Category: Psalms

And you shall remember and thoughtfully consider that you were once a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.  Deuteronomy 15:15

Steve Brown, in his book A SCANDALOUS FREEDOM, tells this story.

Abraham Lincoln went to a slave market.  He noted a young, beautiful African American woman being auctioned off to the highest offer.  He bid on her and won. He could see the anger in the young woman’s eyes and could imagine what she was thinking, ‘Another white man will buy me, use me, and then discard me.’

As Lincoln walked off with his ‘property,’ he turned to the woman and said, ‘You’re free.’  

‘Yeah.  What does that mean?’ she replied.  

‘It means that you’re free,’ he said.   

‘Does it mean,’ the young woman said hesitantly, ‘that I can go wherever I want to go?’  

‘Yes, it means you are free, and you can go wherever you want to go.’

‘Then, sir,’ said the woman with tears in her eyes, ‘I think I’ll go with you.’

Though she had been declared free, and though she sensed that she could trust her rescuer, she would have the mindset of a slave for years to come.  It would take years for her to process the freedom she was granted.  She would struggle to understand respect.  She would think twice before going in a restaurant or into a store to purchase goods.  

So it is with sanctification.  We each come with the baggage of our stories.  At our spiritual birth, the Good News of the Gospel changed everything.  We were declared innocent because of the blood of Jesus.  We were adopted out of darkness.  Yet the vestiges of slavery still haunt us.  

Every day, God must work in the unseen parts of us—the places where we still question whether Jesus’s love is as unconditional as He says it is. We are skeptics and accusers of the One who loves perfectly. We are afraid of the dark and insist on walking alone, while not understanding that God goes with us around every corner and on every detour.  

Jehovah Mekaddishkem woos us to keep trusting and keep believing until every part of our scared hearts are won over by a Gospel that is ‘so good it must be true.’  

You sanctify me in all the messy places of my heart.  You untangle the webs that still hold me captive.  This doctrine is very personal, and I’m in awe of how you love me.  Amen

The directions of Yahweh are pure, enlightening the eyes.  Psalm 19:8

The Hebrew word for light means ‘to illuminate.’  When I finally understand a subject under the teaching of someone gifted, I’ll say he ‘shed some light on the topic.’  At creation, when there was darkness and chaos, God said, ‘Let there be light.’  He shed some light on the world and brought order. 

Do you have a situation in your life that lacks clarity?  Have you been asking God for understanding?  Once He chooses to bestow the gift of light, His influence over darkened, confused, and oppressed minds is pervasive.  He illuminates what is cloudy.  He puts a magnifying glass over the twisted strands of thread, and suddenly, we can see the steps we need to take to untangle what is knotted. 

For years, I may have struggled with a situation that seems wrong.  I’m not at peace.  I am in conflict when I think about it.  But I don’t have clarity on what it is that’s wrong.  Yesterday was one of those days that will go down in personal history.  God shed light on things that lived in the shadows.  Illumined, I could see everything clearly; today, there is a roadmap.  Yesterday, I was lost in the fog.  Today, I have discovered God’s plan.  Yesterday, I was grasping at spiritual straws.  Today, I have what I need in my hands.  Yesterday, I had faith but no enlightenment.  Today, I have hope because my prayers are precise.

The Word of God gives light to the eyes.  Today, God is going to be the Light-giver across this dark landscape.  For someone, He will cure spiritual blindness and allow them to see the light and glory of Jesus.  For someone else, He will turn the light on a concept that correctly diagnoses what has been spiritually infirmed.  For a teacher, He will enlighten a passage and give spiritual understanding for Sunday’s lesson.  For a mother, He will enlighten the spiritual condition of her child so that she can apply spiritual cures.  For a business owner, God will enlighten the discord within his company and lead him to replace worldly business strategies with scripturally based principles.

Light is a life-saving thing.  When I need it, and God gives it, I fall on my knees in gratitude.  And when He gives it, I am responsible for taking the light to the darkness and exerting spiritual rule in favor of the kingdom.

