- Psalm 9:10 (NLT) Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O LORD, have never abandoned anyone who searches for you.
- Proverbs 24:14 (NAS) Know that wisdom is thus for your soul; if you find it, then there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.
- Proverbs 28:14 (NASB) How blessed is the man who fears always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.
- Isaiah 8:13 (NLT) Do not fear anything except the LORD Almighty. He alone is the Holy One. If you fear him, you need fear nothing else.
- Luke 1:50 (NIV) His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.
- I Peter 1:17 (NIV) Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.
- James 1:5-8 (NIV) 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
You know the type. Wealthy. Work hard and play hard. Travel. Mountain house. Seaside house. City house. Kids in the best schools. Personal trainers and dietician. They live by their own rules. It is hard not to envy that life style with the constant bombardment of the media painting the lifestyles of the rich and famous as glamorous. We have been sucked into measuring life by stuff, not trusting God. We have become double-minded. Unstable - without a firm foundation.
I am reminded of the Edward Mote poem that has become a favorite hymn of the church since 1836 - My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less.
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus' Name.
Refrain: On Christ the solid Rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
Refrain
His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.
Refrain
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
Refrain
A man who was zealous for God wrote this poem. This former cabinet-maker turned Baptist preacher got it. When we envy the financially successful unregenerate, we have shifted our hope from what is solid and true to what is empty and without eternal meaning.
Where is your hope fixed?
Copyright (c) 2006 by P. Griffith Lindell
No comments:
Post a Comment