Psalms – Page 10 – LOVE | ACCEPT

Lent Spent with the Psalms Day One

We’ve all spent time in the psalms. They are a source of challenge, comfort, and promise for us today in the same way that they were for the people of Israel. At times pleading and others praising, God and His incredible works remain front and center in this poetry. The Church enters the season of Lent today, a period of pointed reflection on the Lord that moves day by day toward the celebration of Easter. We meditate on the bloody and horrible cost of salvation, how the perfect Seder lamb had to be sacrificed so that you and I might be saved. It is at the same time a sober and celebratory time.

Psalm 85 expresses our need and desire perfectly. The psalmist pleads,

Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us.

Will you be angry with us forever?

Will you prolong your anger through all generations?

Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you?

Show us your unfailing love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. (vv 4-7)

Begin our walk through the desert toward Calvary by asking yourself, what am I contributing to prolonging God’s anger? What must I shed on this trip through the wilderness? Our goal is to reach the cross rid of the dead weight and dross that interfere with our relationship with the Savior.

Grace and peace to you.

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Psalm 66 – He Has Not Withheld His Love

Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. ( v16 )

God has a history with each of us. He has pursued us and extended immeasurable grace to us that we do not deserve. Many of us have been brought to repentance and restored into relationship with our Savior. No matter how many years have passed in this relationship, or if it is still brand new, our proper attitude is ensured by a consistent practice of rehearsing in our minds and with our lips all of the things that God has done for us.

Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf!

He turned the sea into dry land, they passed through the waters on foot – come let us rejoice in him. (vv 5-6)

You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance. (v 12)

If we turn back through the preceding pages of the Old Testament, we find that over and over the people of Israel recite all of their history with God as they praise Him. The blessings and the testing are all there, and from the rehearsal of this history His people are reminded of how deeply God loves and wants to restore them to holiness and relationship with Him. Both His loving blessing and His difficult testing are meant to achieve the same purpose, that you and I become who we were meant by His design to be.

Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you.

All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing praise to your name.” (vv 3-4)

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Psalm 65 – Praise Awaits You, O God

Praise awaits you, O God, in Zion; to you our vows will be fulfilled.

O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come. (vv 1-2)

When we reach the 65th psalm, the psalter takes a sudden turn to effusive praise and leaves behind the psalms of lament temporarily. God has been praised by the psalmist over and over without hesitation thus far, despite the threatening clouds that seemed to shadow each entry in the book. Here there is no lament; it is either cured or forgotten in favor of pure praise for the goodness of God toward those who love him.

When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions.

Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! (vv 3-4)

Though we should worship God simply because He is who He is, we most often associate our relationship to Him via his remarkable grace toward us sinners. We who were separated from Him by the chasm of our unholiness are given the opportunity to rejoin the community of belief through His grace. Washing us clean, God provides the way for us to move closer and kneel in the courts of praise.

Our response to the grace we are extended is praise for His righteous acts:

You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Savior, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas,

who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength, who stilled the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves, and the turmoil of the nations.

Those living far away fear your wonders; where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy. (vv 5-8)

Our Father is not content to merely forgive us for our transgressions, he installs us in paradise in a lesser, but still overwhelming, expression of His love for us:

You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so you have ordained it. (v 9)

Look around you, find a reason and praise Him today.

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Psalm 64 All Mankind Will Fear

Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint;

protect my life from the threat of the enemy.

Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from that noisy crowd of evildoers. (vv 1-2)

The psalmist hides much of the depth of this psalm in the Hebrew but the English reading expresses the trusting relationship between the victims of the wicked and God. They will be attacked publicly but fear nothing that the earthbound can do. Their trust is rooted in the long term. God will prove the righteous true.

All mankind will fear; they will proclaim the works of God and ponder what he has done.

Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him;

let all the upright in heart praise him! (vv 9-10)

This psalm embraces familiar territory. As Jesus reminded his disciples (for all of history), we will have trouble in this life. The strength we show, rooted in our trust in the Lord, will demonstrate His strength to an unbelieving world.

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Psalm 63 Your Love is Better Than Life

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (v1)

Moments of desperation often find men seeking the presence of God, even when their lives prior to that moment have not recognized his existence. Mumbled prayers that begin with “if you really are there, save me” are whispered when the realization that no amount of human effort can extract the supplicant from their troubles. The opposite end of the spectrum also sees people proclaiming allegiance to God in times of desperation. The people of God know that there is no land or depth of struggle that is beyond the reach of the Lord and that He is present even in our darkest moments. Rather than sensing abandonment and giving in to the press of doom, God’s people seek Him, rehearsing their memories of His great triumphs throughout history.

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live, and in you name I will lift up my hands. ( vv 2-4 )

The psalms are perfect to hide in our hearts and recite when we face moments in a vast wasteland, devoid of water and filled with predators waiting to make a move on our lives. When all seems lost the remaining brokenness that remains in our hearts will be tempted to question His presence, the new heart will say ‘God is here, I have no fear.’

…All who swear by God’s name will praise Him…

Psalm 62 I Find Rest in God Alone

The framing of Psalm 62 serves us well in our prayer life. When we consider the forces that array against us and take them to God in petition, our faith should remind us that all is well in control, that we have placed our trust in an unmovable Rock.

My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken. (vv 1-2)
…

One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard:
that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.
Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done. (vv 11-12)

The psalmist wonders aloud how long the evil will attempt to topple him. If David is writing, he may be at an advanced age or suffering from another ailment. Some suggest that this prayer fits the period in which Saul is attempting to destroy him. In either case he contrasts the two-faced nature of these men with the steadfast security of God. While they may have his mortal life held under siege, constantly on the edge of death, the Psalmist proclaims that the soul rests on the strong foundation of God. Nothing can shake it.

Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie;
if weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath. (v9)

Take the long view my friends. Our current struggles are but a wisp of wind. They will pass away in the eternal scope of our glorification. We need not dwell on those who come against us. In fact, we would be justified in being please at being chosen to bear these travails. That discussion, however, is for another day. Today we raise our hands and hearts and give thanks for the solid foundation on which our lives are lived.

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Psalm 60 You Have Been My Refuge

Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. (v1)

It seems appropriate that the first post of this new year returns our attention to the psalms. This brief entry in the psalter reminds us in the simplest fashion of the consistency and permanence of the God in which we have faith. He was not like the arbitrary and capricious gods of the peoples who surrounded Israel whose demands and favor changed from day to day depending on their mood. Yahweh is today as He was yesterday and will be tomorrow.

From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint;

lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe. (vv 2-3)

In three couplets (2-3,4-5,6-7) the psalmist professes his confidence in the strength and protection of the God he longs to make his abode with. He states his mortal weakness and contrasts it with the eternal strength of God. In his weak state, David asks only that he be allowed a small place at the edge of the shadow of God’s outstretched wings. For this privilege he will respond in eternal praise.

Then will I ever sing praise to your name and fulfill my vows day after day. (v8)

Amen.

Second Sunday in Advent : Love

When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.

Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.

Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” (Psalm 126:1-3)

Our anticipation of the coming of Christ the King should move us to reflection but the busyness of the cultural trappings of Christmas tends to deflect our meditation until Sunday. In the same fashion, the hustle and bustle can affect our joy and our feelings and actions toward others. Without our joy, our love for our neighbor becomes dry like the desert sands.

Take a few moments to reflect on Psalm 126 this week, a reading from the liturgical calendar. God through David knew that we would need to be reminded of our days in exile. The days we walked in a desert of our own making, winds of self-absorption swirling around our souls, sin directing our feet. At the moment we were redeemed by the Master, we knew a joy at being found, at being led from the desert but our Self was not willing to give in that easy. We often tread back out to the desert, sin a dangerous beast lurking in the shadows.

We must remind ourselves not just this week but every week that we are being led back home. We must allow our mouths to be filled with laughter and allow songs of joy to come from our tongues. When we observe that the Lord has done great things for us and know it, truly believe it in our deepest soul, we want others to know it as well. We will love and our steps will follow a new path.

Our anticipation looks forward to the entry of Pure Love into our world. He came for you and me, and He came for our neighbors. His love is our love and our love needs to be our neighbor’s. Help someone else find their way out of the desert and do it in love.

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Psalm 60 With God We Will Gain the Victory

You have rejected us, O God, and burst forth upon us; you have been angry – now restore us!

You have shaken the land and torn it open; mend its fractures, for it is quaking. (vv 1-2)

Those who read the Psalms devotionally or at random often fail to notice exactly how much of the Psalter is composed of pleas for restoration and paeans to God’s faithfulness in doing so, ‘one more time.’ In verse after verse the psalmist is hemmed in by his enemies and threatened with destruction. He raises his eyes and voice to the heavens and asks God where he is in this time of travail. In every instance, the same answer comes back: “I am here.”

Our lessons in coming to this observation are twofold. The most difficult of the two is to come to the realization that God will turn away from us during different seasons of our lives. The duration may be brief or endure for a long time but the scriptures clearly demonstrate that we risk the the turning of His Face.

You have shown your people desperate times; you have given us wine that makes us stagger. (v3)

Whether the purpose be our redemption through repentance and the subsequent restoration or to enable a larger purpose in His plan, God may cause us to suffer. Do we trust Him in this struggle? Are we willing to be sacrificed for the larger purpose of an eternal plan. To God, our lifetime is but a second; to us it is an eternity of testing. Surely He knows this but can we learn this lesson and shift our perspective into eternity, lifting our eyes from the rocky ground in front of our feet?

The second of the lessons enables us to endure the first. We can trust in God completely. We can dismiss worry and erase our doubts knowing that He is perfectly good and that whatever state we find ourselves in perfectly aligns with His eternal course for history.

But for those who fear you, you have raised a banner to be unfurled against the bow. (v4)

We can unfurl the banner of the gospel, swath ourselves in the good news, and march forward. If our rejection is brought about our own behaviors we can turn from them and seek the restoration that God willingly extends. If our separation is a part of the larger purpose we can be faithful, knowing the ultimate good will come of it. As the Psalmist shouts,

With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies. (v12)

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Psalm 59 God Will Go Before Me

Deliver me from my enemies, O God; protect me from those who rise up against me.

Deliver me from evildoers and save me from bloodthirsty men. (vv 1-2)

These have become familiar refrains from David as he implores God to release him from the constant harassment of his enemies. Time after time we hear him turn to God in need of protection, shelter, and safety, describing his enemies in the harshest terms. In this psalm we share David’s apprehension as his home is watched by Saul’s men who are intent on killing him. To place this in historical context, refer to 1 Samuel 19. Does David succumb to the temptation to rid himself of Saul? No, he righteously refuses to touch God’s anointed, a lesson that the modern lesson can learn as member are tempted to attack and destroy a pastor.

God will go before me and will let me gloat over those who slander me.

But do not kill them, O Lord our shield, or my people will forget.

In you might make them wander about, and bring them down. (v 11)

Rather than see them destroyed, David wishes that they might simple lose their way. Possibly he hopes that they will realize how far astray they have gone in hunting down God’s chosen king. He follows with a plea that their pride might be realized and they might turn back. We can be thankful that our intercessor please for one more minute for us to repent despite our manifold sins, even though they are injurious to Him. Ultimately, the redemption of a horrific sinner such as myself brings more glory to the King than my immediate destruction, though it would be well deserved.

Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. (v 13b)

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