Psalm 50.23 “The
one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders
his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!” – God
In the Book of Judges, there is an account of a family feud
in chapter 12 concerning Jephthah, a Gileadite, a judge, and the people of
Ephraim. Gilead was located on the east side of the Jordan in the land of Manasseh.
The rub was, Jephthah went to war against the Ammonites, and the Ephraimites
were insulted because he didn’t call them to help. (Helping in the fight meant
a share of the spoils.)
So, insulted back, Jephthah defeated Ephraim, and as the
battle wound down, the surviving Ephraimite soldiers who attempted to return
home, tried to cross the Jordan. In order to get across, the Gileadites stopped
them and made them pronounce the word: shibboleth.
The Ephraimites could only hear, sibboleth
(no ‘h’); and their pronunciation of the word gave them away they weren’t from
Gilead, and it cost them their lives – to the tune of about 42,000 of them. Behaving
in order to belong.
In Psalm 50 the Lord says: “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one
who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!”. It’s believing
then behaving. I behave rightly
because I believe in what God calls me to do and how to live. The reward to
believing, then behaving, is the salvation of God – life eternal.
John 3.16 says: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Belief in Jesus (in my heart) is going to change my behavior in the world. That is the pathway to being shown the salvation of God. Belief precedes behavior.
In our world, as at the fords of the Jordan where 42,000 perished because of their mispronunciation of a word, behavior precedes belief: one must behave in order to belong. In the world, behavior is mostly feigned; if I look the part, I am accepted as the real deal. And, so much of what we see in people is not reality, it’s just an effort to appear real. A young man feigns the part of lover and romantic in order to win the young girl’s heart, and after the conquest is over, he reverts to the real him; it’s nothing like the feigned pursuer.
God expects His people to believe in Him and behave accordingly. When God says, love your enemies, He really means it. When God says, walk humbly with Me, He really means it. When God says, love others and I have loved you, He really means it. And the one who believes will be taught how to behave and will be shown the pathway of salvation. Belief in God is the gateway to an eternity in God’s Kingdom.
As children of God, our calling in this world – really – is to believe: that whoever believes in Him shall not perish as a poser but will have everlasting life – a life that is real and right, and beautifully harmonious with God.
Father, the man Jesus spoke with replied: help me in my unbelief. He wanted to do it right but he needed to believe in order to behave. I am the same way: help me in my unbelief to believe and to respond accordingly. Belief precedes behavior – Amen.
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