Separate the Precious from the Vile

Jn.17:14, 16 "I have given them Your Word; and the world has hated them because they are not of this world, even as I am not of this world." (See Heb. 13:14). 16, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

Our experience here on this earth, based upon the fact that we are positioned in Christ through salvation, is so much like the prophet Nahum, though we, as Christ’s own body, His own church,His very bride, have so much more.

Nahum, most likely, was a captive in exile in Assyria. He was the child of Hebrew parents, being brought up by loving and comforting parents prior to being an exile, now in the land of the alien and oppressor, God’s own prophet.

He, with his own eyes, had seen and his own ears heard the sights and sounds, the evil and oppression of which he was surrounded, but he did so with the spoken lessons of judgment of the evil of men under satan—the lessons of warning towards the evil ones and the comfort of God’s love towards those that were His.

God is teaching us that are His, through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit, like He taught Jeremiah, how to separate the precious from the vile. (See Jer. 15:16-19).

Yes, us, like Nahum, are born among strangers who are harsh and cruel, but at home in Christ where we breath in an atmosphere of love. Nahum’s very name means “consolation,” one who speaks in the comfort of Christ’s love. (See Jn. 13:1, 34-35; 1 Jn 2:6; Eph. 5:1-2; Ps. 37:23; 1 Pet. 2:21;2Cor.1:3-6).

Those exiles in Assyria, God’s own people, those who were the objects of the evil of the wrong-doing and daily sin in which they were surrounded, were also cheered and strengthened as they looked on the boy Nahum whom God had sent them, as they offered up prayers for him, and hoped that God might still yet do great things for His injured and afflicted people, for His own glory and their blessing.

I am thankful for everyone of God’s own, who though surrounded by such evil as we are surrounded in today, might be not overcome of evil, but be overcome by the goodness of the comfort of His love. (See Rom. 12:21). Especially today, He would have us to walk in the wisdom of the comfort of the goodness of His love, and harmless concerning evil. (See Rom. 16:19; 1 Jn. 5:18-21).

Ps.119:140 Your Word is very pure (tried and refined) therefore Your servant loves it. 141 I am small (like the little boy) and despised, yet I do not forget Your precepts—(the authoritative comfort of Your love for me.)