Psalm 39-41 How We Vacillate

Like all of us, David was both sinner and saint.  I was amazed at how quickly things changed for him in these chapters:

(+)  I will be careful how I act and will not sin by what I say.

(-)  I became very angry inside … my anger burned.

(-)  Lord …. Save me from all my sins.

(-)  Lord … leave me alone so I can be happy before I leave and am no more.

(+)  He lifted me out of the pit of destruction, out of the sticky mud.  He stood me on a rock and made my feet steady.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

(+)  Lord, I will tell about Your goodness … My God, I want to do what You want.  Your teachings are in my heart.

(-)  Lord, do not hold back Your mercy from me … troubles have surrounded me … my sins have caught me so that I cannot see a way to escape.  I have more sins than hairs on my head …

(+)  Please, Lord, save me.  Hurry, Lord to help me…. Lord, because I am poor and helpless, please remember me.  You are my helper and savior.  My God, do not wait.

(-)  Lord have mercy.  Heal me, because I have sinned against You.

(+)  I know You are pleased with me.  Because I am innocent, You support me and will let me be with You forever.

Father, like David I continually find myself close to You and suddenly separated from You because of my sins.  Like David, I ask Your forgiveness and I cherish Your love for me.  Help me to seek You more and to sin less.  I hate having to say I’m sorry so much!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 38 -- What David Knew

David’s thoughts are troubled, and I found that I had to really dig around to order them and see everything he was facing. First, he’d sinned:  “I confess my guilt; I am troubled by my sin.”

Second, he recognized that he was suffering both physical and spiritual consequences from his sin:  “My guilt has overwhelmed me; like a load it weighs me down … Even my bones are not healthy because of my sin … I moan from the pain  I feel…”

David knows God has every right to punish him for his sin:  “Lord, don’t correct me when You are angry.  Don’t punish me when You are furious.  Your arrows have wounded me and Your hand has come down on me … My heart pounds and my strength is gone.”

David knows that his sin nature is known to God and that sin separates him from God:  “I am like a deaf man; I cannot hear.  Like a mute, I cannot speak.  I am like a person who does not hear, who has no answer to give … Lord, You know EVERYTHING I want (his sinful desires??); my cries are not hidden from You … Lord, don’t leave me; my God, don’t go away.”

Yet he also knows he has to cry out to God for help – he can’t do it himself:  “Quickly come and help me, my Lord and Savior … I trust you, Lord.  You will answer, my Lord and God.”

The man after God’s own heart was just like us.  Yet God loved him and drew him back to Himself when David sinned, even using discipline to do it.  So we should know what David knew:  God already knows both our propensity to sin and the things that tempt us most.  He made us.  So He’s not surprised by our sin.  Disappointed, but not surprised.  And he wants us back when we do sin.  What a loving God!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 37 -- Definite Guidance From God Today

“Trust the Lord and do good.  Live in the land and feed on truth.  Enjoy serving the Lord, and He will give You want you want.  Depend on the Lord; trust Him, and He will take care of you … wait and trust the Lord … The Lord laughs at the wicked because He sees that their day is coming … It is better to have little and be right than to have much and be wrong … The Lord supports those who do right.  The Lord watches over the lives of the innocent, and their reward will last forever … Those who do right give freely to others … When a person’s steps follow the Lord, God is please with his ways.  If he stumbles, he will not fall, because the Lord holds his hand …I have never seen good people left helpless… Good people always lend freely to others, and their children are a blessing.   Stop doing evil and do good … The Lord loves justice and will not leave those who worship Him.  He will always protect them … A good person speaks with wisdom and he says what is fair.  The teachings of his God are in his heart, so he does not fail to keep them … The Lord will not take away his protection or let good people be judged guilty…. Think of the innocent person and watch the honest one … The Lord saves good people;  He is their strength in times of trouble.  The Lord helps them and saves them … because they trust Him for protection.”

Clear words of direction for me this morning, Father.  Thanks for waking me up to hear them.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 33-36 More God Than We Know

“God’s word is true, and everything He does is right … the Lord’s love fills the earth…”

“He spoke, and it happened.  He commanded, and it appeared.”

“The Lord looks down from heaven and sees every person … He made their hearts and understands everything they do.”

We have to believe these things.  Otherwise we will get a wrong view of God.  If we believe that His word contains errors, then Satan will lead us to feel that we are the exception and that His word doesn’t apply to our situation.

If we fail to believe that everything He does is right, then we leave open the possibility that God can mess up.  That would imply that He’s not perfect.

Unless we understand that God is motivated by His love for us, we will assign wrong motives to Him and doubt His goodness.

We must believe that God is all-powerful and that He created everything we know from nothing.  Otherwise we may be tempted to think that His will can be defeated.

