Confidence in the Lord Psalm 5:1-3In

In Psalm 5 verses 1-3   David says, ^“1Give ear to my words, O Lord, Consider my meditation. ²Give heed to the voice of my cry, My King and my God, For to You I will pray. ³My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to You, And I will look up.”  

David put his confidence in the Lord.  What is your confidence in?  What do your actions reveal that your confidence is in?  Are you putting your confidence in men?  Your spouse?  Many put their confidence in themselves.  Others put their confidence in money and still more put their confidence in the government.

In this passage David reveals his confidence in three ways.  The first way is that His confidence is seen in his repetition.  Verse one says, “Give ear to my words”.  He was asking God to listen.   In verse one he repeated the idea saying, “Consider my meditation” .  The term here is sighing not the term we have previously looked at for meditation.  David’s troubles may have kept him from even being able to put words to his prayers.  The second verse begins by saying, “Give heed to the voice of my cry.”  In these three ways David was pleading with God.  John Calvin said this revealed his perseverance in prayer.  He didn’t just pray once and quit.  It was a day by day occurrence.

The second way that David’s confidence in the Lord is seen is through his statement, “My voice shall you hear”.   There are two sides to this statement.  The obvious is that David would be talking because it was his voice.  He was confident to take his request to God.  The other one is that God would here.  He was confident that God would listen to his prayer.

The third way that David’s confidence is seen is in his expectancy.  His statement, “I will look up” reveals that he was looking to God expecting Him to answer.  Do we expect God to answer us when we bring requests.  My mind goes to the early church when they were praying for Peter’s release from jail and when he showed up at the door they were too surprised to let him in.  We too should pray with confidence. 

I hope that today you are placing your confidence in the Lord as you take your requests to him on a daily basis.

The video format of this is available at www.youtube.com/churchoflittleton

First Word # 8 Ps. 143:5

Psalm 143:5 (NKJV)

⁵I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your works; I muse on the work of Your hands.

If you take the time to look up and read Psalm 143:1-4 you will see that the context of this verse is that David has been going through some very difficult times under attack from the enemy.  He says in verse 3, “The enemy has persecuted my soul; He has crushed my life to the ground; He has made me dwell in darkness, like those who have long been dead.  Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me; My heart within me is distressed.

The repeated attacks of the enemy was overwhelming David and he is pleading with God to help deliver him from these attacks.  His confidence came when he began to remember the days of old.

What were these days of old?  For David they may have been when he was delivered from the bear and the lion.  It was these memories that gave him confidence when he was preparing to fight Goliath.  The memory of God delivering not only Goliath, but all the battles with the Philistines that God had helped provide the victory over may have been what these “days of old were”. 

It is also possible that the “days of old” were the memories of God’s deliverance for the people of Israel.  All of the plagues while they were in Egypt that prompted Pharaoh to release them, the delivery as they were trapped at the Red Sea and God used Moses to part the waters so that they were able to walk through on dry ground. 

The works that he had meditated upon may have been God’s deliverance of the Promised Land to the Israelites through not only the battles, but also through the use of insects and wild animals to move the Canaanites from their land. 

David’s musing on the work of God’s hands gave him confidence to continue to trust in God.

Though he was discouraged and was pleading with God to answer his prayers, he was still asking God to give him direction to know how to walk.  David wanted to live in a way that was pleasing to God in spite of the discouragements that he was facing. 

As we face difficulties do we give up on God and give up on living for Him?  Do we begin to follow our feelings rather than walk in obedience?  We need to reflect upon God the “days of old” and we need to remember that He is trustworthy.

The video version of this is available at www.youtube.com/churchoflittleton  

First Word # 7 Psalm 119:97

Psalm 119:97 (NKJV) ⁹⁷Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

The law is God’s Word in David’s time.  It was the law of Moses the first five books of the Bible.  God has given us more books now in the cannon of Scripture, 66 total. 

His love for  God’s Word brought him to the point of meditating upon it all day.

James Swanson gives us this definition of meditation, “the act. of giving considerable thought about a person or subject, with a focus of responding properly to the information”^[1]

How well are we familiar with God’s Word that we can spend our day thinking about it?  Do we consider what Scripture and it’s principles that apply to what we are trying to accomplish during this day.

In the following three verses the writer of the psalm recognizes three benefits to this meditation. 

They say, ⁹⁸You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me. ⁹⁹I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.

¹⁰⁰I understand more than the ancients, Because I keep Your precepts. (Psalm 119:98–100) (NKJV)

1.   Wiser than his enemies - These enemies would be ones violating God’s laws who God will judge.

2.   More understanding than teachers. – His teachers did not meditate on the testimonies enough to keep them.  They were missing the blessing and facing the consequences not obeying the testimony that God had given to Moses.

3.   Understand more than the aged – They chose not to meditate upon the precepts and thereby broke the covenant of God and would miss out on the intended blessing.

In this passage we are challenged to:

a.   Evaluate our love for God’s law.  What is of more value to us?  What do we give more of our free time to?

b.   Evaluate where our mind is wondering when we are not about a focused task.  Does it come back to God’s Word?

c.   Evaluate our desire to live a life by God’s principles.  Am I concerned enough with pleasing God through obedience that I want to know His principles by which to live?

 My hope for you today is that your love for God’s word would grow to the point that your mind automatically goes to it as you have time to think and determine God’s plan for your life on daily moment by moment basis.