Show me what to do with what You’ve shown me.  I am Your city on a hill.  In Jesus’ name, Amen

Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!  Psalm 90:1

Why do we sell our souls to get the love we want?  Why would we consider prostrating ourselves, promising things we have no right promising, all for the prospect of someone’s affection?  As we speak, you may be caring for a parent and realizing the window of time is short for getting the love you’ve always craved.  If only you could figure out how to turn their hearts toward you.

These longings aren’t wrong.  We were made to belong, to be under the care of someone trustworthy.  We dream of sitting in their shade, satiated and content.  People may give us a taste of it but God promises to fully satisfy the longing.  He encourages us to lose our lives because He knows that if we willingly give them up to Him, we will find real love, real life.  And, there’s a bonus ~ if we abdicate our right to a self-proclaimed identity and blend into Jesus, we’ll find that our true selves emerge.

All this goes against the grain of our pride.  We don’t want to need anyone that badly.  It seems pathetic to a strong ego.  But there is a barrier that eclipses even pride.  It is fear.  I’m afraid that if I open up my heart completely and He rejects me, it will be unbearable.  To play it safe, I seal away my heart in order to protect it.  I use the pretense of religion to hide behind, but God wants my heart.  He’s constantly calling my name to come closer.  Proximity is safe, not dangerous.

Every single person alive, no matter their history, can go running home, even limping home, with confidence.

It takes years, Lord, but help us not be afraid anymore.  Amen

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.   Psalm 34:19

The words of Jesus brought divided opinion.  He was righteous and he was afflicted, even among the religious.  Not many things are more heated than religious arguments.  Some were willing to consider that He was divine; others called him demonized.

Jesus predicted this kind of polarization.  “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.” Luke 12:51 It is better for people to be divided over Christ than for both parties to continue in sin and unbelief.

The chasm between a believer and unbeliever is wide.  And when it involves an intimate relationship, there are constant sparks when the ways of heaven and the values of the kingdom of darkness collide.  Clashes come numerous times a day.

Business partnerships can be at odds; divided on ethics, divided on styles of leadership.  Jesus promotes servant leadership.  This repels the one who seeks to use his power to further himself.

Marriages can be at odds; divided on financial priorities, divided on parenting styles.  Jesus asks parents to raise their children in such a way that when He calls them, they respond.  A parent who is obvious in his disdain for Christ is not willing to have his child serve a God who asks them to lose their life for Jesus’ sake.

Many of you who are reading this right now know the loneliness of walking beside a person where you share more differences than similarities.  At times, you may grow weary of speaking up so you cave in to behaviors that grate against your spirit.  Perhaps the lack of peace haunts you and you wonder if this can possibly be of God.  Jesus would answer with a resounding ‘yes’.  God’s children must not love peace more than they love truth or else we will relinquish our convictions for a sense of false harmony.  Peace at any cost is not Jesus’ way.

My natural bent is not to fight – but to cave to others’ pressure in order to gain peace.  You didn’t do that.  You were willing to be quiet and you were also willing to create heat so that people would have to choose truth or error.  Lord, I have a lot to learn from You.  Amen

Princes persecute me without cause, but my heart stands in awe of your words.  Psalm 119:161

Unfortunate is the adult who still has the magical thinking of a child.  He expects that life will always be fair and that there will always be a human being to make sure things go in his favor.  His parents, most likely, never taught him wisdom for how to live in this world.

My father was a public high school teacher, then principal, then guidance counselor.  Stories were told around our dinner table about parents who stood up for ‘little Johnny’ after he had acted out and had been sent to the office for discipline.  Consequences for his rebellious and disruptive behavior would have benefited him but his parents, indignant that their child could be guilty, interfered with needed justice.

