Psalms of Ascent Part 12

Psa 131:1 A Song of Ascents; of David. Jehovah, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, Or in things too wonderful for me.
Psa 131:2 Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother, Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Psa 131:3 O Israel, hope in Jehovah From this time forth and for evermore.

This Psalm shows the humility necessary to carry on a walk with God. We are called to walk humbly with our God (Mic. 6:8). There are some things that God does that we do not understand, sometimes He will reveal His reasons, but other times He does not. When He chooses not to we must still ourselves. Job a very righteous man, was reproved by God for this fault of requiring of God the why and wherefore of his trial. After He quieted himself, and repented of his hard words toward the Almighty, he was able to see the purpose in the aftermath, in how he was restored more than he had lost.

Often we need to still and quiet ourselves and hope in God. We may not know what God is doing, but we can hope in Him. We can know that He is doing what is best and doing it for our good.

This Psalm is also applicable to doctrinal knowledge. God is a self-revealing God. In His sovereignty He chooses whether to reveal Himself or not to any individual. Apart from His enabling grace we have a natural inability to understand the most basic truths. Yet as we wait on Him, He can illuminate our minds. A key to having understanding of many truths is found in Philippians Chapters 2-3. There the Apostle Paul starts by exhorting the church to have humility and unity by having the same mind that was in Christ (chapter 2); from there he eschews self-righteousness and self-righteous boasting (3:1-7). Then He proceeds to set forth the goal he is pressing towards. In verses 15-16 he states, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.” In other words, our part is to run after the goals stated in the previous verses, to press on to know Christ. If we have imperfections in our thinking and our way of viewing things God will reveal it to us as we set our hearts on obeying Him and following His will (see also John 7:16-17).
Where we see someone differing from us in doctrine, the first thing we must do is focus on our own heart and make sure we are in obedience to Christ, then we should study Scripture and pray that God would reveal clearly the right way to us. It does not hurt to reexamine what we believe in the light of Scripture. If our hearts are aligned with God, He will confirm His truth to our hearts. If, however, our motives are wrong and our desires are not the same as Paul’s goals, than no amount of searching will lead us to the truth. If the person who disagrees with us is wrong, but truly desires to exalt Christ and know Him, Christ will reveal it to him. After all, false doctrine is more embarrassing to Him who is the Truth than to us who only know a small part of it. If the person’s heart is not after God, no work on your part can have any effect anyway. He is able to keep His own without any help from us (that doesn’t mean that we should never correct someone), but if we do and they do not respond, leave it with God, He is able to enlighten the most darkened soul. After all, did He not enlighten you?

One final thought, is that there are some truths that cannot be known in this world, and await revelation in the next. Some things we must wait until eternity to learn. To speculate on those things is to invite confusion. Some of the mystery involving the “how” of the Incarnation, and other similar things are not necessary for us to know. It is enough to know that God became man, fully God, fully Man. We need to be careful not to intrude into God’s realm uninvited.