SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/22/2012 8:24:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Trusting the Lord
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 31
Message of the verses: “1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David:
In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; Let me never be ashamed; In Your
righteousness deliver me. 2 Incline Your ear to me, rescue me quickly; Be to me
a rock of strength, A stronghold to save me. 3 For You are my rock and my
fortress; For Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me. 4 You will pull
me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my
strength. 5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have ransomed me, O LORD,
God of truth. 6 I hate those who regard vain idols, But I trust in the LORD. 7
I will rejoice and be glad in Your lovingkindness, Because You have seen my
affliction; You have known the troubles of my soul, 8 And You have not given me
over into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a large place.
“9 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for
I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also.
10 For my life is spent with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength has
failed because of my iniquity, And my body has wasted away. 11 Because of all
my adversaries, I have become a reproach, Especially to my neighbors, And an
object of dread to my acquaintances; Those who see me in the street flee from
me. 12 I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. 13
For I have heard the slander of many, Terror is on every side; While they took
counsel together against me, They schemed to take away my life. 14 But as for
me, I trust in You, O LORD, I say, "You are my God." 15 My times are
in Your hand; Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who
persecute me. 16 Make Your face to shine upon Your servant; Save me in Your
lovingkindness. 17 Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I call upon You; Let
the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol. 18 Let the lying lips
be mute, Which speak arrogantly against the righteous With pride and contempt.
“19 How great is Your goodness, Which You
have stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who
take refuge in You, Before the sons of men! 20 You hide them in the secret
place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in
a shelter from the strife of tongues. 21 Blessed be the LORD, For He has made
marvelous His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city. 22 As for me, I said in
my alarm, "I am cut off from before Your eyes"; Nevertheless You
heard the voice of my supplications When I cried to You. 23 O love the LORD,
all you His godly ones! The LORD preserves the faithful And fully recompenses
the proud doer. 24 Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope
in the LORD.”
In
Dr. Wiersbe introduction to this psalm he states that he believes that the
background for Psalm 31 is when Absalom was taking over the government and then
making an attempt to kill his father. He
states that verse twenty-one could be stated in a metaphorically way making the
besieged city a picture of what David was going through, and verse twenty could
also be metaphorically speaking of hiding David in the Holy of Holies. I believe that it helps to understand the
Psalms when we can understand the situation in which they originated out of.
In
verse thirteen we read “While they took counsel together against me,” and this
could be speaking of Ahithophel who was one of David’s wisest counselors who
went over to Absalom to give advice to him.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes at the end of his introduction:
“Out of this harrowing experience David learned some valuable lessons
and recorded them in this psalm. They
can be summarized in three statements.”
When Others Do Evil, Trust God for His
Strength (vv. 1-8): “1 For the choir
director. A Psalm of David: In You, O LORD, I have taken refuge; Let me never
be ashamed; In Your righteousness deliver me. 2 Incline Your ear to me, rescue
me quickly; Be to me a rock of strength, A stronghold to save me. 3 For You are
my rock and my fortress; For
Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me. 4 You will pull me out
of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength. 5 Into Your hand I commit my spirit;
You have ransomed me, O LORD, God of truth. 6 I hate those who regard vain idols,
But I trust in the LORD. 7 I will rejoice and be glad in Your lovingkindness,
Because You have seen my affliction; You have known the troubles of my soul, 8 And
You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in
a large place.”
We can see in
Psalm 71:1-3 the same verses as that are in Psalm 31. Psalm 71 is an unidentified psalm that is
attributed to David.
We
see in this psalm that David is in trouble again as he has been in some of the
earlier psalms we have looked at. I keep
going back to the statement that God made of David when He had him anointed as
king over Israel and that is that David is a man after God’s own heart and I
believe that it can be seen clearly in the psalms, like Psalm 31 where David is
showing his great trust in the Lord to get him out of troubles and then as God
delivers him out of these troubles he is in David’s faith is increased. We can read between the lines in this psalm
that it is because that David is God’s anointed king over Israel that God will
get him out of trouble. We see in verse
three that David also says to God that it is because of Your name’s sake You
will lead me and guide me. I believe
that these are the kind of prayers that God loves to hear from His children
because the one that prays this is one who knows the Lord in an intimate way
and realizes that if God answers their prayers that it will bring glory to the
Lord. Many times we end our prayers with
the words “in Jesus’ name Amen.” Jesus
spoke of asking for things in His name in John 15 when He was speaking of the Vine
and the branches. David did not tack on
the statement in Jesus’ name or in Jehovah’s name, but his prayer was showing
that what he was praying for was actually in the name and will of God and that
is what Jesus was talking about in John 15.
