SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
3/30/2012 9:22:59 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
66:8-20
Message
of the verses: Dr. Warren Wiersbe
writes this at the end of his introduction on Psalm 66: “The exhortation to praise the Lord begins
with the Gentile nations (vv. 1-7), moves to Israel (vv. 8-12), and concludes
with the individual believers (vv. 13-20).”
A
National Proclamation: “Israel, Praise
the Lord!” (vv. 8-12): “8 Bless our God, O peoples, And sound
His praise abroad, 9 Who keeps us in life And
does not allow our feet to slip. 10 For You have tried us, O God; You have
refined us as silver is refined. 11 You brought us into the net; You laid an
oppressive burden upon our loins. 12 You made men ride over our heads; We went
through fire and through water, Yet You brought us out into a place of
abundance.”
“8 Let the whole world bless our God
and loudly sing his praises. 9 Our lives are in his hands, and He keeps our
feet from stumbling. 10 You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like
silver. 11 You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our
backs. 12 Then you put a leader over us.
We went through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great
abundance.” (NLT)
The psalmist wants all Israel to
praise the name of the Lord, and if there is any nation that should praise the
Lord it is Israel. All one has to do is
look back into history to see how the Lord brought about the nation of Israel,
as it began with a 100 year old man and his 90 year old wife who gives birth to
a promised child and from there we see this family expand into a nation as when
God sent them into Egypt there were 70 in this miracle family and 400 years
later there were more than a million people in this family when God brought
them out of their slavery and eventually into the Promised Land. God gave them His law, His sanctuary, and His
priests and prophets, and would bless them with all they needed. God had to discipline them many times for
their unfaithfulness, but this was done out of love for them as He moved them
to the point where eventually the Messiah would be born to one of them, the
Messiah who would pay for the sins of the world. The apostle Paul writes that Israel has been
set aside at this point, but one day God will again be dealing with Israel
bringing His Kingdom to earth headed up by Jesus Christ who will set on David’s
throne in Jerusalem and rule the world from there for 1000 years. Yes Israel has much to praise the Lord for,
but so does His Church.
A
Personal Affirmation “Praise God with Me!” (vv. 13-20): “13 I shall come into Your house with
burnt offerings; I shall pay You my vows, 14 Which my lips uttered And my mouth
spoke when I was in distress. 15 I shall offer to You burnt offerings of fat
beasts, With the smoke of rams; I shall make an offering of bulls with male
goats. Selah. 16 Come and hear, all who fear God, And I will tell of what He
has done for my soul. 17 I cried to Him with my mouth, And He was extolled with
my tongue. 18 If I regard
wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear; 19 But certainly God has
heard; He has given heed to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, Who has
not turned away my prayer Nor His lovingkindness from me.”
“13 Now I come to your Temple
with burnt offerings to fulfill the vows
I made to you- 14 yes, the sacred vows that I made when I was in deep trouble. 15 That is why I
am sacrificing burnt offerings to you- the best of my rams as a pleasing aroma,
and a sacrifice of bulls and male goats.
Interlude 16 Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you
what he did for me. 17 For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I
spoke. 18 If I had not
confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. 19 But
God did listen! He paid attention to my
prayer. 20 Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing
love from me.” (NLT)
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The change from
‘we/our’ to ‘I/my’ is significant, for corporate worship is the ministry of
many individuals, and God sees each heart.
During his times of trial, the psalmist had made vows to God, and now he
hastened to fulfill them. He brought
many burnt offerings to the altar, the very best he had, and they symbolized
his total dedication to the Lord. We
today obey as Romans 12:1-2 says as we present ourselves as living sacrifices.” “1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the
mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be you
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
AKJV (Romans 12:1-2) These are two of my favorite verses in all of
the Word of God and all believers are to come to the point in their lives, like
the psalmist of Psalm 66, to present themselves to the Lord because of all that
He has done for them. The first eleven
chapters of the book of Romans talks about all that the Lord has done for His
own, and now it is time for them to lay themselves on the altar as a living
sacrifice to accomplish what it is that the Lord wants them to accomplish for
the cause of Christ. I believe that
according to Ephesians 2:10 that these things were chosen by God for each
believer to accomplish while they are alive on planet earth. The psalmist speaks in this section about
having a clean heart or God will not hear him and Psalm 139:23-24 instructs us
to ask the Holy Spirit of God to search our hearts for unconfessed sin so that
we can confess that sin to the Lord so that He will hear us.
The psalmist had something wonderful
happen to him and now he is sharing it with all we as believers in Jesus Christ
are to share the wonderful thing that God has done for us and the first thing
on that list ought to be how He saved us.
Peter writes “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a
defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in
you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”
Warren Wiersbe writes more about
verse 18: “The verb ‘regard’ (v. 18)
means ‘to recognize and to cherish, to be unwilling to confess and forsake know
sins.’ It means approving that which God
condemns. When we recognize sin in our
hearts, we must immediately judge it, confess it, and forsake it (1John
1:5-10); otherwise, the Lord can’t work on our behalf (Isa. 59:1-2). To cover sin is to invite trouble and
discipline (Proverbs 28:13; Josh 7).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: An old
Scottish Preacher said “The Christian life is a series of new beginnings.” I agree with that for even though I have been
born from above into the family of God and received a new nature that always
wants to obey the Lord in everything there are also three enemies that I face
each day, the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Thus at times I fail the Lord and am in need of 1John 1:9. I am also in need of Psalm 139:23-24. There came a time in my early walk with the
Lord that I offered myself as a living sacrifice to the Lord, to live for the
Lord and He has not failed me, nor will He.
The issue is that I fail Him from time to time and I need to confess my
sin in order to be able to have sweet fellowship with the God who save me.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Romans 12:1-2; Psalm 139:23-24; Proverbs 3:5-6; Phil. 4:11b & Psalm
66:18.
3/30/2012
10:13:49 AM
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