SOS

Posted by anointedplace on May 20, 2014 · 2 Comments 

The king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation, and by its great might it cannot rescue. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them alive in famine. (Psalm 33:16-19 ESV)

 

 

We are quick to offer to God the things he already owns; “our lives”, “our wealth”, “our faith”, etc. The one thing The Lord asks for over and over we keep to ourselves; it is our broken and contrite hearts as well as all of our anxieties. But why? Our flesh is so deceived in believing that we are strong enough and that we know enough to save ourselves. How dare that someone may say otherwise, we will give money, time to do religious rituals, we will do the social things because those lesser than ourselves need us too. We are mighty and can pull ourselves up because we are not them. It was our own strength that has gotten us this far. All that we have built and planned for is all we will ever need as we live in comfort. What do we need a God for?

We hear all the time from people about how this person saved them or how their kids was their recuse. We hear how a career or a particular vocation was instrumental to their salvation. We all have things in our lives that serve as our “great army”; we have abilities, ingenuities, ambitions, determinations, experiences, carrers, and etc that is our “warrior’s strength”. Unfortunately, the only way for us to see them for what they are which is, useless; God must bring us to brokenness. It’s like God and Ezekiel challenging the false prophets’ and their false gods. In the midst of trials our war horse is a false sense of hope for our salvation because we believe salvation starts on earth when it actually began in God before we took our first breathe.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, that he may deliver their soul from death – Psalm 33:17-19

We should never fear the lost of what cannot save us but reverence the Lord in love and He will always be our salvation as everything else fall away. God delights in the broken and contrite hearts because its humbled and able to receive the love God wants to pour into it by the Holy Spirit. A broken heart is no longer prideful, thinking that the glory belongs to its might. When we are brought low by God, just as Job we no longer question God’s actions. A contrite heart has seen God’s glory and holiness and the weight of it crushes us. We no longer give excuses, nor do we justify ourselves and sins. We see that our might is weakness.

◄ Ezekiel 36:26
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

When we come to the end of ourselves and we run out of answers, we do break. When we see that on our own we are hopeless, we learn to fear the Lord. God sets his eyes upon them, he looks down from the cross saying it is finished. Jesus calls for us to cast our anxieties on him as we place faith in Christ and no longer on ourselves. We stop trying to be god with our prideful worrying and hope no more in our war horse for salvation but in the loin of Judah.

Related articles

• The Lord is My Light and My Salvation
• Salvation by Faith (John Wesley)
• Looking Through a Glass Darkly – Job 19
• Where Is Your Treasure? Matthew 6:19-24
• “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”-Rich Young Ruler

Filed under Brokenness, Christ, Christian, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humility, Idols, Jesus Christ, Love, mankind, Mercy, Salvation, Sin · Tagged with Christ, God, Holy Spirit, Hope, Jesus, Jesus and the rich young man, Lord, Psalm, Salvation