Psalm 46:10 “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

This is a favorite Bible verse for many people and with good reason because we are prone to strive for what we want and we are prone to be anxious and stressed that we will not be able to get what we want.  Most people spend a lot of time worrying about the future and trying to build fences to keep the bad things of the world out of their back yard.  My pastor pointed out that God says “Fear not”, 365 times in the Bible … one for each day of the year.  God is trying to tell man “Hey, I’ve got this all figured out, trust me, don’t be afraid, don’t be anxious and don’t strive“ but man is afraid of God because he doesn’t know God and he doesn’t trust God.

So this is man’s disposition in the world, one of fear because man has sinned and he knows that he stands in judgement for sin before a holy God.  It is because of our sin nature that we do not trust God to give us what is good and it is because of our sin nature that we try on own effort to build a life that we think is good.  We think if we sing “I did it my way” loud enough and long enough that this will drown out the fear of death and our fear of judgment for our sin.

Yes, God has judged man because of sin but God has not abandoned man to the judgment that he deserves.  God sent His only begotten Son into the world to save man from sin (John 3:16).  Man doesn’t have to fear the judgement of his sin from God if he has put his trust of salvation in Jesus Christ who has paid the penalty for his sin.  This is the good news of the gospel and there is even more good news, if you are a born again believe in Jesus Christ, God comes to live in you and direct your new life in Jesus Christ.

And this is why I wrote this article to encourage the believer to wait on the Lord for God to fulfill His promises in us and through us.  

Isaiah 40:31 “Yet those who wait for the LORD Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.”

Now, waiting in the Christian sense does not mean doing nothing or being idle (or worshiping an idol like Money) but it means abiding in Christ, watching for God to move and then by faith moving with God.

The good news is that doing what God asks you to do is “easy” (Matthew 11:30) and doing God’s will brings “eternal rewards” (Matthew 6:20).  It is easy in the sense that it doesn’t require striving in human effort to prove you are better than someone else and it doesn’t require you to overcome the world by your own effort.  For we are not in a competition among men to determine what brings man glory but we are a compilation of man’s service to God to bring God the glory.  And a believer has already “overcome” the world because Christ has overcome the world.  A believer doesn’t strive for earthly rewards but he waits for the Lord and listens to the Lord and prays to God for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done.  Although, praying is not the only thing a Christian is asked to do, it is the first and most important thing that we must do before we are able to do anything that pleases God and demonstrates we are trusting that He will provide for our need otherwise we are just striving for worldly gain, anxiously depending on our ability to provide for what we think we need.

The fact that God honor prayer so highly is especially encouraging news to those who’s bodies are failing as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:16 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.”  And if your body is not failing you yet … it will … for man is born to die and man starts dying as soon as he is born.  But the worse death for man is not physical death but Spiritual death.  For we are born Spiritual separated “dead” from God and unless we are “born again” by grace through faith in Jesus Christ we will remain Spiritual dead to God and spend eternity that way.  The born again Christian has “eternal life” in Jesus Christ and his “inner man” or Spiritual man is being renewed day to day because it is connected to God and the Holy Spirit is alive in the believer.  And even more encouraging good news is that one day the believer will have a resurrected body like Jesus, that never dies and never hungers and it can traverse heaven and earth in a way “I can only image”.

Yes, the believer is waiting for the Lord to redeem him and give him a new body.  The believer is also waiting for the Lord to rapture him to Heaven and one day establish His Kingdom on earth where he will reign and rule with Christ.  On the other hand the unbeliever has put his hope in this world and he is looking for the Antichrist to come and set up his kingdom on earth.  Both the believer and unbeliever are waiting for a kingdom to come but the kingdom that the unbeliever is waiting for is a false kingdom of peace among men, the New World Order that is ruled by the Antichrist and is judged by God for seven years (read Revelation for the details on how the Antichrist kingdom ends).  For the unbeliever, this existence on earth is the only “heaven” he will ever know and for the believer this is the only “hell” he will ever know.

So are you waiting for God and building His Kingdom in Heaven (Matthew 6:33) or are you striving on earth to build the kingdom of the Antichrist?  Are you waiting for the blessed hope of Christ to rapture you to Heaven or are you looking for the Satanic hope of the Antichrist to come and set up his kingdom on earth?  If you suffer from the illness of “striving” take a dose of Psalm 46:10 and call on God every morning.

+8^) Rogersings

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