Warren Wiersbe explains the Psalmist plea for mercy when life is overwhelmed by politicians and gameplayers who do not know, or care to know, God.  They demand to be in control while satisfying their own needs with evil ways. Other people do not matter because there is no love of God in them.  Wiersbe writes;

“David addressed the lawless leaders and asked them whether their words were just, their decisions legal, their sentences fair, and their silences honest. Were they upholding the law and defending the righteous or twisting the law and benefiting the wicked? He knew the answer, and so do we. When they should have spoken, they were silent, and when they spoke, they ignored God’s law. The problem? They had evil hearts, for they were born in sin just like the rest of us (Psalm 51:5; Genesis 8:21). However, they made no effort to seek God’s help in controlling that sinful nature but gave in to its evil impulses. It’s because humans are sinners that God established government and law, for without law, society would be in chaos. It’s from the heart that evil words come out of our mouths and evil deeds are done by our hands.” –Wiersbe Study Bible

Psalm 58, The Message

For the director of music. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” Of David. A miktam.

^1-2 Is this any way to run a country?
    Is there an honest politician in the house?
Behind the scenes you weave webs of deceit,
    behind closed doors you make deals with demons.

^3-5 The wicked crawl from the wrong side of the cradle;
    their first words out of the womb are lies.
Poison, lethal rattlesnake poison,
    drips from their forked tongues—
Deaf to threats, deaf to charm,
    decades of wax built up in their ears.

^6-9 God, smash their teeth to bits,
    leave them toothless tigers.
Let their lives be buckets of water spilled,
    all that’s left, a damp stain in the sand.
Let them be trampled grass
    worn smooth by the traffic.
Let them dissolve into snail slime,
    be a miscarried fetus that never sees sunlight.
Before what they cook up is half-done, God,
    throw it out with the garbage!

^10-11 The righteous will call up their friends
    when they see the wicked get their reward,
Serve up their blood in goblets
    as they toast one another,
Everyone cheering, “It’s worth it to play by the rules!
    God’s handing out trophies and tending the earth!”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

It is easy to believe today that choices are plentiful in our world!  Go to Walmart, for example, there are aisles of choices of name brands and generic brands, types to fit all humans, along with price points with many sizes of products for just caring for our hair! Need I remind us that God knows how many hairs are on our head on any given day? He probably even knows which shampoo is best! We are led like sheep to these aisles of choices by the media and spoken testimonies of stars.  But do they really use these products or are they just being paid to say what compels us buy their product?  I’ll let you decide—for you do have a choice!

On one of my many mission trips to Haiti; I was given the opportunity to escort a pastor, his son and young daughter to the United States.  It was to be their first visit to my world of choices!.  It was amazing to watch and be ready for their reaction to our world of choices!  From a place of only one choice, if you can get it at all, to a store of overwhelming choices I saw through their eyes the many things in our world that I took for granted. They were also overwhelmed with new technology of escalators, toilets that flushed, and water running plentiful from faucets to clean up not to mention the plane ride that took us quickly to our destination!  The kids’ eyes grew large with seeing the first McDonalds but overwhelmed with the choices there, too.  What do I eat when I haven’t tried anything on the menu in front of me? 

I was also weirdly saddened by our country’s seemingly unlimited choices placed in front of my beautiful friends whose souls were committed to Jesus first and whose daily choice was Jesus as Savior and Lord of their lives.  I felt like an accomplice to evil in a way as I introduced them to a world of choices that would overwhelm anyone seeing it for the first time.  “Don’t let it overwhelm you; you don’t need all that is put in front of you!” I would think and say out loud to the young ones in my care. My first reaction in fact was to shield them from all that was being thrown at them at once.  That reaction surprised even me!

Is that what God/Jesus/Holy Spirit living in us is trying to do when we are overwhelmed with all the choices put in front of us daily when there is only one choice for Life that is truly needed?  Shield and protect us—yes!

Paul explains the choice we make daily between God or evil.  Even the Apostle Paul had to be on his toes to choose wisely.  Paul is spiritually motivated by his relationship found only in Jesus with God.  Paul knows there are really only two choices in this life.  All other choices stem from our decision follow God who is Good or evil.  To Paul, his former life of following his will and his own ways was a dark, nasty garbage way of life in which he chose not to return.  He writes;

“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!

Pressing toward the Goal

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Philippians 3:8-14

God, through Jesus, did for Paul what Paul could not do for himself; redeem Paul of all his sins and shortcomings.  Paul chose God first and when he did, like all believers in Jesus, he received the power and wisdom from God’s Holy Spirit living in him to guide him in all decisions.  Was Paul perfect then?  No, but he was perfectly forgiven as he pursued a perfect God daily.

That same God, same Jesus, same Holy Spirit does that for us—no matter the sin—for there is nothing we have done that God will not forgive.  But we need to choose Him first! We need to surrender daily to His will as we pursue Him. As we do our trust and faith in Him matures, grows and bears the fruits of God’s character that affects all other decisions we make on any given day!  We will always be a “work in progress” until we see Jesus face to face.  I can handle being “in progress”, knowing God is working on me, can’t you?

Who we are in Jesus will be proven in what we will do in our daily decisions. 

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”—Jesus, Luke 6:45

So, Good News!  God is more interested in our pursuit of Him than in our desire to be perfect!  What a relief! So be with God before doing in Jesus Name!  Surrender to His holy, pleasing and perfect will for us.  (Romans 12:1-2) This is a LIFE choice that we will never regret!

Lord,

I surrender all to you again today.  I desire what you desire for me.  You are God. I am not.  I offer my life as an offering to you.  I place it before you God as an offering of sacrifice. I want to embrace and thank you for all you have done, are doing, and will do for me for it is the best thing I can do for you—to live in gratitude with a surrendered heart. I choose you not the culture around me that tries to mold and shape me to be less than who you are in me. Instead, I will fix my attention on You. 

My desire is for you to transform me from the inside out. Help me to readily recognize what you want from me so I will quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around me, with a plethora of choices, always dragging me down to its level of immaturity, bring the best out of me as you develop a well-formed maturity of faith in and through me. Use me as your instrument that shares the Good News of the greatest relationship we will ever have on earth and into eternity!

In Jesus Name, Amen