Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. (Psalm 50:15)
All of us who know Him have, from the beginning our walk of faith, understood that being in relationship with God affords us provision, protection and preservation. We know that, as His children, we can boldly approach the Throne of Grace and make our petitions known, particularly when we find ourselves in crisis. That being said, there is an important component of this truth revealed in the previous verse which says, “Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High.” In short this says, when we consistently do the things He has commanded us to do — those things we have affirmed that we will do as His servants — we can rest assured that, “in the day of trouble,” He will deliver us. Still, it should never be that our confidence in God is allowed to devolve into taking God for granted. The Messiah highlighted this noting that it is written: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 6:16).
How do we take God for granted? I would say, in the same manner we take our fellow man for granted. When we expect them to be there for us and to do what we need them to do, but haven’t done the same by them, we take them for granted. If God asks us, as His children, to conduct ourselves in a certain manner and we don’t, should we then expect Him to respond as soon as we find ourselves in a tight spot? We shouldn’t do that but we do — and oftentimes, He will be merciful anyway. Still, the point is it should not be this way; in advance of the crisis, we should be thankful to God and “pay our vows” — i.e. keep our promise to obey.
In Acts, we are told of a Roman centurion named Cornelius who “feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to people, and prayed to God always” (Acts 10:2). Though the Bible doesn’t reveal what was going on to prompt an supernatural visitation, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God” (Acts 10:4). When the Bible speaks of a memorial, it is important for us to understand the implications of that word from a Hebraic point of view.
The Hebrew root of this word literally means “to remember.” But beyond the idea of calling something to mind, the Hebrew concept of remembering means to take action on behalf of someone. So when God “remembers,” He acts. If you read the rest of the account, you will see that God did, in fact, act on Cornelius’ behalf. But don’t miss what is stated just before this — Cornelius was active on God’s behalf.
We believe that God will act on our behalf but it is important to embrace the fact that we are here to act on His behalf — we are His servants and His witnesses. There are things He expects us to do, and without the condition on our part that He will immediately reward our compliance — obedience to God is our reasonable service. That being said, our obedience and good works have a cumulative effect in that, when we are in distress, God remembers our obedience and goes to work on our behalf. And when He has delivered us, it is only reasonable that we will be moved to give Him glory.
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Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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