“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.” (Psalm 45:10-11)
To be still in the midst of turmoil and uproar means to not act out of fear or haste. It means to be settled in and camped into the love of God in a way that makes you unshakable to the circumstances around you. It is finding our place of refuge [peaceful protection and shelter] in the Lord.
This is also a knowing of the true God in a way that is deep and meaningful – knowing the covenant protection that He provides. Our faith from the Lord and in the Lord. It is a Shalom peace that brings a sense of settled ness to our lives and the lives of those who are around us.
Sholom peace is more than a feeling, it is the peace of being in God and bringing God to every circumstance. It is a wholeness and restoration of our original state in the Garden of Eden. Romans 5:1 says, “Our faith in Jesus transfers God’s righteousness to us and He now declares us flawless in His eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God [shalom] –Total oneness, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us.”
Faith starts with accepting Christ and entering into the fullness of His covenant but it also includes repenting, turning from our sin and living for God. Commentary notes that it contains trust and obedience which lead to loyalty and devotion.
It is our continued trust and obedience that leads us to places of life and fullness where we overflow with the joy of the Lord, no matter our circumstances. [1] As the love of Christ fills us, we are compelled to touch others out of the overflow with this love—showering it upon others in the midst of trials and tribulations.
There is a false sense of peace that can happen from trusting in the wrong things. However, in difficult times, this is revealed by the shaking. These things that we trust in, are shown to be unable to sustain us. They are revealed as lies and deceitful.
In Isaiah 28:15, he prophesied to some of the leaders, “Because you have said, ‘We have made a covenant with death, and with hell we are in agreement. The overflowing scourge shall not come to us when it passes through, for we have made lies our refuge and under falsehood we have hid ourselves.”
They had trusted themselves to that which could not save them. They thought they had peace, but they were about to be uprooted. The Lord actively was destroying their hidden covenant agreement by showing them that it could not sustain them in difficulty. They were seized with fear and terror as they heard the reports.
An example of people trusting falsely was when Babylon came to take away the people from their homes. The people refused to believe the truth that they had become settled in lies and needed to repent or be uprooted from them. They couldn’t believe that God would uproot them out of the land. They had become privledged and entitled rather than hungry and open.
It was only once their comfortable circumstances were removed that they could see that they were failing to depend upon God. They had been pulled away from God and could not see it until getting some distance from His promises and having difficulty brought them new perspective.
Commentary notes that to “Be sill” as referenced in Psalm 45:10 can also be translated as let go or quit holding on to things that would distract or weigh you down spiritually—things that keep you from giving God first place and fully honoring Him with your life. [2]
What pulls you away from God? What do you invite into your life that does not draw you closer to God? Hebrews 12:1 says to lay aside everything that would hold us back, weigh us down or entangle us in running the race set before us – treating it as sin.
Like the Israelites in taking the Promised Land, if there is something in our lives that is not from God, we need to actively push it out and not just live with it. So many times, we live in less that what God has for us thinking we have to accept what is rather than pray and ask expectantly for God’s help in dispelling the things that hinder us.
Sometimes our greatest hinderances can come from our own thought life and previous wounds. Just recently I had a dream that I was leading a team into battle, but, before I could do this, I had to dispel the lies about myself. Sometimes it is the old tapes or voices in our head that hold us back.
For me, one of the things that tries to weigh me down or hold me back from what God has for me is my own thoughts. It is much easier for me to look at others through the lens of whatever is pure, lovely, admirable and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8) than it is to look at myself through this lens.
As an example, what was hardest for me about writing a few books was not that actual work, but overcoming my thoughts that I was not an author. I felt God telling me to write a book but then I would discount it by saying to myself, “who am I to write? There are plenty of people who could do way better than me.’”
What I didn’t want to acknowledge was that this false belief about me being able to write was a hinderance to my walk with God, fulfilling His purposes for me and answering His calling. Therefore, it was sin that I was living in and living with. Knowing God told me to write, by faith, I had to step beyond this and just be obedient despite the voices.
Moses struggled with something similar with his stuttering. The Lord divinely spoke to Moses through a burning bush about what he was called to do. Rather than fully agreeing with God and stepping out in faith, Moses argued God about his ability. Because of this, the anger of the Lord burned against Moses. It was sin. The Lord, in His mercy, navigated around this place Moses was stuck by sending Aaron to help him (which later results in the people worshipping a calf when Moses was on the mountain with God).
John G. Lakes writes that Christians need to exercise dominion in a way that the sunlight of God shines in, the radiance of God shines in, but everything that is dark is shut out. Sickness, disease, darkness and every suggestion of a thing that will take possession if we let it in, we need to “refuse to have this thing.” [3]
Just as we push out anger, selfishness, unkindness and other sins that are against others by faith in a desire to live in a way that honors the Lord, we need to just as actively shut out the lies about ourselves that hinder us in our walk with the Lord. Wrong thinking about ourselves only leads to greater sins as we compare ourselves and undervalue ourselves while over valuing others by over admiring some. As a result, we put some that we over value on a pedestal. The Lord delights in all of us equally. There is not one that is worth more and another worth less.
This leads to the last meaning for being still: to cease striving. Ceasing to strive means to stop trying to make things happen in the flesh. At least for me, striving to do something in the flesh often happens because I am letting sin into my thoughts about what I believe about myself. Now, these lies will not only will try to hinder me from stepping out in what God is calling me to stepping out into, but will also reinforce striving to please God as a way to earn righteousness.
When I believe lies about myself and let them settle in unchecked, I become performance based in my relationship with God rather than covenant based. Because I let darkness in my thoughts and do not dispel the lies about myself, I then (feeling unworthy) start working hard to earn my way into the kingdom of God in the flesh.
John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Working hard and performing, when done well looks really good from the outside. However, on the inside, it is empty and void of life. Just like other darkness, it is a weight and a hinderance that will keep us from walking in the fullness of what God has for us. We may even try to fight our flesh (those things we identify as sin) with flesh out of a spirit of religious performance. Instead of flourishing in one’s works, we become weary and burned out over time.
Instead, if we operate out of covenant, knowing His deep love for us, we put to death the things that are of the flesh (including our corrupted old ways of thinking about ourselves) by the Spirit. Romans 8:13 says, “But if the life of the Spirit, puts to death the corrupt ways of the flesh, then we taste His abundant life.”
What this requires is spending time with Lord, letting His love change us rather than performing for Him. The council members who saw Peter and John witness with bold courage without any religious training were astonished. Acts 4:13b-14 says, Then they [the counsel] began to understand the effect Jesus had on them [Peter and John] simply by spending time with him [Jesus]. Standing there with them was a healed man, and there was nothing further they could say.”
John G. Lakes notes about physical healing “All you need is to bring your whole being into perfect harmony with the living God so that the Spirit of God radiates through your spirit, your mind and your body…” [4] He notes that divine healing is removal (casting out) by the power of God, the disease, defect, or sickness that has come upon the body, but we can also walk in divine health by living day by day and hour by hour so in touch with God that the life of God flows into the body, mind and Spirit continually. [5]
Lord, you love us so much. We are the heirs of promise. Let us live in the fullness of this truth and Your love for us in every waking moment. Let us not live among lies but dispel all of them by your loving truths.
1-2. The Fire Bible. Modern English Version. Life Publishers International, Springfield, Missouri. 2014.
3-5. Lakes, John G. The Collected Works of John G. Lakes. Jawbone Digital Publishers. 2013.
