SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/12/2012 8:48:31 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Talking about the character and
Glory of God
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
86:8-17
Message
of the verses: We learned in the
last SD that Psalm 86 is a psalm of David, and it is the only psalm of David
that is found in the third book of Psalms, which runs from 73-91. We also read in the last part of the
introduction by Warren Wiersbe these words “David found three encouragements in
the Lord, and so may we today.” We will
look at the last two encouragements that David found in the Lord in today’s SD.
God’s
Character Is Unchanging (vv. 8-13): “8
There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord, Nor are there any works like
Yours. 9 All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O
Lord, And they shall glorify Your name. 10 For You are great and do wondrous
deeds; You alone are God. 11 Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk in Your
truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name. 12 I will give thanks to You, O Lord
my God, with all my heart, And will glorify Your name forever. 13 For Your
lovingkindness toward me is great, And You have delivered my soul from the
depths of Sheol.”
To begin with let us look at
Exodus 15:11 “"Who is like You among the gods, O LORD? Who is like You,
majestic in holiness, Awesome in praises, working wonders?” Of course we know that the answer to this
question is that there is no one like the Lord God who made the heavens and the
earth.
In verse 9 David is looking forward
to the Messianic kingdom when all of the nations would praise the Lord. God made the nations and assigns their
boundaries and determines their destinies and we can see that from Acts
17:22-28 “22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of
Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. 23 “For while I
was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an
altar with this inscription, ’TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in
ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 "The God who made the world and all
things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples
made with hands; 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed
anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26 and He made from one man
every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined
their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that
they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though
He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as
even some of your own poets have said, ’For we also are His children.’”
Isaiah 2:1-4 teaches us this
too: “1 The word which Isaiah the son of
Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. 2 Now it will come about that In the
last days The mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the
chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations
will stream to it. 3 And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go
up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may
teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths." For the
law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. 4 And He
will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And
they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning
hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they
learn war.” Isaiah also speaks of the
nations coming to the Lord in the Messianic kingdom in Isa. 9:6-7; 11:1-16.
Verse tens speaks of the greatness
of God who performs wondrous deeds, for God never changes and what He does is
always good.
Now we see in verses 11-13 that
David now focuses in on his walk with the Lord.
We know that in the ten years that David lived in the wilderness hiding
from Saul that he learned much about God and how faithful the Lord was to him,
for God said that he would be king, and therefore David believed Him and
trusted the Lord as he hid from Saul. It
was because of these wilderness wanderings that David now believed that the
Lord would protect him from the evil situation that he now found himself
in. David writes that he will praise the
Lord and walk with Him to please Him, knowing that God would deliver him from
this situation that he finds himself in.
We see at the end of verse 11 these words “Unite my heart to fear Your
name.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “unite my
heart’ means ‘I want to have an undivided heart, wholly fixed on the
Lord.’ A perfect heart is a sincere
heart that loves God alone and is true to Him (James 1:8; 4:8; Deut. 6:4-5;
10:12). He promised to praise God forever for delivering him from the grave
(Sheol), a hint here of future resurrection. (See 49:15 and 73:23-24.)
God’s
Glory Shall Prevail (vv. 14-17): “14
O God, arrogant men have risen up against me, And a band of violent men have
sought my life, And they
have not set You before them. 15 But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, Slow to
anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth. 16 Turn to me, and be
gracious to me; Oh grant Your strength to Your servant, And save the son of Your
handmaid. 17 Show me a sign for good, That those who hate me may see it and be
ashamed, Because You, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.” (NASB)
“14 O God, insolent people rise up against me; a violent gang is trying
to kill me. You mean nothing to them. 15 But you, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to
get angry and filled with unfailing love
and faithfulness. 16 Look down and have mercy on me. Give your strength to your servant; save me,
the son of your servant. 17 Send me a sign of your favor. Then those who hate me will be put to shame,
for you, O LORD, help and comfort me.”
(NLT)
We said in yesterday’s SD that
David had taken some of the verses for this psalm from other psalms that he had
written and from other places in the OT.
We must remember that the Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible as He
moved in the hearts of the men who wrote the Scriptures, but making sure that
it was what He wanted them to write even though their personalities were used
in the writing of the Scriptures. “2Pe 1:21
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit
spoke from God.” In verse 15 we see that David based it on Ex. 34:6 and
following. Exodus 34 is a chapter that
finds Moses up on the Mountain of God talking to the Lord and then asking Him
to show Himself to Moses. It is one of
the great chapters in all of Scripture and in that Chapter we see Moses
praising the Lord telling Him that He is a God who is merciful and gracious and
is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness and truth. You see Moses was interceding for the
children of Israel who had just made an idol to worship in their camp and God
was very upset with their sin and wanted to destroy all of them, but Moses
intercedes for them in this chapter.
In verse 14 we see that the men who
were trying to harm David were arrogant, men who did not know the Lord, nor
knew the power of the Lord.
David writes in verse sixteen that
he wants God to save him, and calls himself “the son of Your handmaid.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “Children born to servants
were considered especially faithful since they were brought up in the master’s
household (Gen. 14:14). Since David was
the Lord’s faithful servant, it was his Master’s duty to protect and deliver
him. But David wanted that deliverance
to bring glory to the Lord and to demonstrate to the nations that Jehovah alone
was God. It wasn’t just warfare; it was
witness, a ‘sign’ of the goodness of the Lord to David. It was his way of praying ‘Hallowed be Thy
name’ (Matt. 6:9). When our requests are
in God’s will and glorify His name, we can be sure He will answer.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: While
driving in my car yesterday I was praying to the Lord about my prayer requests
and saying that I want my prayer requests to be in the will of the Lord. We sometimes tack on “In Jesus’ Name, Amen,”
to the end of our prayers and we believe that by doing that He is obligated to
answer our prayers. While studying some
verses in the 15th chapter of John’s Gospel last year I learned that
Jesus said to His disciples that if they asked anything in Jesus’ name they
would receive an answer to their prayers.
What Jesus is talking about here is that our prayer requests must be as
if Jesus wanted them to be answered.
Jesus told His disciples that it was better for Him to leave them and go
back to heaven for if He did this then greater miracles would be done, and that
means greater in number, for when a person accepts the Lord Jesus as their Lord
and Savior then Jesus works in their hearts to do the things that He wants
done, and since there are many believers on earth at this time then there
should be much done for the kingdom of God as we do things that the Holy Spirit
of God leads us to do and when He leads us to do something we pray and ask the
Lord to accomplish them in our lives and then our prayers will be
answered. I’m glad that I had this talk
with my Lord yesterday in the car.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Pray
in Jesus’ name for the glory of Jesus.
Trust the Lord to continue to teach me contentment in my life.
5/12/2012
9:54:22 AM
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