When a man’s ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
All of the relationships we cultivate with relatives, coworkers, neighbors, and church members can make our lives very complicated. But it doesn’t have to be that way because only one relationship is of real importance at all times; our relationship with God. Are we ever afraid of what people think about us? Perhaps a neighbor is contemplating a lawsuit against us, or a relative refuses to speak to us for some reason or another. Any of these things could bring great consternation, fear, and worry into our lives. Yet a true man of faith will always return to his relationship with God. He will ask himself, “How has my behavior in this relationship been offensive to God? What have I done that may be distancing the Holy Spirit from me at this time?” As the old saying goes, “It’s impossible to keep everybody happy with you all of the time.” If you are a man of principle and action, you will make some people unhappy by your perspectives and decisions. It is inevitable. Therefore, as you strike out into life, you should chart a course that is most pleasing to the God you serve. Heed the Spirit-filled, godly counsel that directs you in the will of God, but ignore the flak, the torpedoes, and the detractors that would sway you from your course. In the end, God will make sure that your enemies keep their distance and maintain relative peace with you.
The same principle may be applied to nations. Think of all the complex political maneuverings, negotiations, preemptive measures, and wars that could be avoided if national leaders would pay attention to this simple lesson. When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. There are a thousand potential enemies crossing our borders each day; terrorism is on the rise, and rogue states have more access to weapons of mass destruction than ever before in history. No political leader could ever apply enough wisdom, diplomacy, or security measures to preempt all of the possible threats on a nation. But when a nation’s ways please the Lord, He makes their enemies to be at peace with them! The presidents and judges of nations would do well to set their priorities by the laws of God. Instead of focusing attention upon the threats to national security, they ought rather to take care of the government-endorsed mass shedding of innocent blood within their own borders. They ought to address the problem of trillions of dollars of government money poured into godless educational systems that train hundreds of millions of young people not to fear God in science, origins, history, and letters. This is the best state policy of all. Please God in the internal affairs of the nation, and He will take care of the department of state!
Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.
One of the fundamental problems with modern life is that we fail to live by the priorities of God’s Word. If you do not understand God’s priorities, you will consume precious time and resources on the wrong things, thereby failing to live the good life as defined by God Himself. Unfortunately, this is the legacy of much of modern life which seeks after material well-being while neglecting God’s desires for our lives. How many times does a father place his money-making efforts over the spiritual needs of his family? As men fail to exhort their families daily, and then increasingly neglect the assembly of the saints on the first day of the week, you will see the faith dying out in their generations.
If you ever have an opportunity to trade money for righteousness, take advantage of such a deal. A man should never compromise his integrity for money in business or in politics. Money seems as if it will provide us more impact and more influence for good, but righteousness doesn’t always need money for its cause to prevail. Recently, conservative Christians entangled themselves in a gambling lobby that provided them funds for their political campaigns—all for the cause of family values and righteousness, of course. But what they forgot was that the commodity that really matters in life is righteousness, and money is only useful as far as it is used in the cause of righteousness.
A man’s heart devises his way: but the LORD directs his steps.
God is sovereign. This is among the most basic defining statements in the Christian faith. Failure to acknowledge the sovereignty of God is failure to acknowledge the “God-ness” of God. But such statements as these are terribly insulting to humanist man who wants to see himself as the hinge point of reality, the ultimate determinant of what happens.
But it should be clear enough that the future is indeterminable for us in the ultimate sense. If I were to plan on doing something tomorrow, any one of ten thousand things might happen that would frustrate my plans, and there is no way that I could prevent all of these possible contingencies from happening. For instance, a meteorite might hit my house and kill me. A police officer might arrest me and throw me in prison for a week or two, or I might lock my keys in my car and be unable to drive where I had intended to go. Only a sovereign God could possibly control all of these contingencies. This is why James cautions us to preface our plans to do such and such with the caveat, “If the Lord wills” (Jas. 4:15). These reminders should keep us forever humble, for we have no ultimate control over our lives. Only God is in total and absolute control over tomorrow.
1. Do we spend more time thinking about what others think about us, including those who might consider themselves our enemies, or what God thinks about us?
2. Have you ever had an opportunity to trade money for righteousness? Give examples of where and how this might occur.
3. If God can short-circuit our plans anytime He wants to, how should this change our outlook on the future?