10) For
every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon
a thousand hills.
11) I
know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine.
12) If I
were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is
mine, and the fulness thereof.
13) Will
I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14) Offer
unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
15) And
call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
16) But unto the wicked God saith,
What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that
thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?
17) Seeing
thou hatest instruction, and casteth
my words behind thee.
|
P |
eople
often find their way difficult because of their circumstances, as opposed to
attributing it to behavior leading to their circumstances. However one chooses
to assess the situation, most can see neither reason nor way to be thankful
unto God. It seems increasingly harder to get the saints of God to look beyond
what appears to be opposition and offer unsolicited praise and thanksgiving to
God.
Perhaps
if we were aware of what praise does to the Enemy, we would be more diligent
and determined in offering it. If we really understood how praise angers,
confuses, immobilizes and binds the devil, we would be determined not to bow
down to him. You see, he counts on us panicking when troubling situations are
presented and thereby running past God and looking to ourselves. He counts on
us not being rational enough to recognize that the more trouble we have and
care about, the more we will keep.
The
sooner we stop just repeating scripture and begin to believe it, the better off
we will be. It becomes easy for the child of God to “offer unto God
thanksgiving,” when he accepts that “...all things work together for good...”
Accepting this is as easy as reminding ourselves of God’s purpose. And what is
that purpose? That our lives be instruments to bring others
into salvation.
We
must adopt the attitude that nothing will come to the servant of God except
that which will benefit him. When we do this, that is, see everything as a
means of blessing, nothing will pull
us from the will of God. If we would only remember that on the Cross, Jesus
looked at the joy, not the problem. If Jesus had just endured the Cross, and
failed to manifest joy, millions of lives would have gone untouched, unchanged
and remained doomed.
No
matter who, no matter what—all belongs to God. In that
we, too, belong to Him, we can take solace in the fact that “...He knows the
path we take...” and has ordered it for our prosperity, not our destruction or
punishment.
You
see, because Man is a highly suspicious creature that is always afraid some
will “dupe” him, he ends up “duping” himself. All the devil wants is for us to
look so hard for the “trick” that we bend over backward to avoid it and get
ourselves in other trouble. The devil often seems to understand better than the
people of God how much we need Him (the Lord). The more we do understand this,
the more problems we know to give to Him. As long as we feel pretty competent
and confident in our abilities, we will continue to trust ourselves more than
God. Satan knows this, so his ploy is keep us on the merry-go-round of needing
help, but then looking toward every source but God to get it.
The
“spirit” of hooking, crooking and conniving to get what we want and take care
of our problems is a direct result of listening to the flesh, hence Satan. From
now on, we need to recognize this and understand that with this attitude, our
blessings go right down the drain. What we
can do after salvation doesn’t count. No one is brought to salvation because of
us telling them what we can do or have accomplished. A beleaguered mankind is
looking for a Being greater than
himself to get him out of the mess he’s in.
Far
too many feel that they can bargain with God for what they need. You know, the
old “I’ll do this, if you do that.” There’s only one question: How can one who
has nothing to offer have any bargaining power? You see, the One with whom we
attempt to trade already has everything He needs, so He needs nothing from us.
It will also ring true that we will need Him long before He would ever need us.
We
should never make the mistake of thinking that praise and thanksgiving is
something that has been “worked up.” Those who are committed to Him have it at
the ready. Rest assured, the Lord will never be short of praise, for there is
always someone or something which will cry out His praise.
The
greatest gift we can ever give anyone is to lead them to Christ. A life which
“offers unto God (continual) thanksgiving” is a life which draws attention
away from itself to the God who gave it. Perhaps when we realize that others
are dependent upon that praise, more lives will shout the victory of Jesus
Christ.