If we fall for the lie that God is God only from a distance, and that He’s left it all up to us to make it work, we will miss out on the myriad ways He arranges our circumstances to grow us in Him.  We’ll cease to believe He loves us and know Him only as Creator and not as Savior.

And if we fail to take to heart the truth the He made our hearts and understands everything we do, we will see His commands as arbitrary, designed solely to inflict misery on us.  We’ll miss out on the fact that He loves us enough not to leave us the way we are.  We won’t understand that temptations we are susceptible to cause us to build our trust in Him when we steer away from them, and though our failures hurt and disappoint Him, He knows that we are dust, and He loves us anyway.

Father, You are so much more than we can fathom.  You are more active in our lives that we could ever perceive, and Your love for us is more than amazing.  Thank You for being so personally involved in my life!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 26-32 Praising God

It was great to just read through many chapters this morning, and God sure mad it pleasant with the cool gentle breeze blowing through my study after the hot day yesterday with our air-conditioner out.  I found myself focusing, as David did, on thanking God and magnifying His goodness:

“I see your love and I live by Your truth …

I raise my voice in praise and tell of all the miracles You have done…

The Lord is my light and the One who saves me.  I fear no one.  The Lord protects my life …

During danger He will keep me safe … He will hide me … I will sing and praise the Lord …

My heart said of You, “Go, worship Him.”  So I come to worship You, Lord…

If my father and mother leave me, the Lord will take me in …. (Made me think of my boys!)…

Wait for the Lord’s help.  Be strong and brave, and wait for the Lord’s help …

Praise the Lord, because He heard my prayer for help.  The Lord is my strength and shield.  I trust Him, and He helps me.  I am very happy…

Save Your people and bless those who are Your own.  Be their shepherd and carry them forever….

Praise the Lord for the glory of His Name; worship the Lord because He is holy…

I will sing to You and not be silent Lord, my God.  I will praise You forever….

You are my Rock and my Protection…

I give You my life.  Save me, Lord, God of truth…

Lord, I trust You.  You are my God.  My life is in Your hands….

Save me because of Your love….

You heard my prayer …

The Lord’s love surrounds those who trust Him….”

Father, thank You for being all that and more.  I love You!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 23-25 Even David Had His Days

It seems that in chapter 25, David finds himself just like us, knowing what he needs to believe and do, but struggling to get there.

For instance, he says, “Tell me Your ways.  Show me how to live.  Guide me in Your truth, and teach me, my God, my Savior.  I trust you all day long.”

But then he also says, “Do not remember the sins and wrong things I did when I was young … Forgive my many sins … Turn to me and have mercy on me, because I am lonely and hurting.  My troubles have grown larger; free me from my problems.  Look at my suffering and troubles, and take away all my sins.”

David’s foundation of faith is what helps him to endure.  He says, “I trust You, so do not let me be disgraced.  My hope is in You.”

God approaches us.  He seeks us out.  Even in our sin, He wants us to return to Him.  Were it not for His great love for us, we’d have no hope!

Father, I love what David said here, and help me to keep the first verse foremost in my life:  “Lord, I give myself to You; my God, I trust You!”

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 22 -- For ME?

“For ME!”  That’s what my commentary says should follow every line of the first 21 verses of this chapter, for it describes Christ’s thoughts and feelings and agonies while on the cross in intimate detail, hundreds of years before it all happened.  Crucifixion hadn’t even been invented as a method of death when these words were penned, but now we can see with perfect 20/20 hindsight that it’s all there.

It starts with Jesus’ fourth statement from the cross (“My God, My God, WHY have You forsaken Me?”) and includes His seventh statement (“It is finished.”)

The timing is amazing, too.  David was on the throne.  I wonder if people back then read this psalm and wondered what in the WORLD it was about!  Yet God and Jesus, being fully divine and at that moment together in heaven before the Incarnation, being timeless and eternal and unbound by time, had already experienced the entire event of the crucifixion in the future.  At the very same moment for them, they were watching as Adam contemplated the forbidden fruit.  All humanity hung in the balance.  God had already made provision for Adam’s sin before he’d ever sinned!  He loved us that much! 

And as Max Lucado described in the sidebar, Jesus didn’t simply banish our sins.  He took them out Himself by placing them upon Himself, carrying our load away for eternity.

For a moment, God’s holiness  and righteousness and justice required that He turn His back on His own Son, refusing to rescue Him, so that He could carry our sins away in death.  But since Jesus was perfect and had never sinned, God likewise couldn’t leave Him in the grave.  That’s why He brought Him back to life.

It’s all far above our ability to comprehend, for our love is far less than His.  All we can do is marvel at the mercy and grace and love God showed for us in all of this.

Father, all this for me?  WHY?  I’m full of sin, yet You love me anyway and want me with You for eternity!  Such love!  Such love!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford