Wait On The LORD: Psalm 37

 

Wait on the LORD, And He shall exalt you to inherit the land: When the wicked are cut off, You will see it.

Psalm 37:34

Wait on the LORD, and keep His Way, And He shall exalt you to inherit the land: When the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.

In this verse wait means a couple different activiites we should be doing before Jesus Christ returns; and we should be doing them at the same time.

The first is 'collect and bind together'. Sounds odd doesn't it, that Wait means that? But what are we collecting and binding together? Souls. Proverbs 11:30

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life;

He that wins souls is wise.

How do I win souls for Jesus? I tell you about my Jesus and what He's done for me. I tell you how He died on the cross and shed His blood for me. With joy I speak how he rose from the grave, conquering death, hell and the grave; that He holds the keys to all those doors to save a wretch like me!

I tell you how He loves us so much that He left His glory behind in heaven, and took on the form of mankind. That God gave His only begotten Son no place of His own to rest from the cradle to the grave. Luke 9:58 "the Son of man has no place to lay His head".

And when you accept and believe that Jesus is God's only begotten Son, that He did those marvelous things, and believe that the Word of God is True, it is then you come to the realization that you are a sinner and must repent of your wickedness to God, for He will truly forgive every rotten thing you have ever done. That's what He does: God is a God of Justice and Mercy and Love: He forgives His children of their sins. That's the collection part of Wait.

But the binding part? When we believers fellowship with one another and encourage each other in the Word and through the Blood, we are binding ourselves not only to each other, but to God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who calls you through the Word that is preached and shared and prclaimed by God's prophets and ministers to the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son.

We sing Bind Us Together with cords that cannot be broken. Cords of love and faith and joy.

The second part of Wait is 'eagerly anticipating' or 'looking forward to' Christ's return. It is an attitude of the heart which is played out in our everyday lives. When we are eagerly awaiting His return, we live a lifestyle that removes everything not welcome in a Christian's life. But not by ourselves. We need the Holy Spirit of God to empower us to live holy and fruitful lives. I need the Holy Spirit to empower me to live a holy and fruitful life. And I need Him everyday.

I wait on, upon, for the LORD, and keep His Way. He shall exalt me to inherit the land: When the wicked are cut off, I will see it. Psalm 53 describes what will happen to the wicked, who trust themselves and have not put their trust in God. But at the end in verses 8 and 9, it is the believer who rejoices in His God.

I rejoice in the God of my Salvation.

Trust In The Lord: Psalm 37

PSALM 37:3 

Trust in the LORD, and do good: So shall you dwell in the land, and truly you shall be fed. Psalm 37:3

Trust (have faith in God) and do good (obey God's Word). Psalm 34:8-14 confirms this pursuit of happiness in Jesus:

8. Taste and See that the LORD is Good. To taste and see we must open our Bibles and pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal what God is speaking to us when we study His Word out. When we apply Biblical principles and ethics to our lifestyles, then we can begin to see how God is working in us and in our lives.

9. They that fear the LORD lack nothing in this life and in life eternal. Fearing the LORD is to obeying the Word He speaks to us. More than the 10 Commandments listed in Exodus, it is also a life of joy in obedience through Christ who is our Strength, as outlned in the New Testament.

10. Seek the LORD and any good thing is ours to have. Psalm 23:1 The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want means not only do I know Who my Leader is, but that I choose to follow where He leads me. And where He leads me is to a place of Enough, More Than Enough, Abundant Living in Him and through Him.

11. Learn the fear of the LORD by listening to the Holy Spirit's voice. It is the voice of Wisdom which speaks plainly in Proverbs. He is the Friend of the Bridegroom who not only prepares the bride to meet her Groom, but fetches the bride and her bridal party to the wedding.

12. Desiring a good long life is normal. But the only way to obtain it is to Trust and Obey God.

13. Don't speak evil against anyone, and don't be talking nasty about a person. No slander, no lies, no gossip, no backstabbing, no anger is to come out of the mouth of the believer. Don't be bad-mouthing a person. Nor should we talk about them without their knowledge. James 3:5-10 warns of the ruin our tongues can bring when we allow the tongue to lash out and lose control. 

14. Depart (walk away from, leave) from evil, and do good (be obedient); Seek peace (the peace which only God can give), and pursue it.

Delighting In The Lord:Psalm 37

For then you will have your delight in the Almighty, And lift up your face to God. 
Job 22:26

Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
Psalm 37:4

“If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, From doing your pleasure on My holy day, And call the Sabbath a delight, The holy day of the LORD honorable, And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, Nor finding your own pleasure, Nor speaking your own words,
Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; And I will cause you to ride on the high places of the earth, And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Isaiah 58:13, 14

You know what these four verses have in common? 

      Which means "Pliable, soft, live in enjoyment of". While I understand the enjoyment part, I would not have connected pliable or soft with it. And, yet, God did say that when we surrendered our hearts to Him, he would remove the stony heart and replace it with a fleshy heart. In other words, our hardened sinful hearts would be replaced with a heart that is pliable, soft, more easily moldable, shapeable into what He desires our hearts to be.

     But just how do we get to the Delight part of this walk? Not all of what God wants to reveal to us in His Word is going to be revealed all at once. When I was reading Isaiah 58:13 the other night, the Holy Spirit opened it up to my understanding. 

• Turn away my foot from doing my pleasure on God's holy day. Don't go where I want to go, go where God wants me to go. Choose to walk where God wants me to walk. 
• Call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable. Whether we call the holy day of the Lord the sabbath or Sunday, we are to call it a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable. A pleasant day to be in God's presence. It is a day to honor God with our presence, fully surrendered and committed to doing what He wants us to do on His holy day; not what we used to do or feel pressured to do just because "everybody else is doing _____". Choose to spend the whole day with God.
• Honor Him, not doing what I/we want to do, nor finding our own pleasure, nor speaking our own words. Whereas, once upon a Sunday, we looked forward to family time or sports time or however we would spend our Sundays, now that we belong to Him, our Sundays are not our Sundays: Sunday belongs to God. 

     Romans 12:1 tells us to surrender our bodies a living sacrifice. While it is talking about a surrendered life in Christ, it also concerns our lifestyles. No longer do we do, nor behave how we lived when we were sinners, but now we live according to the terms of our surrender to God. We chose Him as the Savior and Deliverer of our souls. Now we choose Him as Lord of our lives; we willingly sacrifice what our flesh wants to do and submit to what the Spirit of God wants us to do. And when we truly, honestly love the Lord our God, then we become quite willing to turn over every aspect of our lives, including how we spend our Sundays. 

     For me personally, this will include shutting off the television on Sundays. There is not a whole lot on the idiot box that honors God on any day of the week, much less Sunday. And I will taper off on computer time, as well. But that is what is changing in my home. How you choose to spend or change your Sunday/sabbath is between you and God. My hope is that as you open yourself up to God, He reveals Himself to you. And He will; His Word says so and God does not lie. “They that seek Me early shall find Me.”  Proverbs 8:17