Are you living to receive the salvation of God?

 Psalm 50:1–23 (ESV):  

1  The Mighty One, God the Lord, 

speaks and summons the earth 

from the rising of the sun to its setting. 

2  Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, 

God shines forth. 

3  Our God comes; he does not keep silence; 

before him is a devouring fire, 

around him a mighty tempest. 

4  He calls to the heavens above 

and to the earth, that he may judge his people: 

5  “Gather to me my faithful ones, 

who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!” 

6  The heavens declare his righteousness, 

for God himself is judge! Selah 

7  “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; 

O Israel, I will testify against you. 

I am God, your God. 

8  Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you; 

your burnt offerings are continually before me. 

9  I will not accept a bull from your house 

or goats from your folds. 

10  For every beast of the forest is mine, 

the cattle on a thousand hills. 

11  I know all the birds of the hills, 

and all that moves in the field is mine. 

12  “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, 

for the world and its fullness are mine. 

13  Do I eat the flesh of bulls 

or drink the blood of goats? 

14  Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, 

and perform your vows to the Most High, 

15  and call upon me in the day of trouble; 

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” 

16  But to the wicked God says: 

“What right have you to recite my statutes 

or take my covenant on your lips? 

17  For you hate discipline, 

and you cast my words behind you. 

18  If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, 

and you keep company with adulterers. 

19  “You give your mouth free rein for evil, 

and your tongue frames deceit. 

20  You sit and speak against your brother; 

you slander your own mother’s son. 

21  These things you have done, and I have been silent; 

you thought that I was one like yourself. 

But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you. 

22  “Mark this, then, you who forget God, 

lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! 

23  The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; 

to one who orders his way rightly 

I will show the salvation of God!” 

One day everyone on the whole Earth will be judged. There will be no escape and no valid excuses when you are face-to-face with the Almighty God. He knows what your life has been like, and He will judge you on how you have chosen to live it. He will not be bothered by how much money or material goods you have presented Him with - He does not care about the content of your wallet - but He will judge you for the level of sacrificial obedience you have shown, for He cares about the content of your heart.

God’s expectations of how you live your life might be different to yours. You see, He sees beyond your outward actions and He sees the motives and desires within. God requires that you live a genuine life that demonstrates faith in Him that is not just an internal belief, but outworked. This psalm tells tells us that His 'faithful ones';

• live with God in mind, 
• listen to Him and practice obedience,  
• give to Him (not for show but as a devoted response), 
• keep their promises, 
• express gratitude even when it is difficult, 
• do not just recite the rules but keep them, 
• accept discipline, 
• reject and revile evil, not support it, 
• consider who they spend time with, 
• watch what they say, 
• do not lie,
• honour others and do not speak ill of them, 
• do not forget or reject God.

It is easy to just skip through that list, but it is worth reflective consideration. Are you falling down on any of these points? How is your life of obedience looking in comparison to God’s expectations? Maybe there are some things you need to change in order to be considered a 'faithful one'. If so, that's ok, you can start work on that today. One day, and no-one knows when, you will be face to face with God. Then it will be too late to start work on being a faithful follower of God. For God will, 'judge his people', are you living in such a way that prepares you well for that time?

God cares about your decisions and your behaviour. The list of attitudes and actions in this psalm reflect how much you really believe in, trust and follow Him. Interestingly, it seems that your faithful obedience to God actually reveals itself through your attitude and behaviour towards other people. How you treat others matters because it shows if you are really obedient God or not. If you mistreat someone, no matter their behaviour to you, you are not demonstrating that you understand how to live a life loving God as you are disregarding the fact that each individual has been created in the image of God. How can you honour God if you dishonour His creation? 

‘Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High’ (v14). Living a sacrificial life sometimes means not behaving in the way you naturally want to, and it often means not going along with the crowd. So ensure that you are not; swearing, lying, taking part in coarse jokes, complaining, stealing even by taking things from the workplace, talking against others. I am sure you come across people that take part in these types of behaviours often, they are quite universally common. Yet you, if you are someone who desires to be acceptable to God, you need to stop behaving like this. These actions do not honour God or anyone else. God requires that you live sacrificially, gratefully and keep your promises, do not be like everyone else. Instead be genuine and sacrificial in your dealings with others, be kind, gentle, respectful, and speak up for those no-one else will for this is what Jesus would do. Live above reproach and ask God for His Holy Spirit to help you do the things that you know are right but are difficult. God wants you to succeed, that is why you have scripture to help inform and guide you! Are you taking note of how God is instructing you to live? Making the hard changes that will develop your character and show others that you are living for something beyond yourself?

One day you will be called to come face-to-face with God. It is important you prepare for that day. The Bible tells us what God is like, has examples of how His people should and should not live - are you taking these things onboard to influence your behaviours and decisions? Just reading the Bible, attending church, praying and financially contributing to the church will not provide you salvation. This psalm makes that clear as does the rest of scripture, these actions will not necessarily make you acceptable or righteous before God. You need to implement the Word of God to your life, not just go through the motions. God requires ‘faithful ones’ who ‘orders his way rightly’ and offer ‘thanksgiving as his sacrifice’. God does not want people who; can recall His words but not do them, give money abundantly but do not give Him their heart, say one thing and do another, are different in different situations, are uncontrolled in their speech or who disregard His teachings and do their own thing. If you know that is how you have been living, today is a chance for you to repent. To recognise where you have gone wrong and turn your life around. It is important how you live now and how you treat others because it shows how much you really believe and trust in God. How you manage your mouth, your mind and your body reflect your obedience and love of God and is demonstrated in your interactions with others. What do these things show about the faith you have?

