Rejoice or Groan

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

REJOICE OR GROAN

Prov 29:2

2 When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; when the wicked rule, the people groan.

NIV

That may not be as true as it appears for so many times people do not rejoice when someone of a righteous character is at the head of the government. Sometimes the people are deceived by the wicked into believing the wicked are not so and are actually for the people. We have read of this happening throughout the history of mankind. Wicked men rise to power because of their deceptive words. When a righteous person rises to power some people may rejoice but there will be others whose main purpose in life is to destroy the character and thus the person so some wicked person may step in the place of power. Yet we have history to tell us that many people do in fact groan under the oppressiveness of wicked rulers. The Jewish people have known this throughout their history. We have seen this, not to the extent of countries under dictatorships, in our country. Over the years we have had some very good, righteous leaders, and some very bad wicked leaders. We, at least, have the ability to change the course of our lives through the power of a republic. But there is something deeper here below the surface of worldly affairs. When we are under the rule of the wickedness of the devil there will indeed be groaning heard for eternity. He is the prince of lies, spreading his deceptive words promising people prosperity in this life, but at a cost he tells them not of, their soul. We, however, the believers of God, live under the rule of his righteousness. When God thrives in our hearts we indeed rejoice. When he is the true and righteous king of our lives, we will not only rejoice in this life, but for all eternity. Yet there is always that battle which wages within us. It should not, but indeed it is there, the devil will always try to steal our joy, our rejoicing because we have a righteous God as our Lord. If we have a divided heart, allowing God only a portion of it, while we use the other portion for our own personal gain, being deceived by the devil into believing that is how God would have us to live, we might experience some groaning in this life. When we thrive in our life with God, rejoicing is going to happen. When we allow any wickedness to rule in our heart, we groan over it, we might become despondent thinking we are wicked. But that is a lie of the devil. God has declared us holy and righteous in his sight. He has set us apart for him. He has justified us, sanctified us and made us his own. Nothing can take us from his hand, not the devil, nor our sin. However, it is possible we can jump out of his hand, reject him and seek self rather than him. But then we will groan for we will be once again under the horrible influence of the devil. Just as Bob Dylan once wrote the lyrics, “You got to serve somebody, you’re either going to serve the Lord or the Devil, but you are going to serve somebody”, we will indeed either rejoice or groan.