Make Sure Your Efforts Count! ~ Psalm 127
6:00 AM
I once heard a story about the heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali which tends to go along with what the psalmist is saying today. In his prime Muhammad Ali was well known for saying, “I am the greatest of all time!” Yet years later, while suffering the effects of Parkinson’s disease, he took a visitor to see his trophies and awards and pointing to them he reportedly said, “It ain’t nothing.”
Mr. Ali got it! In essence our life and all our efforts count for nothing unless we live it with and for the Lord.
This is the point Psalm 127 is making when it says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain.”
If you are living your life without God; convinced by the enemy that you do not need Him, you have been deceived. If you think you can do something FOR God, you have been deceived. The Psalmist seeks to remind us that apart from an active faith, trust and complete dependence upon God we are living our lives in vain; like building a castle on the sand. We know the castle won't last and neither will anything we do apart from Him.
Jesus, Himself explained it this way, " So Jesus answered them by saying, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself [of His own accord], unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever things the Father does, the Son also does in the same way." (John 5:19 AMP)
It is the flesh, or the pride of life that convinces us that we CAN do all kinds of things without God. In fact some live their entire life without trusting in Him and seem to do quite well, but the psalmist here is warning us against an attitude of self-sufficiency and self dependency in this psalm, and excluding God from our plans each day is the worst mistake we could make.
Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain.
2 He goes on to write about our effortsIt is vain for you to rise early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of anxious labors—
For He gives [blessings] to His beloved even in his sleep. (V. 2)
And it isn't just this psalmist who is writing this; check out what others had to say:
“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21).
"The one who calls you is faithful, and HE will do it." (1 Thes. 5:24 emphasis mine)
"For it is [not your strength, but it is] God who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energizing, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfill your purpose] for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13 AMP)
These are just a few of so many verses that imply God has a plan for each of us! He is Almighty God, who does not need us, but chooses to use us to build His Kingdom.
Watchman Nee, in his book, The Spiritual Man, also writes of the futility of attempting to do anything apart from God; even "GOOD" things:
This one truth revolutionized my life and my walk with the Lord after already walking with Him for almost 20 years!
BUT, I continued on with the mindset that I needed to do things for God! Imagine how ridiculous that is; Almighty God, who created this world and everything in it needs my help! Crazy, I know, but my prayers would go something like this, "Tell me what it is that You would like me to do and I'll go do it; to the best of my abilities, that is."
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