We
see in verse five the words “Into Your hand I commit my spirit” and these words
are quoted by the Lord Jesus Christ from the cross right before He died, and He
is the greater David. What the lesser
David is talking about here is that his trust was committed to the Lord, like a
person puts their money in a bank trusting that he will get it back when he
wants it, it’s a matter of trust and that is what we see here from David.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes in his commentary on this section these words: “Along with God’s protection, David needed
God’s direction so he would avoid the traps the enemy had set for him. ‘You are
my strength’ was his affirmation of faith (v-4), for his own strength had
failed (v-10).”
When Others Cause Pain, Ask God for His
Mercy (vv. 9-18): “9 Be gracious to
me, O LORD, for I am in distress; My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and
my body also. 10 For my life is spent
with sorrow And my years with sighing; My strength has failed because of my
iniquity, And my body has wasted away. 11 Because of all my adversaries, I have
become a reproach, Especially to my neighbors, And an object of dread to my
acquaintances; Those who see me in the street flee from me. 12 I am forgotten
as a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. 13 For I have heard the
slander of many, Terror is on every side; While they took counsel together
against me, They schemed to take away my life. 14 But as for me, I trust in
You, O LORD, I say, "You are my God." 15 My times are in Your hand;
Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me. 16 Make
Your face to shine upon Your servant; Save me in Your lovingkindness. 17 Let me not be put to shame, O LORD, for I
call upon You; Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol. 18
Let the lying lips be mute, Which speak arrogantly against the righteous With
pride and contempt.”
We
see the word “lovingkindness” in verse sixteen, while it is translated as
“mercies” in the KJV and mercy is what David needed. David may have found sin in his life as he
searched his soul and perhaps that was another reason that he was down, but the
main reasons were what others were doing to him. If this psalm depicts the events of Absalom’s
take over then the emotions we see here are similar to the ones seen in the
account in 2Samuel that David showed. We
know that David was a very emotional man and there is nothing wrong with
that. We see a lot of David’s emotions
showing through in this psalm in the statements that he makes in this section
as his enemies were speaking lies about him and the trouble was that people
believed them. That reminds me of the
political situation that has been going on in our country for the last few
years as when good people are running for office the bad people will make up
lies about them, put them in the press, either on TV or other media forms and
try and destroy them and the trouble is that people believe these lies without
even bothering to find out if they are true.
David was going through the same thing here and it was hurting him in
physical and emotional ways and it did not need to happen.
When Others See the Victory, Give God the
Glory (vv. 19-24): “19 How great is Your goodness, Which You have
stored up for those who fear You, Which You have wrought for those who take
refuge in You, Before the sons of men! 20 You hide them in the secret place of
Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secretly in a shelter
from the strife of tongues. 21 Blessed be the LORD, For He has made marvelous
His lovingkindness to me in a besieged city. 22 As for me, I said in my alarm,
"I am cut off from before Your eyes"; Nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications When
I cried to You. 23 O love the LORD, all you His godly ones! The LORD preserves the faithful
And fully recompenses the proud doer. 24 Be strong and let your heart take courage, All you who hope
in the LORD.”
Dr. Wiersbe has
some encouraging words that he wrote from his commentary on this section. I have stated before of my love for Dr.
Wiersbe’s commentary and that is why I read from it each day that I do these
Spiritual Diaries. He puts the cookies
on the shelf where you can reach them and I like cookies.
“God’s
goodness and marvelous lovingkindness were all David needed to weather the
storm and survive to lead his people.”
“It
wasn’t the enemy that frightened him but the thought of being abandoned by the
God he trusted and served. He did what
all of us must do when we sense that God is no longer near: he cried out to the
Lord for His mercy, and the Lord answered.”
“The
courage and strength we need in the trials of life are available from the Lord
if we will put our faith in Him. Let’s
be sure that we give Him the glory.”
That is what David did.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I want to trust the Lord to see me
through all of the circumstances that I face as I believe He will lead me
through them in order to teach me what I need to learn that I may draw closer
to Him and then give glory and praise to Him for His leading.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Trust
the Lord to lead me and remember to praise Him for leading me.
2. Continue
to learn contentment.
1/22/2012 9:37:18 AM
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