What does stability on the inside look like?
When you are in route and get stuck in traffic along the way, is your engine still revving or is it content and calm in idle mode? If you are redirected on a detour, can you follow the new path happily enough? Or do you find yourself fuming on the inside?
To have stability on the inside, you need freedom from the power of sin. In spite of his sin, Lot was called righteous. He was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, those who indulged in the lust of defiling passion and who despised authority. The Lord rescued him and will rescue you as you resist those who promise freedom, “but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” ~ see 2 Peter 2
Is it possible to have stability on the inside when outside is a world in tumultuous flux?
That depends on where you fix your eyes, what you set your thoughts on, and whose voice your ears are attuned to hear.
“Great peace have those who love your law; Nothing can make them stumble.” ~ Psalm 119:165
“Your testimonies all Have been confirmed, O LORD;Your house adorned with holiness, Shall be forevermore.” ~ Psalm 93:5
Singing Psalm 93 for visual stability on the inside
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” ~ 2 Corinthians 4:16–18
You hear, see, and feel the waves crashing all around you. Yet the one who carries you is stronger than all the waves combined. After all, they were made by him.
Fixing your eyes on Jesus and off yourself gives you visual stability on the inside.
You are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. You are either a sheep of the good shepherd who cares for the sheep or of the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. You are either a subject in the kingdom of light or a subject in the kingdom of darkness. You are either one of God’s people or you are not.
There is no third option where you get to independently walk off into the sunset all by yourself.
You are tethered to either God or money, to the Lord or to personal gain, to God’s people or to the world, to enduring stability on the inside or to never being quite sure. You are committed to losing your life for Jesus and his kingdom loving the truth or to gaining the whole world and losing or forfeiting your soul into Satan’s clutches of deception.
You either mourn and are comforted or you seek your happiness at all costs while Satan laughs all the louder as your soul shrivels. He laughs because he doesn’t care if you don’t openly worship him. As long as he can lure you away from wholehearted devotion and affection to the triune God, he has succeeded the way he hoped he would succeed with Job. You either bless God, live through suffering, and have stability on the inside or you curse God, die trying to avoid suffering, and have no stability on the inside.
When you are misunderstood by others and misunderstanding them too, you can seethe in bitterness or take it to the Lord and gratefully receive only what he is pleased to give you trusting that he knows best and will make it right.
When you find yourself on the wrong end of things, you can keep going to your demise or you can turn to God, cry out to him, and come to Jesus for rescue. He redeems you from all that would lead you astray and gives you stability on the inside so that you endure to the end. He snatches you from the grip of death and gives you eternal life that no one can take away from you.
If you share in his sufferings, your true colors show for what they are. You just wait. You will also share in his glory.
No matter what fuss the waves make, the earth is set. It is unmoved. It is stable. Its days and seasons are ordered and continue as God directs. You can have this same stability on the inside no matter the turmoil around you. With the Lord at your side, with his word etched in your heart, you are impermeable to the clamor that threatens to undo you.
“The LORD is crowned as King, He’s clothed in majesty.The LORD has clothed himself with might And great authority.The world is firmly set And never moved can be.” ~ Psalm 93:1
Singing Psalm 93 for thought stability on the inside
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” ~ Colossians 3:2-4
Martin Luther relied on God when he obeyed this command and therefore had stability on the inside and was not tossed about as by the waves of the sea. He set his mind on the hope to be given him when Jesus is revealed. Jesus is the one who saved us by grace, a gift of God, not anything that we could do for ourselves, like indulgences, to gain eternal life.
“Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.” ~ Martin Luther
When the Lord gives you stability on the inside, you are more and not less moved to care for the well-being of others.
“But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?” ~ 1 Thessalonians 3:6-10
“Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” ~ 2 Corinthians 1:24
The Lord gives us one another to encourage in relationship, never seeking to control others but to rejoice in each other’s genuine faith in God placed within each of his people by God.
God‘s word that you hide in your heart and his house of which you are a member are forever holy and will not be shaken. Ever.
But, as it is written,”What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him—“ ~ 1 Corinthians 2:9
“And long established is Your throne,
You’re from eternity.” ~ Psalm 93:2
Singing Psalm 93 for audible stability on the inside
“The floods lift up, O LORD; The floods lift up their voice.The floods are lifting up their waves; They make a mighty noise.” ~ Psalm 93:3
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” ~ Matthew 7:24-27
And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” ~ Matthew 8:26-27
What sort of man is this? He is other, the one and only God-man, the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who fully satisfies you the way no one and nothing else can.
“My sheep hear my voice.” Do you have ears to hear Jesus above the noises all around you?
“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” ~ Deuteronomy 32:4
“Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” ~ Isaiah 26:4
Your good shepherd is the rock who gives you stability on the inside. He alone gives you inner peace amidst the storm. Any who oppose him will not have stability on the inside and will be either turned inwardly or crushed outwardly.
You need not fear because when it is Jesus that you hear, you can laugh at the days to come.
“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” ~ 2 Corinthians 9:8
“But yet the LORD on high— Of greater strength is HeThan is the thunder of the waves, Or breakers of the sea.” ~ Psalm 93:4
October 13–20, 2023
Commentaires