"Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"
Psalm 73 : 25-26 (New King James Version)
The Lord has been leading me to wake up much earlier than I usually do and spend more time with Him. Before I go to bed I am confident that I will wake up ...but in the morning as I open my eyes and look at the time I think "I anyway wake up pretty early for the Lord...why that extra earlier hour today? lemme get some sleeeep"
I guess the Lord patiently waited for a week and then hit me really hard with this verse this morning "And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You"...In otherwords "There is nothing that I desire besides YOU ". And I felt sooooooooooo bad !! I mean I desired sleep over the Lord !
Anyone else feel the same ? :) There are so many times that we let other things take priority over our God.
Its so easy to say "Lord I love you and you are my highest priority" but its a whole different thing to put it down in action.
We see in verse 26 that the Lord is to be the strength of our hearts...The literal translation of the word strength in this context is ROCK ! God is the one solid immovable always definite certain portion of our heart ! And He alone is to be our portion forever.
Its time that we examine ourselves and our lifestyles .... Does our lifestyles and our every action shout out "There is nothing on earth that I desire besides You Lord"
It can be anything .... starting from our vocabulary that we choose to have rather than one that will be a testimony to our Lord.... to any unwanted thought..laziness.... wrong priorities....indisciplined lifestyles.... addiction......people...work.....
We are to never be confused between whats cool or whats an acceptable excuse or whats common with what is right and acceptable in the sight of our Lord...
I pray that today the Lord convicts us of anything that has crept in to our lives which is not of Him and that takes priority over Him...
May the Lord cleanse us and discipline us so that we can say "Lord there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You"
God Bless
Indeed Ps 73 is such a beautiful psalm, by which every true believer will identify himself with Asaph, the author of it. Asaph starts by saying that he almost stumbled....in what way...and what kept him from falling?....He stumbled when he started fretting, envying and coveting the unbelievers' trouble free lives, their prosperous lives, their getting away with wicked ways and even having a fan following, which caused him to even say that in vain he has kept his heart clean......then what kept him from falling? when he sought God for answers(17).The previous verse says that he tried to reason it out on his own but became weary as he could not find an answer and instead of just leaving with that, he went to God who has all answers and indeed he got an answer from God and what was that? That the Lord had already determined the end of the wicked who deny God. Though they are prosperous and have a fan following now, when God's time of judgment comes they will be like phantoms......where as he,Asaph, would be taken to glory (24). That is when Asaph says that he will desire God and nothing else (prosperity, trouble free life etc)and that God is my portion (not prosperity) and God is the strength of my heart when troubles come my way (not trouble free life)......
ReplyDeletereading your blog, one cannot miss your intense zeal for God....but i somehow feel that you are beating yourself up unnecessarily....it is to His beloved that He grants sleep (Ps 127:2)and every common man knows that our bodies need certain amount of sleep (which differs from person to person) to function well and that is how God has created us to be …and so buy giving our bodies some rest we will be stewarding it well to His glory……just the way he gave hunger and thirst. As much as we are not to indulge in sins like gluttony, drunkenness and sluggard ways, we are also not to indulge in sins like anorexic behavior or forbidding ourselves from sleep…..the Lord Himself when He has created us this way will not require us of fasting everyday, though, yes occasionally, the same way He will not require of us forbidding our sleep everyday, though yes occasionally….
Your zeal is awesome……..but as paul says zeal for God without knowledge of Him leads to efforts made in our own strength and not submission to His righteousness…
Praise the Lord
ReplyDeleteHave you ever experienced the Lord leading you or telling you to do something ? If so, Im sure you will understand this post . The Lord led me to wake up earlier and pray and interceed for those around me. After having such clear direction from the Lord , I yet chose to do otherwise by making excuses. And the Lord corrected me. Its not me beating myself up :-) I am NOT deciding on my own strength to do this or do that . But the Lord instructs me and the Lord corrects me :-)
I am not saying sleep is bad :-) Which is why the post says ".... to any unwanted thought..laziness.... wrong priorities....indisciplined lifestyles.... addiction.....". and "I pray that today the Lord convicts us of anything that has crept in to our lives which is not of Him and that takes priority over Him... "
Have a good long sleep but make sure however that you do spend time in prayer and with the word of God.
And if the Lord leads us to do something but we choose to disobey then thats wrong . As simple as that :-)
God Bless
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