Commit Thy Works Unto the Lord
Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established. Proverbs 16:3
I read this today and was deeply moved. It often seems the Christian walk is a battle waged in our thought life. At least mine is. Perhaps normal people don’t think as much or as tediously as I do. “Is my heart right? What are my motives in this activity? Am I in God’s will? Are we on the right track? Is this God’s plan for us? What does God want for my child? Am I where I’m supposed to be spiritually?” On and on the thoughts go, each and every day, as I fight against fear and discouragement and seek God’s perfect will for me and my children.
I love how the Amplified Bible renders the verse above:
Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed. Proverbs 16:3
What a wonderful answer to all that grappling of mind! Instead of sitting around thinking, thinking, thinking, if I simply commit my works, my plans, my children, my day, my moments, and every choice completely unto God, HE will establish my thoughts. He will guide, lead, and conform my thoughts to His will.
Then all shall work out according to His perfect plan.
I can turn off the continual stream of questioning thoughts and worries by making a decision each moment—and especially those moments that I’m in doubt—to give it all over to Him. Sometimes I want to make the Christian life so much more complicated than it needs to be. God says to just commit my works to Him—an act of my will—then He’ll do the rest.
LORD, I commit all these things unto you. I place them in Your hands. I will not fear, or struggle, or be anxious. I choose to simply, right now, trust it all to YOU. I give it to you and believe that You are going to establish my thoughts and my plans and that they will succeed by Your standards of success.
Read on for more encouragement and inspiration.
Bianca
@ 9:32 pm
Hi, I’m not sure who you are but I need you to know that your obedience to share this was incredibly encouraging to me! My thoughts lately have truly been running in circles and I had to stop them! To God be the Glory for the same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead is He who lives in each of us.
Tanya
@ 3:16 pm
Hi Jeannie,
What does it mean exactly, to "commit your work to the Lord". Is it something like telling the Lord about what it is that you intend to do and ask God to take control over your decision(s)? I never really understood this verse, can you please help me understand it?
Thanks!!
Lens
@ 1:13 pm
me too! a friend even told me today: worry is sin. Amen!
I pray the same prayer as quoted above: “LORD, I commit all these things unto you. I place them in Your hands. I will not fear, or struggle or be anxious…You are going to establish my thoughts and my plans – and they will succeed.” Matthew 6:33 -seek His kingdom and His righteousness first, and all these things will be added.
David Ariyo MD
@ 2:01 pm
Hello Jeannie,
i agree with you on this article concerning thoughts i even wrote an article on it previously in my blog.The same verse you used as a heading today was the same verse i woke up with today and i also placed it my blog this morning,surely the Lord works in mysterious ways.check my blog http://www.davidariyo.blogspot.com
awitness
@ 6:06 pm
Hi Jeannie,
No you are not an oddity re: over thinking and grappling with the thoughts and the thought life. The thought life is the realm where the war is waged, and where it is won or lost. That is where God speaks,that is where Satan speaks, and that is where we we either lose or win by how we respond to the thoughts. We are to be a garrison, allowing not even one thought entry without first stopping it at the gates and demanding: Who are you and who has sent you?
Guard your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life, that is, everything that occurs in life has it’s origin in our heart, for good or bad.The thoughts which are allowed to enter the mind and remain, will migrate to the heart and there they bring forth forth bitter or sweet. We guard what comes in, we also guard what goes out of us, what will we dwell on, what will we utter from the heart with our mouth.
God has given us a “sound” mind. A mind that is in full control and not controlled by any outside force. Satan works thru thoughts, the issue is how discerning and how tolerant are we of thoughts which originate with him? God is not the author of fear(worry),nor of any other negative emotion. This comes from thoughts allowed room to grow and have place in us and then these thoughts are in the heart and they bring forth emotions and Satan then has us in a python grip. And that is exactly what he is, one who seeks to rule by intimidation. As God’s people we are to discern the enemy, and to let him have “nothing” in us even as Jesus stated that Satan had nothing in him. Zero tolerance. As well, we are to make no provision for the flesh, no room or justification for us to sin. None. Zero. If we do sin, we rise immediately and if we are truly serious with God we will look at the sin in the seriousness that God looks at it, and we will stop and have great and profound pause to see not only how sin is against God, but that it is also against ourselves. And we should wonder why we are willing to harm ourselves. For when we sin,it is no different than taking a needle and stabbing yourself in the eye from time to time. So sin is not only an offense to the holiness and standard of God, it is an offense committed against ourselves. And we are to love ourselves or view and treat ourselves as God would treat us, and he would never stab us in the eye.
Paul believed in taking “every” thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We in our time have not understood this no tolerance stand. God wants us to have the same stand against sin or evil thoughts which result in sin against us or others that he himself has: and who would dare say God has tolerance for even one thought which is sin, or one sin?
