Focusing on My Faith . . .

God morning . . . In my morning reading I was led to Psalm 78 (history of salvation). I want to state that this is not going to be my typical post about my morning reading, but one I felt called to write based on my reading.

Psalm 78 as told by Asaph described the history of the Jewish nation from the time of slavery in Egypt to David’s reign and it was told over and over to each generation so they would not forget God and make the same mistakes as their ancestors.

I am amazed while reading this historical Psalm at how many times it says they continued to sin and continued to test the Lord! “In spite of all this, they kept sinning; in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.” (78:32)

Yet he would forgive them and restrain his anger time and time again. He would not bring down his wrath upon them . . . until finally he had had enough and gave them over to their enemies, rejecting them completely. (78:59) There was great suffering and death! (78:60-64)

It makes me wonder . . . are we close to having pushed God to his testing point? Has he had enough?
It saddens me to see such chaos and destruction in the world. That I believe our country is divided more now than ever before.

It is saddens me to know that each year, an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders and of the 600,000-800,000 people trafficked each year, 70 percent are female and 50 percent are children with the majority of these victims being forced into the commercial sex trade (source: NCJRS.gov).

It saddens me that with the click of a button, any person no matter how old can find an endless supply of pornography photos and/or videos.

It saddens me that last year 71,999 people died from a drug overdose and the numbers are even greater for 2020 with our current health situation and people feeling helpless and alone. (Source: NYTimes.com)

What can be done about all this? I don’t know really know.

What I do believe though is if we personally turned our minds and hearts back to our Lord and Savior it would be the best starting point. Christians need to share the Good Word whenever the opportunity comes up. We need to be bold and help bring as many people to Christ as we can!

Matthew 5:14-16 says, “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

We hide our light by:

• being quiet when we should speak; going along with the crowd;
  
• denying the light;
  
• letting sin dim our light;
  
• not explaining our light to others; or
  
• ignoring the needs of others.

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I encourage you to read Psalm 78 and be bold about your light! Let it shine and speak out! God bless and Merry Christmas!