With a Child's Heart

Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I do not get involved with things too great or too difficult for me. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself like a little weaned child with its mother; I am like a little child. Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forever. (Psalm 131:1-3) (HCSB)

"I am like a little child." As the writer of this psalm, what was King David trying to express? What was he trying to say to the nation of Israel? I believe that he was both warning and encouraging his readers with this short psalm. He was warning them, and ultimately us as well, to beware of pride and haughtiness, and encouraging us to keep our proper perspective so that we can worship the Lord with our heart in the right place. As we grow and mature we become more independent. We learn how to do more and more things on our own until we don't need help from our parents or others, and we ultimately mature to adulthood. We come to a place where we achieve total independence and we take pride in that. But many of us go beyond that, and instead of growing up and becoming independent from just our parents, we also outgrow our need for God. We become proud and haughty, and we believe that all that we've achieved was by our own power, and so, we have no real need for God. Our hearts grow hard, and we lose the ability to simply trust in the Lord even when there's mountains of evidence all around us. Like Pharoah we harden our hearts and don't respect or revere God even though He's doing miracles right before our eyes.

Keith Green, one of the pioneers of contemporary Christian music, wrote a song with his wife, Melody, called "Soften Your Heart". The song conveys a message of hope and salvation that he's trying to get across to his listeners. Take a look at some of the lyrics:

So many times I've tried to tell you
but I don't think you've been listening
There's nothing I wanna try and sell you
'cause His love is free
You're so proud of saying you're a seeker
but why are you searching in the dark
You won't find a thing until you soften your heart
The message is oh so very simple
you gotta be like a child to see
'cause Jesus said, "Let the little children come unto me."
You try to make things too complicated
but you really don't have to be so smart
You won't learn a thing until you soften your heart

I think Keith got it right. We try to make everything too complicated, we try to figure out how to do it ourselves, but the real message is so simple. Jesus loves us and gave His life to pay for our mistakes so that we can be reconciled with Father God. He wants us to turn away from our sins and simply trust Him, humbly coming to Him with the pure faith of a child. Let's look at what Jesus said:

(Mark 10:13-16) Some people were bringing little children to Him so He might touch them, but His disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw it, He was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to Me. Don't stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I assure you: Whoever does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." After taking them in His arms, He laid His hands on them and blessed them. (HCSB)

(Matt. 18:1-4) At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Then He called a child to Him and had him stand among them. "I assure you," He said, "unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child--this one is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (HCSB)

So let's all soften our hearts, be converted and become like children. Let's humble ourselves and keep the right perspective--that God is Lord of all and we need to trust in Him, not in our own strength, because we are nothing without Him.

Singing His Praises,
Joey C.

God Hears & Listens

Ps. 66:16-20

Come and listen, all who fear God, and I will tell you what He has done for me. I cried out to Him with my mouth, and praise was on my tongue. If I had been aware of malice in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. However, God has listened; He has paid attention to the sound of my prayer. May God be praised! He has not turned away my prayer or turned His faithful love from me. (HCSB)

Have you ever felt like God doesn't hear your prayers? Or that He hears but don't really listen? Or worse, that He hears but don't care? Well, let me just say that He does hear. And when He hears the prayers of His children He listens because He truly does care. We struggle with this sometimes because of our limited understanding and patience. We have the Burger King and Dominoes mentality where we want to have it our way in under 30 minutes, but sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers in exactly the way or time frame that we think He should. But we need to trust that He cares about us, and knows what is truly best for us. The Psalms are filled with scriptures that point to the reality that God hears us:

• Ps. 4:3--Know that the Lord has set apart the faithful for Himself; the Lord will hear when I call to Him.
• Ps. 18:6--I called to the Lord in my distress, and I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice and my cry to Him reached His ears.
• Ps. 40:1--I waited patiently for the Lord, and He turned to me and heard my cry for help.
• Ps. 69:33--For the Lord listens to the needy and does not despise His own who are prisoners.
• Ps. 94:9--Can the One who shaped the ear not hear, the One who formed the eye not see?
• Ps. 116:1-2--I love the Lord because He has heard my appeal for mercy. Because He has turned His ear to me, I will call out to Him as long as I live.
• Ps. 138:3--On the day I called, You answered me; You increased strength within me.

