June 30, 2022

Passage Read: Habakkuk 3 - Zephaniah 3
Meditation Verses: Zephaniah 3:11-12

Thought

In order to redeem His people, the Lord must remove the proud ones out of their midst, and leave behind the weak and poor, who need the Lord and will call on Him and trust in Him. The problem with Israel is the same problem with the Church and with the individual: They are filled will pride, with arrogant people who think they're so smart, so clever, who think they know better than God Himself. So they hear His Word and think it's foolish, they cast it aside for their own ways. So the Church doesn't follow the Lord faithfully, any more than Israel did, because there are individuals in their midst who believe they know better than God. That is why the Lord must purify the Church before the end, that is why He will bring nations against Israel at the end, to burn away all the false believers who think more of themselves than of the Lord, until only the poor and needy are left, those who turned to the Lord for deliverance, not those who thought up their own ways to save their lives.

Application

I need to be weak and poor, in order to remember that only the Lord can save me. The most dangerous thing for me would be to think I'm smart enough to figure a way to avoid suffering for Christ that is not recorded in Scripture. God will bring suffering on His people, to separate the proud from the weak and poor. The proud will lean on their own cleverness to avoid suffering; the weak and poor have no other option but to go through it, trusting in the Lord to deliver them, even if they must die first. The proud will be thrown out of God's kingdom, the weak and the poor will inherit God's kingdom. So let me be weak and poor, rather than smarter than God.