PT-1 "Three Unwavering Assurances" (Ps. 25:1-7)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/15/2012 11:29:44 AM

 

My Worship Time                                          Focus: PT-1 “Three unwavering Assurances”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Psalm 25

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 A Psalm of David: To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in You I trust, Do not let me be ashamed; Do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed; Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed. 4 Make me know Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. 5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. 6 Remember, O LORD, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses, For they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your lovingkindness remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.

    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.

 

            Psychologist M. Scott Peck writes:  “Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult.”  This statement is recorded from a book written in 1978 entitled, “The Road Less Traveled.”  The statement that life is difficult is true as far as I am concerned, and yet as the title of a song that I have heard sung there is “Joy in the Journey.”  I believe that the song is by Michael Card who too I am sure realizes that life is difficult.

           

            We see in this psalm that David realized that life is difficult, but David “succeeded in the journey because he held to three unwavering assurances.”  Those three unwavering assurances will be the outline that we will follow and as always they are provided by Dr. Warren Wiersbe.

           

            The word way which is highlighted in yellow is used four times in this psalm.  The word path or paths is used two times highlighted in red.  In verses four and five David is crying out for wisdom.  We see he is surrounded by enemies as highlighted in light blue.  David realizes that he is a sinner as highlighted in dark blue.  These highlighted words are things seen in this psalm that help to describe what this psalm is about and we can see that even though this psalm was written by David who was facing difficulties we can put ourselves in his place when we are going through similar things and then we can gleam truths from this psalm that will help us through those difficult times.  The apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters to the church at Corinth that one of the reasons that they were going through troubles was to receive help from the Lord in order to help others who were going through similar difficulties.  David is helping those who read and apply this psalm to get through their troubles.  It is the second letter to the Corinthians that this is found.

 

            The Help We Need Comes from God (vv. 1-7):  “1 A Psalm of David: To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in You I trust, Do not let me be ashamed; Do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Indeed, none of those who wait for You will be ashamed; Those who deal treacherously without cause will be ashamed. 4 Make me know Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. 5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. 6 Remember, O LORD, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses, For they have been from of old. 7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; According to Your lovingkindness remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.”

           

            The word that is translated “soul” is used close to 800 times in the OT and 475 are translated as soul in the AV with 117 as life.  It can mean seat of emotions or seat of appetite or living being (with life and blood).  There are other meanings to the word but we see that David is lifting his “soul” to the Lord and the word Lord is Jehovah.  We see others in the OT and NT that lift their souls up to an idol, but David was lifting his soul to the Lord.  David knew that the Lord was the only true source of encouragement.  I have heard that the word encouragement means that someone is pouring courage into another so David was asking the Lord to pour courage into him in order to get through this difficult situation.  “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God (1Samuel 30:6 KJV).”  I don’t know if this was the time that David was using to write this psalm, but I do know that that story in this portion of Scripture was a very difficult time for David.

           

            David’s desire was to trust the Lord and David did not want to be ashamed for David wanted to bring glory to the Lord.  David was asking the Lord for wisdom, for God’s guidance but he was also asking for insight to understand the Word, for only then could he understand God’s ways and understanding his own path.  David asks in verse four to know God’s ways and for God to teach him His paths.  David wanted to be led in God’s truth and to be taught by God, for David realized that God was the one who would give him salvation.  Salvation here could mean deliverance from the trouble that David was in. 

           

            In verse seven David reminds God of His compassion and His lovingkindnesses.  One may wonder why David had to remind God of these two qualities that God possesses, but I believe that this is what the Lord wants us to do when we pray for this shows that we know about such things that God possesses.  Daniel prayed to the Lord about things that God had promised in His Word to do, but Daniel prayed sincerely about them in Daniel chapter nine.  Moses also reminded God of things that He possessed.

            I believe that when we study the psalms that David has written that we can understand why the Lord said that David was a man after God’s own heart.  We know that in the heart of God is compassion and lovingkindness and David was seeking this from the Lord in this psalm.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I can see from this psalm some of the difficulties that are troubling me and it is good to understand how David reacted to difficulties he faced so that I can follow the things that he writes about.  I suppose that David is my favorite person in the OT and Paul is my favorite in the NT.  My son’s name is David Paul McKenzie and that is why he was named that.

 

 

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:

 

1.      Trust the Lord.

2.      Seek wisdom from the Lord.

3.      Confess my sins to the Lord.

4.      Remember God’s compassion and lovingkindness.

5.      Continue to learn contentment.

 

1/15/2012 12:59:10 PM