SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/16/2012 8:15:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Trusting the Lord
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 25:8-22
Message of the verses: “8 Good and upright is the LORD; Therefore He
instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches
the humble His way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are lovingkindness and truth
To those who keep His covenant and His testimonies. 11 For Your name’s sake, O
LORD, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great. 12 Who is the man who fears the
LORD? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. 13 His soul will abide
in prosperity, And his descendants will inherit the land. 14 The secret of the
LORD is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His covenant.
15 My eyes are continually toward the LORD,
For He will pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me,
For I am lonely and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged; Bring
me out of my distresses. 18 Look upon my affliction and my trouble, And forgive
all my sins. 19 Look upon my enemies, for they are many, And they hate me with
violent hatred. 20 Guard my soul and deliver me; Do not let me be ashamed, for
I take refuge in You. 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait
for You. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles.”
Our God Can Be Trusted (vv. 8-14): “8 Good
and upright is the LORD; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the humble in
justice, And He teaches
the humble His way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are lovingkindness and
truth To those who keep
His covenant and His testimonies. 11 For Your name’s sake, O LORD, Pardon my
iniquity, for it is great. 12 Who is the man who fears the LORD? He will
instruct him in the way he should choose. 13 His soul will abide in prosperity,
And his descendants will inherit the land. 14 The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him, And
He will make them know His covenant.”
David takes some
time now to meditate on the character of the Lord. This is a wonderful thing to do for by doing
it one can understand that God is a God that can be trusted, for after all
David was in trouble for that was the reason for this psalm, and David had to
know in his mind that he could trust the Lord whom he was praying to. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we too
need to realize that He can be trusted to care for us even if we go through
difficult times in life and to understand His character will give us the
confidence to continue to trust in the Lord in all circumstances of life.
In
verse nine of this psalm in the KJV the word “meek” is used while in the NASB
the word “humble” is used. The
Hebrew/English dictionary says that the word means poor, humble, meek, or lowly
and is translated as meek 13 times in the KJV version of the Bible. When one thinks of a person who is meek one
often times thinks the person is weak.
Jesus described Himself as being meek and we never think of Jesus as
being weak. The word can describe a
horse that has been broken, a soothing wind on a hot day, or a healing medicine
and none of these describes weakness.
Meekness is power under control.
When we think of Jesus being meek we know that Jesus Christ, the second
person of the Godhead had the power to speak and the universe came into
existence, and yet here He was walking on earth as a man having all of that
power under control at the will of His Father in order to humble Himself: “He
humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross.” What a wonderful Savior!
In
verse eight we see that David describes the Lord as good and upright. Goodness is one of the attributes of God and
He can only do good for that is part of His character. The verse goes on to talk about grace and
mercy for it is only by grace and mercy that the Lord can instruct sinners in
His way. What a comforting thought that
is.
In
verse nine we learn how it is that the Lord can teach and lead a person and the
means of this is to be humble before the Lord and then He will teach and lead
you.
“God
can bet trusted to guide those who obey His Word (v.10), for a willingness to
obey is the first step toward spiritual understanding: “"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word
is truth’” (John 17:17).
In
verse eleven we see the need for repentance of our sins for this will bring
about forgiveness. David realizes that
his sins are many and so the need for repentance is also great.
We
see in verse twelve that the Lord will instruct those who fear Him. Again we are not talking about fear as being
dread, but fear is that of a child being fearful of a parent and wanting to
please the parent because of the love the child has for them. “I will instruct
you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My
eye upon you.” (Psalm 32:8)
In
verse fourteen we see how important it is to obey the Lord and to trust Him and
we have already seen the need to fear Him.
The result will be good for your family, they will benefit this as they
see how you love and trust the Lord they too will begin to do this. I read a story of one of the early Puritans
who lived back in the 1700’s and they followed their family down through the
years and it was reported that there were many doctors and Pastors and even
senators. The story tracked another
family who did not fear the Lord and it told of the millions of dollars that
were spent on that family to house many of the offspring in the jails and
prisons.
