Psalms 73:13-15 (ESV Strong's)
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.
For all the day long I have been stricken
and rebuked every morning.
If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children.
Tag: Do We Serve God In Vain?
In the above passage, Asaph, the writer of this psalm, is wondering if he is serving God in vain. The song starts out with him having envy for what he believes is the “prosperity of the wicked.” He sees the wicked flourish and he, like many of us, wonders if he is doing all this worship and service in vain. He is not alone in this thought. Here are the words of one of the strongest of the minor prophets:
Malachi 3:13-16 (ESV Strong's)
“Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’”
Malachi, Asaph, and many before and after them, spent some of their time questioning the value of serving God. That only happens, however, when we cease to see God and start looking on the temporal around us. When we view God we see His glory and everything else dims, as it should. Even Asaph soon came to his senses:
Psalms 73:17 (ESV Strong's)
until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I discerned their end.
Once we get a real perspective of God, the end of the wicked comes to mind. We are refreshed in our spirit when we realize it is not this world that matters, but the next. We are members of the Kingdom of God and that has a future aspect that we all need to rejoice over and fully focus upon.
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