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It seems that no matter where I look in the media today, there is conflict, fighting, outrage, mistreatment, and division—all of which is stirring up fear, anger, and hostility. Where are the righteous? Where is the love of God? Where is the unity inherent in our faith?
As I was thinking about this, I read Psalm 12 from The Remedy of the Lord in Song, and what is written there struck me as something that’s happening today. Do you see it too?
Help us Lord, lest those who are like you in character disappear;
those who trust you are vanishing from the earth.
Do you ever feel as though the righteous are disappearing? Do you recognize the warfare for hearts and minds going on—the assault on truth, the actions designed to tempt righteous people with anger, frustration, and outrage so that they will join with worldly forces and use worldly methods in the pursuit of righteousness?
People tell each other fictional tales about life,
deluding themselves with false security.
Do you hear the wild and fictional tales being taught? The delusions people are promoting are all designed to provide themselves with false security, to avoid the conviction of conscience that the truth would bring.
O Lord, cut through their lying words;
expose as false the boastful
who say, “What we say determines what is right.
We can say whatever we want; who will stop us?”
Have you seen this arrogance, this attitude in the world, by those who proclaim all kinds of reality-denying fantasies, falsehoods, and obvious delusions, but daring anyone to stand up and stop them? And if anyone does call out their delusions as false, irrational, and destructive, what do they do? They riot, scream, destroy property, threaten, incite violence, accuse, and inflame every wicked emotion, all designed to intimidate and silence the voices of truth and reason. Notice, these deluded souls do not seek to dialogue, to persuade, to discuss—why? Because the truth is not on their side, and they know it!
So what they do when they are not throwing their temper tantrums is to purposefully do what Satan does—they distort, twist, and corrupt by redefining words to mean what they do not mean. Male and female are redefined to mean what one feels about themselves, not objective binary states of objective biological being based on God’s design, creation, and physiological parameters.
Recently, after violent and destructive protests, a city official who supported the riots asserted that what the people were doing was not wrong; it was love. I don’t recall Jesus leading His followers to riot and calling that love. In fact, love is patient and kind; it isn’t rude or arrogant; it doesn’t envy or boast; it does not insist on having its own way or keep records of wrong and then demand recompense, and love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth (1 Corinthians 13:4–6).
I pray that the sword of the Spirit, the Spirit of love and truth, will be wielded and cut through the lies, distortions, and emotional winds that darken minds in order to set people’s hearts and minds free so they can genuinely love—love like Jesus loves—and not be tricked into joining the world and using its destructive methods.
The Lord says, “I will act now,
because the weak are exploited
and those who need help call out.
I will provide the remedy they so desperately desire.”
Jesus is the Remedy! He is the way, the truth, and the life. God so loved this sick, sinful, rebellious world that He sent His Son so that all who trust Him will be saved, healed, set free, have their hearts and minds cleansed, be renewed, restored to unity, at-one-ment, with God! It is a real Remedy. It is a new life, the life of Jesus, that we experience, partake, and internalize when we trust, when we open our hearts and surrender our fear, our hurts, our need to survive, our need to protest, picket, riot, control, and force others to do what we want. It is when we stop responding to fear and trust Jesus and open the heart that we receive His Spirit, His life, and it is no longer our old sinful, fearful, selfish selves living but Christ living in us (Galatians 2:2). We become partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
The promised remedy of the Lord is pure—
purified like silver in an earthen kiln,
purified to perfection.
Jesus is pure—pure love, pure truth, pure grace, pure holiness, pure perfection! And we may be purified from all our sin by partaking of Him. Jesus said that the only way we can be saved is by eating His flesh and drinking His blood (John 6:53–55). This is not cannibalism; Jesus is speaking symbolically. We partake of His flesh (re-symbolized by bread in the communion service) by ingesting the Word. Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). As we partake of the Word of truth, lies are displaced, we are won to trust, and in trust we open our hearts and invite Jesus in. He comes in the Person of the Holy Spirit who brings us the life of Christ—the life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11, re-symbolized by wine in the communion service). We are reborn with a new life, a sinless pure life, the life of Jesus (John 3:3). And then, we daily continue our relationship with Him, choosing to nurture our souls, our minds, our hearts, on His Word and we grow, mature, and advance from victory to victory.
O Lord, keep our minds and hearts pristine and safe;
preserve us from the corruption of lies and selfishness,
because the selfish are everywhere about us,
and lies are what people love.
Yes, Jesus, keep our minds and hearts pristine; establish your truth and love within us; preserve us from the lies, the distortions, the delusions of this world; inspire us with your love so that when we see the outrage, the perversity, the abuse, the fraud, that instead of getting angry, let us respond with love; let our hearts grieve; let us recognize the sad reality of what people are doing to themselves as they persist down these destructive trails; protect us from being drawn into their circle of dysfunction by the spirit of fear and the lie that we need to act to protect ourselves. We surrender ourselves into your keeping—and we trust you with how things will turn out. O precious Savior, please come quickly! We need you!
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