Verse
fourteen in the NLT reads as follows: “The LORD is a friend to those who fear
him. He teaches them his covenant.” In the NASB we see the word secret and this
word means “intimate conversation, plans and purposes.” John 15:15 reads as follows "No longer
do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but
I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I
have made known to you.” The last part
of verse fourteen in Psalm 25 goes along with the last part of John 15:15 in
that Jesus speaks of telling His disciples (friends) what the Father has made
known to Him and that would be what was written in the NT written by them. The end of verse fourteen reads as follows
“And He will make them know His covenant.”
Trusting God Brings Us Victory (vv. 15-22):
We see in this
section that the psalm again turns into another direction, the direction it was
at the beginning and that is of prayer.
David speaks of the dangerous enemies that he is facing, the distressing
emotions that were within him because of these outside troubles, so his
troubles were within and without. Dr
Wiersbe writes: “But he wouldn’t mention them to the Lord if he didn’t believe the Lord
could help him!” What were the
enemies that God helped him to conquer?”
Danger (v. 15): “15 My eyes are continually toward the LORD,
For He will pluck my feet out of the net.”
David knew that his enemies were trying to
set traps for him but trusted that the Lord would see him through these
obstacles.
Loneliness (v.16): “16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I
am lonely and afflicted.” David was a
leader and there were times in his life when he had to make decisions as a
leader that could cause him to become lonely.
Being a leader can cause you to make decisions that are in the will of
God, but will cause alienation between you and your family or you and your
friends.
A broken heart (v.17): “17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
Bring me out of my distresses.” David
could have sat down and felt sorry for himself, but instead he turned to the
Lord with his troubles asking that God bring him out of his distresses. His troubles were enlarged and so he needed a
big God. This was a critical point in
his life and it can be in ours when troubles come, for we can turn to God or
turn away from God.
Regrets (v. 18): “18 Look upon my
affliction and my trouble, And forgive all my sins.” We have already talked about the sin that
David knew about and yet here he mentions it again which seems to show his
regret. We have all sinned and have had
regrets because of the sin and at times Satan will accuse us of those sins,
bring them up, but if we have confessed them to the Lord His Word says, “As far
as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us
(Ps. 103:12)” I for one am glad that it is as far as the east is from the west
and not as far as the north is from the south.
That is only 12,500 miles, but it is endless from east to the west.
Fear (vv.19-20): “19 Look upon my
enemies, for they are many, And they hate me with violent hatred. 20 Guard my
soul and deliver me; Do not let me be ashamed, for I take refuge in You.” It is not clear what situation David was in
but there was fear in his heart and not only fear for his life, but fear that
he would bring disgrace on the name of the Lord. This was greatly troubling to him.
Despair (vv. 21-22): 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,
For I wait for You. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles.” To wait on the Lord means to have hope in the
Lord and one thing David did not want to lose was his hope in the Lord, for
that would mean to surrender the future to the enemy, and that only destroys
the meaning of the present. We can see
that in verse twenty-two “We are never alone in our trials, for as members of
God’s believing community, we have encouragement for one another. Our brothers and sisters around the world are
also suffering trials (1Peter 5:9), so we are not alone.”
“David survived
his trials and was able to write Psalm 26:12—‘My feet stand on level ground; in
the great assembly I will praise the Lord’ (NIV). May we follow his example.” (Warren Wiersbe)
Spiritual meaning for my life today: This psalm has spoken to my heart because of
what I am going through at this time of my life and so it has caused my faith
in the Lord to increase because of what I have seen in the life of David in
this psalm, and how with the help of the Lord has overcome the difficulties he
went through.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Trust
the Lord in times of trouble knowing that He will help.
2. Continue
to have a fear of the Lord. For when I
fear the Lord I need not fear anything else.
3. Continue
to learn contentment through the circumstances of life.
1/16/2012 10:03:27 AM
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