So God's Word confirms that He hears the prayers of the righteous. In 1 John 5:14 we are told: Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (HCSB) What we have to do is to believe and keep on praying. We need to keep the faith and be persistent in our prayers, not giving up when it seems that the Lord isn't answering the way we expect Him to in our 30 minute window. There's no doubt in my mind that God answers our prayers. I've seen way too many answered prayers in my own life and in the lives of people I know--some of them even miraculous answers-- to doubt the power of prayer. What's harder for me to believe is that we have the ear (so to speak) of our heavenly Father--that we have access to the One True God of all creation through prayer!

Imagine with me if you will, that you are granted an audience with some figure of royalty, a King or Queen perhaps. What kind of honor would that be, realizing how rare an opportunity it is for a common citizen to be able to spend time with such an important and powerful person? How would you feel if the King/Queen listened with interest to the things that concerned you? Pretty good, huh? You know, I've emailed President Obama two or three times about issues that concern me greatly, but I have yet to get a personal response from him or a response of any kind for that matter. In fact, I doubt that he ever even saw or read my emails. And yet I can bow down and send a knee-mail to God and get a confirmation that the message was received in my heart and spirit before I even say "amen". And that's great, because I'd much rather talk to Jesus anyway!

We can go to God anytime, and we don't need a priest or mediator to do so. We don't have to win some contest or pass a security check by the secret service. There's only one mediator between man and God, and that's Jesus Christ. (1 Tim. 2:5-6) He's our High Priest, and because of what He's done for us, we can boldly approach God's throne, knowing that He will hear us and help us when we need Him! (Heb. 4:14-16) Praise the Lord! Aren't you glad you've got His ear?

Singing His Praises,
Joey C.

Traits of a Righteous Person

Hallelujah! Happy is the man who fears the Lord, taking great delight in His commandments. (Ps. 112:1)(HCSB)


Are you a righteous person? One who is in right-standing with God? I hope so because God has many blessings and promises for the righteous. Of course, in and of ourselves, none of us could ever hope to be good enough to be labeled as righteous. God's Word makes that clear. (Rom. 3:10; Ps.143:2) But praise God, we can attain righteousness through Jesus, the only man who ever followed God's law perfectly, who was the sinless Lamb of God and whose sacrifice for our sins placed us in a position of right-standing with God when we follow him as Lord of our lives. We will be happy when we fear the Lord, taking great delight in His Word as we try to live the christian life through the power of the Holy Spirit. Psalm 112 shows us some traits of a righteous person. Let's look at some of these traits or characteristics that the righteous can experience:

• v.2--his descendants will be powerful and blessed
• v.3--wealth and riches are in his house
• v.4--he is gracious, compassionate and righteous
• v.5--good will come to he who is fair in business
• v.6--he will never be shaken, but will be remembered forever
• v.7--he confidently trusts in the Lord, not fearing bad news
• v.8--he looks in triumph over his foes
• v.9--he helps the poor and will be exalted in honor

In Psalm 112:10, we see the contrast of what the wicked man experiences: The wicked man will see it and be angry; he will gnash his teeth in despair. The desire of the wicked will come to nothing. (HCSB) This should encourage us all to turn from everything wicked or unrighteous and whole-heartedly seek after godliness so that we can experience the traits of the righteous that we've just looked at in Psalm 112. We can be assured that even though it doesn't seem like it at times to our natural eyes, the way of the wicked leads to ruin but God watches over the righteous. (Ps. 1:6) I like the way that David puts it in Psalm 37:25---I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous abandoned (HCSB)

So I encourage us all to keep fighting the good fight of faith and to stay on the road of righteousness. If we do, we have God's promise that we will never be shaken (Pr. 10:30) and that we can experience true happiness when we worship him with due respect and reverence. (Ps. 112:1)

Singing His Praises,
Joey C.