For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
It is the Lord who grants wisdom. God is the source of knowledge and understanding. Those who are honest and righteous gain common sense as a natural result, because God designed the Universe that way. If we seek wisdom and follow where it leads, we will find and come to know God. If we seek God and follow where He leads, we will find and know wisdom.
Every time I look into the night sky I am reminded of God’s majesty and power. Yet, because of this psalm, I am also reminded how much He loves me. But not just how much He loves me, how much He loves every single individual. It is interesting because this psalm combined with the night sky reminds me that I am little and insignificant. Yet I am also reminded that God wants me to use what little insignificant power which I possess to help those around me. I will praise God for how He has made the Universe to remind me that I am loved and that I am to love.
Today’s passage looks like three different pieces, and in some ways it is. However, these three pieces fit together. Jesus tells us not to worry. Just look around, birds do not farm, or otherwise gather and store up food, yet God provides them with food to eat. Wild flowers do not spin, or otherwise manufacture clothes, yet are they not more beautiful than anything we could hope to buy? God knows that we need food and clothes. We do not need to worry about how we will get them. God will provide our needs.
One of my favorite verses is right here in Jesus’ teaching us not to worry. Instead of worrying about food and clothes and shelter, let us seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness. If we pursue God’s kingdom with the same energy and urgency we are used to spending on satisfying our physical needs and desires, we will find those physical needs being met without us seeming to put any effort into them whatsoever.
The next piece of this lesson is that whatever standard we use to judge others, that is the standard by which we will be judged. I never realized before how closely this fits with something my father taught me. My father taught me not to trust someone who is sure that everyone is out to betray them. That person is sure that everyone is out to betray them is because they will readily betray others. In many ways, that is what Jesus was teaching from the opposite perspective. We will judge others by the standard by which they can best judge us. However, my father would have been quick to point out that there is more to Jesus’ teaching than the reverse of the lesson from my father to which I just referred. Jesus was telling us that if we judge others by the standard by which we would like to be judged we will find ourselves living as people who deserve to be judged that way.
Then there is the third piece of this. If we do not ask, we will not receive given. If we do not seek, we will not find. If we do not knock, no one will open the door for us. On the other hand, if we ask, we will receive; if we seek, we will find; if we knock the door will be opened for us. Let us ask God for wisdom. Let us seek God’s kingdom and righteousness. Let us knock on the door to our neighbor’s heart.
I have always loved the story of Abraham bartering with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham starts by questioning God’s justice and fairness.
“Will you really destroy 50 righteous people just because they live among wicked people?”
To which God replies that if He can find 50 righteous people in Sodom, He will not destroy the city. Abraham than asks, “Well, what if you are only a few short of that number?” Again God replies that if He finds even that number, He will not destroy the city. This continues until Abraham gets God to agree not to destroy the city if there are even 10 righteous people there. At which point, Abraham does not feel that he can argue any further.
I do not really believe that if Abraham had not argued with God and there had been 10 righteous people in Sodom that God would have destroyed the city. However, it does not mean that it would have been OK for Abraham to not make the attempt. When we see trouble coming we should do everything in our power to save those in its path, just as Abraham did here. We should beg and plead with God to turn aside the coming destruction. We should care that people are going to suffer and desire to relieve them of that suffering, even if they brought it on themselves. Sometimes that caring means telling them that their actions are going to bring them suffering.
There is another important lesson here. As wicked as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were, God agreed to not destroy them if He could find TEN righteous people in them. I do not know how many people lived in Sodom, but it was probably many more than 1,000. However, if it was only 1,000, that would mean that it only takes 1% of the population to be righteous to save a city from destruction. Think about that. It does not take many people to actually make a difference, to save a city. It only takes a few righteous people to keep a society from degenerating into a mire for which the only solution is destruction. As bad as things look around us, there are still a few righteous people in this nation. Just as Abraham did, let us pray that it is enough, but when we find ourselves in the situation Lot was in, let us stand up for righteousness.