SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/1/2012
11:40:34 AM
My
Worship Time Focus: Restore Me
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 51:8-12
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
look at the next section of Psalm 51 as David moves from confessing his sins
and being cleansed to asking God to restore him so that his life would again be
useful to the Lord.
“Restore Me” (vv. 8-12): “8 Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the
bones which You have broken rejoice. 9 Hide Your face from my sins And blot out
all my iniquities. 10 Create
in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11
Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
And sustain me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors Your
ways, And sinners will be converted to You.’”
I would like to begin by sharing a
portion from the John MacArthur Study Bible that has to do with a section in
verse eleven of Psalm 51 where David makes a request of the Lord that He would
not “take You Holy Spirit from me.” The
study of the Holy Spirit is an interesting and profitable study to undertake
for there is a difference in His activities from the creation of the world to
His activities in the Old Testament times to His activities in the New
Testament times. I have heard that the
book of Acts, which is the Acts of the Apostles could be called the acts of the
Holy Spirit. His work in OT Israel is
different and that will be briefly in this quotation.
ANOTING OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
“Old
Testament Israel had mediators who stood between God and His people. To empower the OT mediators, the Holy Spirit
gave special administrative ability to carry out the management of the nation
and military skills which enabled them to defeat the theocracy’s enemies. The Lord first anointed Moses with this
ministry of the Spirit, and then in a truly dramatic scene, took some of this
ministry of the Spirit and shared it with 70 elders. Thus they were enabled to help Moses
administer Israel (Nu. 17:25)
“Also
Joshua (Dt. 34:9), the judges (Jdg. 3:10; 6:34), and the kings of united Israel
and the southern kingdom were anointed with this special ministry of the
Spirit. When the Spirit of the Lord came upon King Saul, for example, he was in
effect given ‘another heart’ (1Sam. 10:6-10).
This does not mean that he was regenerated at this point in his life,
but that he was given skills to be a king.
Later the theocratic anointing was taken from Saul and given to David
(1Sam. 16:1-14). Saul, from that time
on, became a totally incapable leader.
“King
David no doubt had this special ministry of the Spirit in mind in his prayer of
repentance in Psalm 51. He was not
afraid of losing his salvation when he prayed, ‘do not take Your Holy Spirit
from Me’ (Psalm 51:11), but rather was concerned that God would remove this
spiritual wisdom and administrative skill from him. David had earlier seen such a tragedy in the
life of Saul when that king of Israel lost the anointing of the Holy
Spirit. David was thus pleading with God
not to remove His hand of guidance.
“King
Solomon also perceived his youthful inabilities at the beginning of his reign
and requested God to give him special wisdom in administering Israel. God was greatly pleased with this request and
granted an extra measure to the young man (1Ki. 3:7-12, 28; 4:29-24). Although the OT is silent in this regard about
the kings who succeeded Solomon, the theocratic anointing of the Spirit likely
came on all the descendants of David in connection with the Davidic Covenant.
“When the
theocracy went out of existence as Judah was carried away into captivity, and
the last Davidic king was disempowered, the theocratic anointing was no longer
given (Eze. 8-11). The kings of the northern tribes, on the other hand, being
essentially apostate and not in the Davidic line, never had the benefit of this
special ministry of the Spirit.”
(Copyright by 1997 Thomas Nelson, Inc)
We can see
from the verses above that David’s sin affected his whole person. The term “Joy and gladness” according to Dr.
Wiersbe is a Hebrew phrase that means “deep joy,” and so David is asking the
Lord to create a new heart within him that will give him a steadfast spirit
that will not vacillate. It seems to me
that many believers would want this same thing too; I know that I would for it
seems to me that there are far too many times when my spirit vacillates. Dr. Wiersbe writes that verse ten is “the central
verse of the psalm and it expresses the heart of David’s concern. David knew that the inner person—the
heart—was the source of his trouble as well as the seat of his joy and
blessing, and he was incapable of changing his own heart. Only God could work the miracle (Jer. 24:7;
Ezek. 11:19; 36:25-27).” Jeremiah 24: 7
“’I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and
I will be their God, for they
will return to Me with their whole heart.”
I want to
pick up a bit on the subject of the Holy Spirit and talk about how the Holy
Spirit works in the lives of believers in the NT. Let’s first look at John 14:15-18, “15 “If
you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 “I will ask the Father, and He
will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or
know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.18 “I
will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Now let us look at Ephesians 3:30-32 to show
us that the believer today can lose the Spirit’s effective ministry by grieving
Him, “30 Do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, by
whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness
and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all
malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just
as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”
In Acts 5:1-3 we see that we grieve Him by lying to Him, “1 But a man
named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2 and kept back some of the price for himself,
with his wife’s full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the
apostles’ feet. 3 But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart
to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land?” We can also quench the Holy Spirit by
deliberate disobedience as seen in 1Thes. 5:19 “Do not quench the Spirit.” According to Ephesians 1:13-14 we receive the
Holy Spirit when we are born from above or “saved” and then He will be with us
until we go to heaven, “Eph 1:13 In Him,
you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your
salvation-having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of
promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance,
with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His
glory.” The Holy Spirit is our “down
payment.”
David uses
the term “willing spirit” in verse 10 and this is speaking of his own spirit
and it is one that is not in bondage but is free and yielded to the Holy Spirit
of God. We will see in Romans 8:14-17
that the Holy Spirit ministers to us through our spirit. “14 For all who are
being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery
leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by
which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are
children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow
heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be
glorified with Him.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: We can see that David got down to business in
his prayer that is found in Psalm 51, and he did this because he knew and loved
the Lord and did not want to disappoint Him.
I like the portion of Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary where he spoke of where
David asked God for a steadfast spirit, one that did not vacillate.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
1.
Lord I ask You for a steadfast spirit that will only want
to serve you.
2.
Lord I pray that You will continue to use my circumstances
to teach me contentment.
3/1/2012 1:53:50 PM
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