No one would dare teach or preach that. Certainly not openly. But this is exactly what is done and believed and lived in an around about way. We actually don’t believe that one thought can be dangerous, or that one sin can be dangerous. Yet the garden of Eden is proof exactly of that, that one thought allowed from Satan to take root in the mind will migrate to the heart and then there will be a commmitting of the transgression and how great the consequences!
Adam and Eve plunged the whole human race into the darkness and effects of sin, and into bondage to Satan, for which Christ had to come and give his life, his blood to rescue us.
A drop of water falls from the sky into a lake where the water is still, and we see by that picture that all things, the smallest of things are not without consequence. There is an effect even from a drop of water. And a thought from Satan starts as a drop and grows if allowed place and grows into something big, even as conversely a mustard seed grows into something big but it is from the Lord.
We are in a war, let us awake to the war and what we are dealing with, and let us “learn” to fight with the resources of God for he has not left us in this thing without the abundance of resources. His grace is there, but it is not a mystical something we cannot put our finger on. It is the giving of our will to him and to learn fromt he word of God and from the Holy Spirit just how this whole thing works and how we can have victory that bring victory.God is very willing to help the willing soul. All we have to do is say, Here I am Lord, and not be as Adam, of whom the Lord had to say, Adam, where art thou? Let us be found of the Lord by seeking him and presenting ourself to him immediately and let us there commit to being disciples and learners, soldiers willing to endure hardness for Christ and thru Christ, and there we shall find the glory and the presence and the power and the love of God. We shall there find everything in our God.But this is found by the soul who actually takes steps toward God outside the camp not the soul who remains solitary and will not budge and will not move towards God. Let us do it today, great victory awaits us. This is what I believe and what I have begun practising. I am not preaching what I do not practice. I am not perfect, nor does the Lord demand perfection, he only requires my present very best and I am happy to give my will to him for there is power and victory and joy that is real in the midst of walking in this world.
awitness
@ 6:06 pm
Jeannie,
It is all about thoughts. There is where Satan enters or is kept out. We are a garrison. No intruder is to be allowed entry.We must discern clearly who the visitors to our mind our. Fear comes from Satan’s kingdom. Worry, etc.We have the right and power in Jesus Christ and because of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf to bind and refuse every thought entrance which is not of God. Every thought is to be brought into the obedience of Christ, not some thoughts most thoughts. Every thought is to pass the test of God, in other words, did he send it, did he authorize it?
God knows the power of thougts to bring ruin or destruction, therefore we are warned to not let one thought in which is not from him. Eve was spoken to by Satan, and her thoughts began to revolve in her, and soon enough the snare was tightened and Satan entered in bringing the committing of sin.
We are in a war and this is a different war, one not carnal and not fought in the same way. We must be retrained to understand this and that the spiritual realm is different and yet in the end the same as the natural. We simply are not accustomed to it so we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind as to how things operate in the spiritual universe. And then we must fall in line accordingly and because of Christ and thru Christ we can have great victory in this life over sin and Satan. But if we are waging our warfare unawares and not being as committed as Satan, then we will be ever losing and getting beaten up by him as he will lead us into sin with our will given to him and he will torment us with fear, worry, etc. This is not God’s will nor his way. Christ did not die for this. Christ died to bring overwhelming victory. He slew the serpent on the pole. He took him to the cross and there slew him. When we see the serpent on the brasen pole in the old testament it is the picture of what really happened on the cross. Satan died there. We were all there on the cross: God,all of us sinners, and Satan and every demon of hell. By allowing himself to be slain, Christ slew sin, he slew our sinful nature, and just as importantly he slew Satan and every demon. He has truly broken the power of sin and of Satan, in other words, everything that opposed us, and was against us, has been taken care of.
This has been accomplished, truly and actually accomplished. Our job now in light of this accomplished act and fact? We come to Christ and say, Lord, here I am, I don’t get it as I ought to, so Lord, I present myself wholly to be taught the meaning and power of the cross in my own life. And Lord I am in for the long haul, but I also know that at every juncture of challenge or temptation down the road, I am called to restate and reassert that surrender to you and I ask for you to show me even how to do that, how to stay in the eye of the storm and not be blown away or out of your way and your will.
A heart truly meaning truly understanding this, will be understood by God and received by God, and he will withhold nothing from such a heart. This is what I believe and know to be true Jeannie. It is for you, for me, for all of us. We are victors, conquerors, but we must rise into that victory secured and walk in it thru a life of obedience, which is a life far easier than a life where we fight the battles. We are fighting from a point of victory already secured, we are not fighting to secure the victory. Christ has already secured the victory and already slain the dragon that is in the sea, Isaiah 27:1. God bless you abundantly in every way in every area of your life and your family and your whole sphere in life.