Thought for the Day

Verse 21 - These verses hold a wonderful promise of protection for God's people. The upright and the perfect will dwell in the land, and Satan cannot drive us from where the Lord places us. What makes a person upright and perfect? The Bible calls us righteous or upright when we have accepted the Lord Jesus as our Savior and walk in His will. Perfect speaks of our becoming like Jesus and our heavenly Father. When we read Matthew 5:48, where Jesus commanded "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," we may think that there is no way that we can be perfect. The Lord, however, would never tell us to be what we cannot be. Perfect is better rendered as "mature." The Lord does not wish us to remain immature, walking in the flesh (our old, unregenerate nature) and doing what is unbecoming to His followers. He desires that we grow up into Christ, standing in His righteousness and not our own.

Verse 22 - This verse tells us that the wicked will be cut off (removed) from the earth - not the righteous. Psalm 24:1 says, "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." Eventually only God and His people will inhabit the earth; the devil's followers will be removed. "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Matthew 13:41-43).

Jesus prayed, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven." The Lord wishes to demonstrate His will and His Kingdom on this earth to all people through the lives of each of His children. He desires our light to shine in this dark world.