Resolutions and Vows to God

Hello Everyone!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I am starting back with my bible studies on the website. We will be picking up in chapter 5 of John where left off next week, but this week I had a thought about vows to God that I wanted to share with you all. In January, we all know that New Year's Resolutions are a big deal around the world. This is no different with Christians. However, there is an added significance when we make a resolution or vow to do more for God. Today, let's start with Psalm 22:22-31 and see how David spoke of vows.

Psalm 22:22-31

As a little bit of extra background on this chapter, David in the beginning of this chapter starts by crying out to God over the wickedness that surrounded him. David's enemies were constantly trying to bring him down and uses some very graphic descriptions to show how it made him feel. He uses phases like hearing my cry from the unicorns horn which was to say he had been pierced through the chest with the horn and was crying for help. He also talked about dogs biting on him and tearing his clothes. Lastly he uses a phrase to describe his bones being visible due to his wounds. It's extremely graphic. However in verse 22, there is a change in tone. From this point on David is talking about praising the name of God to everyone he sees. This can be taken in two ways. David is either making a commitment to praise in the future or there is a big gap in time and verse 22 starts after David has already seen God answer his prayer. The chapter here specifically spoke to me as a commitment of praise that David is planning to make once God does eventually answer his prayer because that would show more of David's faith.

The verses that specifically caught my attention were verses 25 and 26. In verse 25, David says that he will pay his vows. In other words, he will make good to praise God in front of the full congregation like he promised in verses 22-24. There are two reasons why this is a big deal. First, we are making a commitment to the God of all things to bring glory to his name. Look at Ecclesiates 5:1-7. There is a stern warning here to be careful what you commit to God because if you do not fulfill it, it will be a sin on your account as well as God being displeased with you. Now of course, we have an advocate in Jesus that will plead on our behalf for God to forgive our sin, but as Christians, we should strive to remove sin from our life at ever possible turn.

Secondly, when we break a vow to God, we rob our fellow Christians of spiritual food that they are rightfully owed. Look at Psalms 22:26. It says that the meek will eat and be satisfied. This comes from a section of the Mosaic Law that we can find in Leviticus 7:11-21. Peace offerings were to be given back to the offerer save a select part of the flesh that was to be burned on the alter. It was also to be shared with anyone who was poor or hungry. So in verse 19, it tells us that anyone who was considered clean but the law had a right to eat it. To circle back to our original thought, if we are not fulfilling our vows, then there is no opportunity for others to feast off of the glory that we are giving to God.

It is important that we remember these things because the American culture surrounding Resolutions is to try until it gets too hard, but then you can quit with no strings attached. That is not the case whenever we commit something to God. When it comes to new year's resolutions there are actually two seperate days that are noted as "Quitter Day" and "Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day" that are talked about on talk shows and other forms of media, but I assure you that God does not have those days set up in his mind! So I encourage you to continue to work towards fulfilling your commitments to God no matter how hard it gets. I also am taking this advice personally this year with posting on the website and YouTube so we will pray for strength for one another to continue in our vows to God!

Thanks

God Bless