Day 46: Psalm 2:11-12

"Serve the Lord with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling. Submit to God's royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities - for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him!" ~Psalm 2:11-12 NLT

This verse in and of itself is fairly intimidating. Basically the opposite of what I'm looking for. Start at the beginning - serve the Lord. There's also a couple of instructions verifying how to serve the Lord: with reverent fear, rejoicing and trembling, in essence recognizing God for who He is - almighty.

Then submit to God's royal son - okay, I've given my life to Jesus. But wait - if I don't God will become angry? I'll be destroyed in the midst of all of my activities? His anger flares up in an instant? Is this the God I read about, slow to anger and quick to forgive? It doesn't seem that way. But maybe that's because we're reading it all in one verse. Let's say this one verse spans a lifetime. Submit to God's royal son. Let's say I don't. As I live my life averse to what God wants, his patience is deteriorating. He's getting angry that no matter what He says, no matter what miracles He does, I ignore Him. (Hypothetically speaking, of course.) Because of all of this, when I die His anger will burn against me and when I stand in front of Him at judgement, His anger will flare up and He'll have to cast me into Hell. But since I have submitted to Jesus, I don't have to worry about that. Jesus will vouch for me, and God will see Jesus' purity instead of my failure. "Wait, what about the part about getting destroyed in the middle of my activities?" The second coming of Jesus comes into play, now. When Jesus comes, He's probably not going to do it on Christmas. Or maybe He will. Regardless, I'm going to be doing the same things I do everyday - ordinary activities. And without warning, I'm going to pop in front of the Judgement throne. If I hadn't submitted to Jesus, I'd be destroyed in the midst of all of my activities - throne into Hell. But we shouldn't fear, because we HAVE submitted to Jesus, and He is our Lord!

So for those of us who choose Jesus as our refuge, we can rejoice! When Jesus comes, we're going to Heaven! We won't be destroyed, but rather preserved. What greater joy can we have? And what confidence that He will save us?

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