Note: The video version of this is available at www.youtube.com/churchoflitteleton

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^[1] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

First Word #6 Psalm 119:78

Psalm 119:78 (NKJV) 78Let the proud be ashamed, For they treated me wrongfully with falsehood; But I will meditate on Your precepts.

What is our attitude when someone treats us the wrong way?  What do we spend our day or days thinking about?

It is very easy when something is said or done to us to begin to reflect upon the situation, to replay the conversation or situation over and over again.  But what does this accomplish besides getting us more upset and preventing us from accomplishing what we need to do because we cannot concentrate.   It causes us to lose sleep and productivity.

Let them be “ashamed” or “put to shame” for they treated me wrongfully with falsehood.  This is something that we can trust God to deal with; we don’t have to figure out how to get them back on our own.  We know from Proverbs that a lying tongue is one of the things that the LORD hates (Pr. 6:17).  God will judge he does not let sin go unpunished.

Further the psalmist states that he would meditate on God’s precepts.  A precept is a direction, a regulation a principle instructing to do a certain action, which is to be obeyed by all in same society of the covenant^[1]

When our mind is meditating on what we are to do in obedience to God rather than what someone else did we can more easily trust God to deal with those who sin against us in their evil.

One of the principles regarding those who treat us wrong that we are to remember comes in the book of Romans .  In chapter 12 verses 17-21

Paul challenges us with the following actions as members of the body of Christ. 

¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men.

¹⁸If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

¹⁹Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.

²⁰Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”

²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.( Romans 12:17–21)

When we choose to meditate upon how God wants us to respond to others and choose to follow His precepts we can enjoy fellowship with him.  When we fail to meditate upon His precepts and put our mind on how someone has done us wrong we may find ourselves avenging their actions with our own in thereby trying to take the place of God in avenging evil.  Our we so proud to think that we can do God’s job better than He?  We indeed may be at times, but our prayer is that we would walk in obedience as we meditate upon God’s precepts even in light of attacks by others.

Note:  The video format for this is available at www.fbclitteltonil.org/FirstWord.html 

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^[1] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament), electronic ed. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

Sparks Highlight 10-19-11

****Sparks Highlights****   Despite knowing that God was taking care of every need – the miraculous  exit from Egypt, parting the Red Sea, providing food and water in the desert, the nation of Israel still didn’t trust God and they disobeyed.  God promised them a land flowing with milk and honey in the Promised Land – where He was leading them.  In that promised land, though, lived other people that would need to be conquered by the Israelites.   They sent out 12 spies and ten out of the twelve were fearful and persuaded the people to be fearful.  Only two of the spies (Joshua and Caleb) trusted God, knowing that God would provide their victory.  Because of the people’s disobedience, God said that none of them would enter the Promised Land, but only Joshua and Caleb with the children of those that disobeyed – the rest would wander around the wilderness for forty years and die there.   When that forty years had passed, Joshua was given the command to lead them.  By obedience to God, the Israelites then were able to enter the enemies’ territories and have many victories, but when they disobeyed, God did not allow the victories.   Tonight we learned about one of the amazing victories they had by conquering the city of Jericho – the victory was not by strength or might, but by pure obedience to God.  Ask your Sparkie why we made horns tonight!  The Hebrew name Joshua means “God saves or God rescues, or God is salvation” in which Joshua is another figure in the Old Testament who is a picture of Jesus Christ and His salvation for us.  As we work our way through the Old Testament, we continue to see how God saves His people and He continues to save us today. You can read about this in the book of Joshua in the Old Testament.  

Mrs. Jennifer Schroeder, Mr. Roger Fox, Mrs. Barb Stein.

First Word #5 Psalm 104:33-34

Psalm 104:33–34 (ESV)

³³I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

³⁴May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.

Our thoughts this week have been on appropriate meditation.  These verses again bring us back to this topic.  Yet, closely associated with meditation is singing.  Do songs, hymns, and spiritual songs have a presence in your daily life?  Singing, humming, and whistling songs that I have learned through my life in church and at Christian camp and Christian school have helped me through many a day.  They help me to get my focus back on God and his abundant blessings in my life as well as His love for me. 

There are so many varieties of styles of Christian music out there that I would encourage you to listen and find multiple ones that challenge and encourage you in your walk.  Most importantly listen carefully to the words to make sure that they can be supported by Scripture.  Unfortunately, there are many songs out there with weak theology or wrong theology therefore,  we should be careful to choose those with good and strong theology.

If you say, “I don’t know where to start.”  Let me encourage you to look up Keith and Kristen Getty’s website and listen to some of their new hymns.  They are full of strong theology and great ideas to meditate upon God.

Why is this important? God wants to be pleased with our meditation and music is a very powerful medium that will help to influence and change our meditation.  Therefore, it is necessary to listen to music and memorize music that will be pleasing to God as our meditation.  This was the Psalmists’ desire, my prayer that it would be yours and mine as well.

May we have a lifelong passion for our Sovereign Creator that drives us to sing and raise our voices in praise to His name.

Paul realized the importance of this in corporate worship as well.  He commanded that we be “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our hearts to the Lord.” (Eph. 4:29)  In Colossians he further stated, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Col. 3:16)

Not only does singing songs and meditating on songs help us in our daily walk with Christ, but it helps us to prepare to be obedient to these commands that we are to fulfill toward one another.

The video form of this blog can be found at www.fbclittletonil.org/FirstWord.html