The day of judgement is coming. If you live your life dependent upon and obedient to God, then God promises that you will shown His salvation (v23)! What a marvellous promise! If your life is dedicated to God it will be seen by others and by Him. Not only will you have the joy of acceptance on that day, but God also promises that when you, ‘call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify me’. Even in the here and now God assures you that He will be present and help. He will hear the cries and please of His faithful ones. He will rescue you when you are in trouble. What a great reassurance and hope you can have when you live as a dedicated follower of God! You can know God's presence now, and you can be assured of His acceptance when the day of judgement comes. Are you living in such a way to receive it? 

God is judge

 Psalm 7:1–17 (ESV): 

O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; 

save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 

2  lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, 

rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. 

3  O Lord my God, if I have done this, 

if there is wrong in my hands, 

4  if I have repaid my friend with evil 

or plundered my enemy without cause, 

5  let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, 

and let him trample my life to the ground 

and lay my glory in the dust. Selah 

6  Arise, O Lord, in your anger; 

lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; 

awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. 

7  Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; 

over it return on high. 

8  The Lord judges the peoples; 

judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness 

and according to the integrity that is in me. 

9  Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, 

and may you establish the righteous— 

you who test the minds and hearts, 

O righteous God! 

10  My shield is with God, 

who saves the upright in heart. 

11  God is a righteous judge, 

and a God who feels indignation every day. 

12  If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; 

he has bent and readied his bow; 

13  he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, 

making his arrows fiery shafts. 

14  Behold, the wicked man conceives evil 

and is pregnant with mischief 

and gives birth to lies. 

15  He makes a pit, digging it out, 

and falls into the hole that he has made. 

16  His mischief returns upon his own head, 

and on his own skull his violence descends. 

17  I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, 

and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. 

In this psalm, David is reflecting on the consequences for those who follow God, and those who don’t. David knows, accepts, and even welcomes God’s judgement. He knows that God, ‘tests the minds and hearts’ of us all, and he even invites God to, ‘judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me’. Do you have the confidence in how you are living to ask God to judge you?! David does. He has such confidence in the fact that he is living life right before God that he invites God to consider his actions to see if he has gone wrong. David is so convinced of his right standing with God and man that he asks for punishment if he has gone awry (v3-5). Do you have confidence to do the same? Are you sure that you are living right before God? 

I am amazed at and admire the conviction David has of his own righteousness. If I thought about God judging me, I would become acutely aware of my faults and sin. I would certainly feel uncomfortable challenging God to judge me and punish me if I am at fault as I know that there are areas where I am. No-one is perfect, so we all have areas in our lives where we falter and fail at times, and David was no different. So, I do not think that David is claiming to be perfect in this psalm, but instead that he is speaking of a particular situation where he is suffering. We can tell from this psalm that this is a situation where people have come against him and he has evaluated his dealings with them. Then he has come to the conclusion that he has not been at fault. David can see that the accusations and treatment he is receiving is unwarranted. Therefore he asks God to judge him in this situation, he is convinced of his innocence, yet he is open to God showing him if there is something he has done wrong. What a humble heart David has! Even when he is convinced of his innocence on a matter, he is prepared for God to speak and to show him what is going on. David is also prepared to suffer the consequences if God does find error in his ways - are you willing to do the same? When you feel unfairly treated, do you invite God to test you and show you if you're at fault so you can put it right, even if it seems small and trivial in comparison to your suffering? Do you call on God to judge? 

Like David, you can call on God to help, to intervene, to show, ‘if there is wrong in my hands’. David had dealt well with these people who had turned on him and become his enemies. Sometimes this can happen to you. If you are someone that seeks to love and follow God, it can happen that those who were once close become estranged, those whom could be trusted will become enemies. People that are not following God do not have an affinity with those who are, and that can cause tension, jealousy and hatred. The encouragement from this psalm is to treat all people well - that is your responsibility. Fighting back and judgement is not in your hands, it is in God's. 

God is a fair judge, he judges all people - those that follow Him and those that do not. If you know that some of your responses are not suitable for someone who is following God, then as much as it may pain you, change them. You may feel your reactions are justified and that people would understand as these people have mistreated you. People may understand, but God tests your heart and mind. So who are you trying to impress with your behaviour? Are you responding from a place of knowing you are a child of God or from a place of pain? Be assured that if others are; pursuing you, being unkind, persecuting you and generally making life difficult, God sees. He saw what was going on with David. 

God can and will intervene when it is right. David sought God’s intervention and was confident in the way he had handled those who had turned against him. Ensure that you handle difficulties with integrity. Ensure that your words and behaviour do not do you discredit, because then God can come and judge and fight for you. People that turn away from God and come against God’s people are in trouble. They go their own way and end up becoming, ‘pregnant with mischief’, they end up falling into a pit of their own making (v15), and ‘his mischief returns upon his own head’. They do not realise it, but the evil and harm they plan for others harms themselves. God knows and sees their deeds, just as He sees yours. So today, do not worry if you are treated unfairly, that there are people out to get you. Instead, make sure you're living right and be assured that the judgement of God comes to all. You do not need to deal out punishment and aggravation, you need to focus on your right-standing both before God and man. Ensure that you can rightfully come to God as David did and concentrate your efforts on honouring God and others. God will be your judge, and He will also be theirs.