David knew persecution, even by those who had the unlimited power to raise up an army.  They were the rich and powerful.  The reputation of the crown preceded them.  Yet, he was street smart in the midst of injustice.  Some years later, he would pass on such wisdom to his son, Solomon, as evidenced by his writing. “If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and righteousness, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them.”  Ecclesiastes 5:8

David knew that there was such a thing as innocence, even if men in high places called you guilty.  He also knew that God, the higher authority, watched all matters and it would be a matter of time before His justice would prevail.

I remember that today.  Though it appears men get away with wielding the sword of abusive power, it is an illusion.  Their crimes will catch up to them and they will pay for all eternity if they do not repent at the foot of the cross.

How does this apply to me personally?  No one, not even a prince, should cause me to wear robes of shame if I am innocent, or if I have already repented and made restitution.

The mighty are little in Your universe.  Keep my perspective clean and focused.  Amen

The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts.  Psalm 119:69

David’s enemies were jealous of his reputation.  They were proud and felt that they deserved the attention and prestige.  They didn’t even blink when they conceived lies that would bring him to a place of contempt in the public’s eye.  They justified their sin because it would get them what they wanted – center stage.

Their plot didn’t cause him to sway off course.  He did not engage in name calling nor did he defend himself.  With his whole heart, he honored God’s precepts, namely – not taking revenge on those who deserved punishment.  He left such things to God.

Sooner or later, every child of God will experience a smear campaign.  It may be a coup d’etat over a place in the church; a position of leadership coveted by one who feels overlooked.  A carnal agenda can run rampant to discredit a godly leader by concocting untrue or exaggerated stories that will cast the good man in a bad light.  All in the name of self-advancement and entitlement.

If we have lost money, position, and places of leadership because of a smear campaign the likes of what David suffered, and if we have borne it patiently as he did, we must take courage.  We remember Joseph.  The time in the dungeon was temporary.  In it, God taught him wisdom, and while he was in his underground school, God was preparing all of Egypt for a new kind of leader.  God takes up the cause of His servants, whether now or later.  His redemptive purposes are never off course.  Though it may look like it, hindsight will reveal that even betrayal was part of heaven’s timetable.  The ticking of the clock is steady and under sovereign control.

 In betrayal and injustice, you have a plan for Your child and the tormentors are on your leash and on your time clock.  Help us take comfort in that.  Amen

Save

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My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.  Psalm 119:20

Being consumed with something is an experience common to each of us.  I know what that feels like.  So do you.  I was consumed with grief when our son died.  Consumed with dread when a cancer diagnosis was made regarding my father and mother.  The eventual losses filled my heart to such an extent that death was all I thought about.  I couldn’t enjoy holidays or the company of my favorite people for many months.  The ache in my heart was just forefront.

I’ve had my soul consumed by positive life experiences as well.  A song in the process of being written can arrest me.   Or one that I’m arranging for future recording can consume me round the clock.   Also, a new writing venture has consumed me.  The layout of the book, chapter divisions, and the dissection of the material were on my mind all hours of the day.  I was only physically present in other conversations.  I smiled and nodded but my mind was on my writing.

David admits that his soul is consumed with longing for God’s ways.

How many can say this?  Curious, perhaps.  Interested, of course.  But longing?  I find that I only ‘long for’ what is life-saving to me.  The only way I know if God’s ways are life-saving is by applying them.  Reading but not applying keeps me a dispassionate student.  The scriptures are kept at arms length.

If I come to the end of myself and pour out my complaint to God in search of answers, I am a good candidate to experience the longing David describes.  Consumed with need, I throw all my hope upon the scriptures.  Whatever God prescribes, I do.  I’ve no confidence left in myself.  When that occurs, God’s Word meets my places of need and there is combustion.  Hope, wisdom, and peace result.  I begin to have a new perspective about my life and feel that I am soaring in a spiritual realms.  Remembering how life used to be, and having tasted of what it means to dwell in the kingdom with Jesus, my soul develops a new kind of longing.

Ignite my spiritual appetite yet again.  I want ‘consumed’ to describe me.  Amen