Winners and Losers in this world

America’s eyes are increasingly riveted upon political polls, watching for their candidate to pull ahead of the other. The news (good or bad) will affect our feelings for the day, and probably steer our water-cooler conversations down the same avenue.

While I expect all of my fellow believers to be involved in the process of electing our next president (this is a VERY important matter), I cannot help but wonder if we let these things eclipse our confidence and joy in our great and victorious God. When the political news is “bad” for our cause, do we despair? When it is good, do we glow with pride (and put too much “trust in princes”)?

Let’s be redirected and reinvigorated by the Word of God, which speaks about the certainty of the victories of our God! Read, for instance, in Psalm 68. Then anchor your heart to God’s platform and plans for this world.

68:1 God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered;
and those who hate him shall flee before him!
2 As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away;
as wax melts before fire,
so the wicked shall perish before God!
3 But the righteous shall be glad;
they shall exult before God;
they shall be jubilant with joy!

4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts;
his name is the Lord;
exult before him!
5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
6 God settles the solitary in a home;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
– – – – –
19 Blessed be the Lord,
who daily bears us up;
God is our salvation. Selah
20 Our God is a God of salvation,
and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death.
21 But God will strike the heads of his enemies,
the hairy crown of him who walks in his guilty ways. (esv)

pdb

Why does God love us?

Thanks to my friend Tony for spotting this quote for us (and for the fine illustration):

In a sermon on John 3:16 (“God so loved, that he gave…”), Puritan Thomas Manton makes the following point on God’s indescribable love towards sinners in sending His Son:

“Love is at the bottom of all. We may give a reason of other things, but we cannot give a reason of his love, God showed his wisdom, power, justice, and holiness in our redemption by Christ. If you ask, Why he made so much ado about a worthless creature, raised out of the dust of the ground at first, and had now disordered himself, and could be of no use to him? We have an answer at hand, Because he loved us. If you continue to ask, But why did he love us? We have no other answer but because he loved us; for beyond the first rise of things we cannot go.

And the same reason is given by Moses, Deuteronomy 7:7-8: ‘The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people; but because the Lord loved you…’ That is, in short, he loved you because he loved you. All came from his free and undeserved mercy; higher we cannot go in seeking after the causes of what is done for our salvation.”

humbled by the truth,
pdb