Him in battle, and then as soon as they win the battle, Joash takes on worship of these false God’s. It seems so crazy to me. It is so easy for me to judge the people of the old testament.
Why is that? Why is it so easy for us to judge others and yet so hard for us to see all the ways we are getting it wrong? I do take some comfort in the fact that I am not the only one who does this. It must have been a pretty common problem back in the day if they are addressing it in the Bible. It says in Matthew 7:3-5, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Actually I will read to you the verse right before that too, as they go together, Matthew 7:1-2 says, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Wow, that is a lot to take in. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” This is something that is so hard. Do you find this hard too, or is it just me? Not judging others is something I have been consciously working on for a long time now. I have even prayed often for God to help me learn to not judge others.
Have you ever been warned not to pray for patience? I know that probably sounds weird, but I have been warned not to pray for patience because the way you build up your patience is by having opportunities to practice it. So, if you pray for patience, the next thing you know, you are stuck in a traffic jam, or some other uncomfortable scenario where you have to practice patience. It is not fun. The reason I tell you this is because I did not get a warning about praying for God to help me not judge people. I kept hearing things at church like the verse above, do not judge people or you too will be judged. So, I prayed that God would help me stop judging people. I did not pray this once, I prayed it often, so God would know I was serious. Guess what, God heard my prayers, as He always does. However, he did not just fill me supernaturally with the ability to not judge people. This is what I was expecting. I asked for Him to help me not judge and so I was expecting for me just to have the ability to not judge people. That is how prayer works, right? Wrong.
Instead of having a supernatural ability to not judge people, God gave me lots of opportunities to learn not to judge. How did He do that, you ask? Every time I had a judgmental thought about any situation or the way a mom or anyone was handling the situation, that same situation would happen to me. You probably think I am exaggerating when I say every time, but I really don’t think I am. It didn’t even have to be a full blown judgement. Even if it was a fleeting thought like, “if that was me I would do it like this…” Then the next thing I know I am in the same scenario. If you want to learn to not judge others, step into their shoes, it is eye opening. I remember watching Super Nanny, a show about a nanny that would come in and teach parents how to deal with unruly kids. I remember watching the show and thinking to myself, “If my kids ever did that I would…” I can’t for the life of me figure out how I ended that sentence, but it would have come in pretty handy when my child did do that thing, because they did. Although I am not sure I could recommend praying for help with judging others, it has made me extremely understanding to others. I definitely judge others less, and try to lead others by example so they don’t judge either.
We are all doing the best we can and at the same time, we could all be doing better. That is a fact, a confusing fact, but still a fact. We are doing what we can, with what we have, with wherever we are at. It is easy to for me to judge the people of the Old Testament because I have the benefit of looking back on their life and seeing where they went wrong. However, in the moment, without the benefit of hindsight, who know what I would have done in their situation. I can’t imagine it was easy for Solomon to have 700 wives and 300 concubines. I know it was a situation of his own making and at the same time I am sure some of those wives were to make alliances with neighboring nations, as that is how things were done back then.
It is easy for us to judge others but that is not what the Lord wants us to do. It is not our place to judge, it is God’s. He knows everything, even the things we can’t see, like what is truly in someone’s heart. The verse above says, “I will listen for what God, the LORD, has to say; surely he will speak of peace to his people and to his faithful. May they not turn to foolishness!” This verse is telling us that if we listen for what God has to say then we will not turn to foolishness. I really like that the verse says surely God will speak of peace to His children. We all could use a little more peace in our lives. How about we all try to listen for what God, the Lord, has to say to us and then just try to do what He tells us to do and not worry about whether others are doing the same. Remember what we learned in Matthew 7 today. Take the log out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck from someone else’s eye. If you want to judge someone, turn that judgement inward and see what it is you can to do listen to what God has to say. If you are looking for more peace in your life, listen to what God has to say. Are you listening?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to listen to all you are saying to us. Help us to not turn to foolishness. Lord, help us not to judge others. Help us to leave that up to you and help us to just have compassion and understanding for others. Lord, help us to keep our eyes and ears fixed on you so you and only you can lead us on the right path. It is so easy to stray off the path you want us to follow. Please help us stay on that path. Lord, God almighty, you are the just one and you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We are so grateful for all you do for us. We love you Lord! We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Tomorrow’s guest witness will be Mary C. I know you will enjoy hearing her witness. I look forward to sharing that with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!