SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 1/27/2012 9:34:10 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: Part Two Psalm 34
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Psalm 34:9-22
Message
of the verses: As I begin this
second part of Psalm 34 I began to wonder exactly what it means to “bless the Lord” which is found in the
first verse of this psalm. This is
something that I have struggled with the understanding of for a long time and
when I looked up the word in the Hebrew/English dictionary I was even more confused
by it because the Hebrew word “barak” is actually translated as curse five
times in the KJV of the Bible. I began
to look to the internet for some answers and came across an article that was
written in 1978 by John Piper that helped me to understand what “bless the Lord” is all about. I am going to put this article on this SD and
hopefully it will be a help to others who have struggled with this.
“What Does It
Mean to Bless God?
November
1, 1978| by John
Piper| Topic:
Prayer
My thesis is
that in the Scripture when God "blesses" men they are thereby helped
and strengthened and made better off than they were before, but when men
"bless" God he is not helped or strengthened or made better off.
Rather (with C. A. Keller in THAT, I, 361) man's blessing God is an
"expression of praising Thankfulness" (ein lobendes Danksagen),
when the OT speaks of
blessing God it does not "designate a process that aims at the increase
of God's strength" (THAT, I, 361). It is an "exclamation of gratitude
and admiration" (THAT, I, 357).
This is not
at all a strange semantic phenomenon. If God is the primal and inexhaustible
"blesser," then he must be above all others in a "blessed"
state—the fullness and source of all "blessing." If this is so, then
a most natural burst of praise would be "You are blessed!" That this
recognition and joyful exclamation of God's blessedness should then be
described as "blessing God" is not unusual. Other analogies, though
not exact, would be our expressions like: "I magnify the Lord" or
"Let us exalt his name." Both of these expressions properly recognize
and give joyful expression to God's magnificence and his exalted status. They
do not mean that we make God larger or higher. So to bless God means to recognize his great richness,
strength, and gracious bounty and to express our gratitude and delight in
seeing and experiencing it.
Here are some texts that have led me to these
conclusions:
Deuteronomy
8:10 And you shall eat and be full, and
you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
Here
"bless" is virtually identical to "thank" or
"gratefully recognize as the giver of blessing."
Psalm 100:4 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his
courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!”
Psalm 145:10 “All
your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless
you!”
Psalm 103:2 “Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,”
Psalm 96:2-3
“Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell
of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his
marvelous works among all the peoples!”
Here bless probably means: joyfully announce all these
good things about God.
Psalm 104:1 “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God,
you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty,”
This psalm begins and ends with "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" This probably means that the
psalm is meant as the blessing. Therefore blessing God means heartily saying
things like "God, you are very great!"
2 Chronicles 29:10 “Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly.
And David said: "Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father,
forever and ever.’”
This is a clear example of what one does when one blesses
the Lord: he calls him blessed! The same thing is seen in comparing Gen. 24:27
and 48.
Psalm 34:1 “I
will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.”
Psalm
145:1-2, 21 “1 A Psalm of Praise, of David. I will
extol You, my God, O King, And I will bless Your name forever and ever. 2 Every
day I will bless You, And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Psalm 113:1-2 “Praise
the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord! Blessed
be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore!”
Fear the Lord (vv. 9-16): “9 O
fear the LORD, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want. 10
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the LORD shall not
be in want of any good thing. 11 Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach
you the fear of the LORD. 12 Who is the man who desires life And loves length
of days that he may see good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from
speaking deceit. 14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. 15
The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their
cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of
them from the earth.”
We have spoken about the fear of the Lord in past SD’s
but if one fears the Lord then he does not need to fear anything else. Dr. Wiersbe writes some interesting comments
on this subject: “God promises to give
us what is good for us and to cause all things to work together for good
(Romans 8:28). If we don’t receive what
we think we need, it means it isn’t good for us and we don’t need it at this
time.” He goes on to write: “At this point, David may have gathered the
children and youths around him to teach them the secret of real living. Peter quoted verses 12-14 in 1Peter 3:10-12,
and his instructions are wise and workable.”
Desire what is good (v. 12): “12 Who is the man who desires life And
loves length of days that he may see good?”
What does David mean when he writes “desires life” or “love life?” Does it mean
that one has to have a lot of possessions to love life, for that is what the
world would teach us. Solomon who was
probably the richest man ever to live as far as possessions wrote in Eccl.
2:17-20 “17 So I hated life, for the
work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything
is futility and striving after wind. 18 Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor
for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will
come after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he
will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by
acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. 20 Therefore I completely
despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.” This does not sound to me like possessions
are the answer. Character is certainly
part of the answer, along with faith, and a desire to honor God. Jesus way in as seen in John 10:10 “"The thief comes only to steal and
kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” That word abundantly means “beyond measure.”
Speak what is true (v. 13): “13 Keep your tongue from evil And your
lips from speaking deceit.”
Both James and Solomon have something to say about the
tongue: “5 So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of
great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! 6 And
the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our
members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of
our life, and is set on fire by hell. 7 For every species of beasts and birds,
of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human
race. 8 But no one can
tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. 9 With
it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made
in the likeness of God; 10 from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought
not to be this way (James 3:5-10).”
“He who guards his mouth and his
tongue, Guards his soul from troubles (Pr. 21:23).” Paul writes in Ephesians 4:15 these words, “but speaking the truth in love, we are to
grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.” I must say that the 34th Psalm
actually sounds to me like how the Proverbs are written.
Pursue what is right (v. 14): “14
Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.”
David, one
would think, is not exactly the man who would write “seek peace and pursue it” for he was a man of war, a man who was
not allowed to build the temple because he had shed so much blood. As Christians we are not to seek peace at any
price, because peace depends on purity.
“13 Who among
you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in
the gentleness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish
ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. 15
This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural,
demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder
and every evil thing. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then
peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering,
without hypocrisy. 18 And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in
peace by those who make peace (James 3:13-18).” As Christians we are to make every effort not
to make enemies, and yet when we look at the life of Jesus and the things that
He said to the Pharisees and the Scribes we know that there is a time to stand
up for what is right as Jesus did when talking to these people. Dr. Wiersbe says that the word “pursue” means that we have to work at
it, with the help of the Lord, and this makes perfect sense because we are to
seek the help of the Lord in all we do.
Expect what is best (vv. 15-16): “15
The eyes of the
LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut
off the memory of them from the earth.”
We see the entire face of the Lord including His eyes
and His ears in these two verses and this should give us confidence that God
sees us and hears us when we pray and God is against evildoers. There is a great example of this in the 12th
chapter of the book of Acts where we see Peter in prison, sent there by Herod
who was king at that time. The church
began to pray to God so He would have Peter released and God answered their
prayer and had Peter released using a miracle.
A little while later Herod was killed because he did not honor God, thus
taking care of that evildoer.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Today the 27th of January in the
year of our Lord 2012, by the grace of God I begin my 39th year in
serving the Lord, and my prayer is that I will bring honor and glory to His
name.
Character is something that has spoken to me as I did
this SD, and having good character is important to me and one of the ways to
accomplish this is to continue to, not only read and study the Word of God, but
to put the things into practice what I have learned. Difficult at times because of the enemies
that we all face, the world, the flesh and the devil are all against us, but
God is for us and that is all we need.
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
1. By the help
and grace of God I desire to put into practice what I am learning.
2. Continue to
learn contentment.
1/27/2012
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