MAKE HIM YOUR FIRST HELP

October 8

MAKE HIM YOUR FIRST CALL

Psalms 5:2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray.

We live in a time when we are at a loss jut simply raising a family, keeping a marriage, making enough money, or staying minimally healthy. Smart merchants market and peddle ‘helps’ of all sorts in a supermarket fashion. So when faced with trouble, we have to make a conscious effort to not turn to these tempting self ‘helps’ schemes, but rather to say unto thee will I pray.

The Lord constantly rebuked Israel for leaning on the arm of the ‘flesh’—Egypt--for its protection. God was not enough for them. When things went wrong, they would pray to idols for their care and sustenance. Eventually. it wasn’t enough for them to be regimented and sustained by the Lord alone through His judges. They wanted a king--a physical, visible and tangible person to rely on, and mostly to blame when things went wrong. They did not want to be solely dependant on God.

Today, it is an act of great faith to make the Lord our first call when in need; to put aside all the “self-help” books and videos, the teachings of specialized ‘help’ gurus that vie to help us fight against the ailments that plague us today. Addiction, depression, financial instability, psychological and physical disorders, problems with our marriage, problems with our children; the list goes on and on.
It is not that we can’t gain some helpful information from these other sources, but shouldn’t we as Christians give the Lord our first place?

When we ask the Lord first, not only does He help us, but He shows us what we may have done wrong, where we may have disobeyed His Word, either in thought or action. We understand how we got into such a mess by leaning on our own arm of flesh, by putting our trust in man, and we learn to amend our ways.

Lord, help us. Teach us; train us to make you our first call for help in our day of trouble. Give us receptive hearts so that we can learn to amend our ways and live closer to your will and your Word.

Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.