Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.”
David, in Psalm 25:10
“None of the wicked shall understand.”
Daniel 12:10
In Psalm 25, above, David says that when we live according to the will of God, it affects our hearts so that we can feel what is right. On the other hand, we should know, if we live an ungodly life, our hearts will be clouded with condemnation, and God’s ways will not seem right to us any longer. The Lord Jesus knew that his voice was just one of many who claimed to speak for God. He knew that people were confused by the conflicting doctrines and traditions of their times. And he knew they were helpless to know what was truly of God and what was not. That is why there is such comfort in what he said was required of us. He said, “My doctrine is not mine but His who sent me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it’s from God or if I speak on my own.”
In other words, do you really want to do what is right? Who really is willing to do God’s will? I cannot answer that question, but God knows. And if you are one of those rare individuals who truly is willing to do God’s will, then He will let you recognize the truth when you hear it. You will not be like the vast majority of people, who can hear truth and not feel the difference between that and the multitude of other things being said about God.
This is what David was saying when he said, “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.” If you want God’s ways (whatever they are) to seem right to you when you are confronted with them, then sincerely humble yourself to do things God’s way. There are millions of voices in this world claiming to speak for God. You are not wise enough to study all the theories and doctrines taught in this world, and choose the right one. The only way for you to become able to determine who has really been sent by Christ is to humble yourself and be willing to do God’s will.
People who wander off the right path always have difficulty understanding the ways of God. If they wander so far from the light that they embrace the spirit of this age, they often begin to condemn the very things – and the people – they use to know were good. This is not a rare thing. It is the history of man on earth.
David encouraged us to walk humbly before God if we would come to know Him (Ps. 25:9–10, 12, 14): “The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies. . . . What man is he who fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that he shall choose. . . . The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and he will show them His covenant.”
To an honest and humble heart, everything God does seems just and good. But the ways of God seem wrong to a heart that doesn’t love Him.
He said that those who made idols were like the idols they made; they were like dead corpses, empty of true life within. This is what false teaching always does to people; it makes them unable to commune with God by blinding them to what really is of Him. The ungodly were described by David as like the idols they built and worshipped: “They have eyes,” he said, “but they see not.”
Jesus said some things like that. When one of his disciples wanted to leave him long enough to bury his father, the Lord said, ‘Let the dead bury the dead.” Think about that.
If you want to become alive to what God is doing, humble yourself. Be willing to be instructed. Be willing to be wrong. Be willing to see that you are blind; after all, the blind are the people Jesus came to heal (Jn. 9:39–41). The reality is that nobody knows God unless Christ reveals God to that individual (Mt. 11:27). And he will reveal the Father to no one who claims to already know Him.
If you humble yourself, you are already on the right road, for the Savior himself was “meek and lowly in heart”, and the meek, David said, “He will teach in the way” (Ps. 25:12).