Do What’s Right
“In the Lord I put my trust; how can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain”? For look! The wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow on the string, that they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain coals; fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; His countenance beholds the upright.”
Psalm 11
We don’t have to worry about what the wicked are doing and dwell on what is going wrong in our world. We can let God be in charge of fixing what’s wrong as we pursue goodness. We have to focus on what the righteous are doing and let that keep the attention of our life. What we focus on becomes what is important to us. Even if we focus on hating wickedness, a focus on the wicked will make that the center of our mind and life. We have to focus on righteousness and let righteousness capture our attention as we pursue holiness.
Do what's right. Don't worry about offending others.
In Daniel 6, Daniel chose to pray with the windows open towards Jerusalem when he could have just as easily prayed with the windows closed in the privacy of a prayer closet. Daniel chose to worship God and forsook the call to not offend others. When we allow someone to control the way we worship God, we subtly succumb to their desire for us to worship them. In exodus 10, Pharoah attempts to dictate how Moses would worship with the people of Israel. In verses 10-11 he says only the men can go. After more plagues in verse 24, he lowers the requirements of the lock down and says the men, women and children can go but not the cattle. Because Moses knew how God wanted to be worshiped (by all His people with an animal sacrifice), he refused to give in to the pressure to compromise on the form of worshiping God. When we determine first how God wants to be worshiped, we will know how to respond to the pressures to worship God in ways He doesn’t want us to.
Do what's right. Don't worry about influencing others.
In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down before Nebuchadnezer’s golden idol. They were in their prime and in positions of political influence, but they were willing to throw away their chance to influence others for many years ahead by obeying God’s command to not worship other gods. They could have fit in with the rest of the Israelites who were bowing down and they wouldn’t have been thought of any less by Nebuchadnezer. We don't have to worry about what we're throwing away to pursue obedience to God. We influence others the best when we simply obey rather than trying to adjust our obedience to not offend others. Obedience and doing what is right is always the best way to influence others regardless if we feel that such obedience will draw us out of the public light.
Do what's right. Don't worry about pleasing others.
In Numbers 22, Balak sends messengers with a diviner’s fee to pay Balaam to curse the Israelites. But as God talks to Balaam, he recognizes that he can only do what God instructs him to do. Even though his livelihood depended on him divining for whoever hired his services. Before we seek to do what others want us to do—even if our job expects it of us—we have to determine what God wants us to do first. After much convincing, Balaam accepted the job to speak on God’s behalf for the children of Israel, but even when doing the job he was hired for, he had to bless Israel as God instructed. As we go about our life, we have to focus on doing what God says over what others want.