Was Versus Is – Passage to Higher Ground

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“What was right in his own eyes” was and always is wrong unless it lines up with God’s love, commandments, and plans for our lives.
When I contrast Israel’s depravity in the last chapters of Judges to David’s desire to please God in Psalm 27:4 I see a modern parallel.
Bluntly, the world in which we live is like the description I heard as a child, “going to hell in a handbasket.” Many sinners who are or claim to be saved by grace, never mind those who are sinners outside of God’s grace and lost without Christ, in our own country have been doing “what was right in their own eyes.”

“Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish; but he who keeps the law [of God, which includes that of man]—blessed (happy, fortunate, and enviable) is he” (Proverbs 29:18, AMP).

Hope for America does not come in getting everyone to obey God. That would be forced obedience. Hope for America or any other nation comes in the condition given in the promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14,(AMP) “If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, pray, seek, crave, and require of necessity My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.” Hope for America, indeed, even for my family, comes through God’s grace which is realized fully when I, as called by His name, humble myself, pray to God and turn from my wicked ways.

Father, it is easier to read, study, and even share Your Word than to live it. I have not been loving You as I should or living as I should, “So help me God,” “in the power of the Holy Spirit,” I separate myself to You to live in the world, but in Your ways, separate from my own ways. Amen.

(There is an excellent footnote on Judges 21:25 (AMP) at BibleGateway.com.)

Judges 21:25
In those days [a]there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Psalm 27:4
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple.

Proverbs 6:16-19
16 These six things the Lord hates, indeed, seven are an abomination to Him:
17 A proud look [the spirit that makes one overestimate himself and underestimate others], a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 A heart that manufactures wicked thoughts and plans, feet that are swift in running to evil,
19 A false witness who breathes out lies [even under oath], and he who sows discord among his brethren.

1 John 3:16
By this we come to know (progressively to recognize, to perceive, to understand) the [essential] love: that He laid down His [own] life for us; and we ought to lay [our] lives down for [those who are our] brothers [[a]in Him].

Amplified Bible (AMP)

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