The Daily Word of Righteousness

Do Not Fret Yourself!

Do not fret yourself! because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong; (Psalms 37:1—NIV)

We are entering an age of moral horrors. All that Paul stated about the last days is upon us. Men are lovers of themselves. Immorality, perversion, violence, and covetousness will exceed our worst nightmares.

One of the greatest dangers to the disciple is that of fretting. Every form of communication, the newspapers, radio, television, books, magazines, and now the Internet, will keep holding up before us the antics of Satan. This is what Satan desires. He hates to be ignored.

The Christian people are a lot like Lot. They are righteous at heart and deeply grieved and vexed over what people are doing. They see the injustice of those who will do anything to amass money no matter whom they harm. They see the cynical politician who would sell out his country if he and his family were promised safe conduct.

They see the average person making minimum wage or maybe as much as twelve dollars an hour with no medical benefits (and glad to get it!) when the doctors, lawyers, athletic stars, and heads of corporations make millions of dollars each year, sometimes cheating and robbing so they can make even more money.

They see the criminals released to molest children, to rape and murder again and again. They see the monster who chops the arms off his victim and then have to listen to his lawyer howl about cruel and unusual punishment.

They see the army of militant women who murder their own offspring in the name of "reproductive rights" (but how about the rights of the fetus?).

They see the endless jockeying for power in government at all levels while the needs of the constituents often are ignored.

They see the United States being remade by people with an agenda that ordinary people do not even understand.

The people are sick of it and yet there is little they can do without breaking the law.

Things are not going to get better, they are going to get worse. What is a Christian to do?

First of all we are not to fret ourselves. Fretting leads to sin. We are not to envy those who by stepping on other people advance themselves in the world. We have been commanded not to fret and we are not to fret. We have been commanded not to be envious of the evildoers and so we are not to be envious of them.

We have been commanded to think about things that are lovely and of good report and that is what we are to do. I am not speaking of a careless, ignorant Pollyanna attitude. I am talking about resisting the devil who is determined we will take our eyes off Jesus and watch him instead.

When God commands us to do something we are to do it. After we have done what God has enabled us to do, if we find we still are bound with fretting, envy, or negative thoughts, then we are to come before God in prayer until we get victory over these harmful emotions and attitudes.

You are not helping anything by fretting about evil. You are grieving the Lord and everyone around you. They do not enjoy hearing you talking about the young punks or the lesbians or the gays or the liberals or anything else you are stewing on. Lift up the Lord Jesus and all people will be drawn to Him.