Pray:
Ask God to orient or reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Psalm 1:1-5
“1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on His law day and night. 3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. 4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”
Understand:
The believer may stand firm in God and find his delight in Him alone. He may even understand that the wicked is nothing. Yet, the wicked seem to prosper. This thought can lead to dis-orientation. Many times we (believers) watch and wonder when the end of the wicked will happen. The psalmist wants us to know that from God’s perspective, the wicked have no future…they cannot escape His judgment.
Apply:
We see wickedness all around us; we see it as we move to a more secular society. God is rejected from any public forum, terrorism, Christian persecution, abortion, and on and on it goes. We can begin to wonder if the wicked will be punished because it seems like nothing is happening.
The psalmist would tell us to stand firm, trust that God is at work, and know that the unrighteous will be judged. In fact, the judgment has already come with the redemption of Jesus Christ’s first appearance and will come in its finality with His second coming.
We live in the in-between time known as the “already, not yet” time. It’s here where we recognize our finiteness in comparison to the infiniteness of God. This is where we tell Him all we do not understand and at the same time tell Him we trust in Him to make all things as they should be. This is what our faith in Christ is all about.
Are you struggling with the injustice you see going on around you? Will you give it to Christ? Will you trust Him with the things you can’t control?
Live:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today. KEEP PRAYING THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY.