Wednesday, November 26, 2014

The fate of all nations who ignore God

In my quiet time, lately, I have been focusing on the YouVersion verse of the day. I use it as a springboard and go deeper into the context of each day's particular verse. Today's verse of the day was in Psalm 9, which led me to Psalm 9:17 - "The wicked will go down to the grave. This is the fate of all the nations who ignore God."
This resonates with the conservative in me. After all, it feels like we, as a nation, ignore God. Violence. Corruption. Our obsession with sex and the resultant promiscuity. 

But when you look at the context of Psalm 9, the characteristics of a godly nation become apparent:

Verse 4 - "from your throne you have judged the world with fairness."

Verse 8 - "he will rule the world with justice and rule the nations with fairness."

Verse 9 - "the Lord is a shelter of the oppressed."

Verse 12 - "For he who avenges murder cares about the helpless."

Verse 16 - "The Lord is known for his justice."

Verse 18 - "But the needy will not be ignored."

Verse 18 - "The hopes of the poor will not be crushed."

Reasonable people can argue all day long about what constitutes fairness, or how justice is administered. And reasonable people can come to reasonably different solutions.

But, if we are serious about being God's people, shouldn't we at least be having the conversation?