SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 1/28/2012 9:42:24 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Part-3 Psalm 34
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
34:17:22
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
look at the last section of Psalm 34 which is the last six verses. I am going to quote again the words of Dr.
Wiersbe that he wrote at the end of his opening comments on Psalm 34: “Out of his experience in Gath, David shared
in this psalm four instructions for his own followers (1Sam. 22:1-2), as well
as for us today, to help us keep out of tight situations and live a life that
pleases God.” The last instruction he
entitles trust the Lord.
Trust the Lord (vv. 17-22): “17
The righteous cry, and the LORD hears And delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in
spirit. 19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him
out of them all. 20 He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken. 21 Evil
shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous will be condemned. 22
The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who take refuge in
Him will be condemned.”
I mentioned in yesterday’s SD
that I thought that the verses in Psalm 34 reminded me of what is in the book
of Proverbs in that they seem to be short bits of wisdom in each of the verses
like what is found in the book of Proverbs and I can see that in these six
verses too.
In this last section we see a
contrast of what will happen to the “righteous” and what will happen to the
“wicked.” Verse 17 we see the righteous
cry and then the Lord answers. In verse
21 we see what will happen to the wicked and what happens to them is seen in
the first part of verse 21 where David writes “Evil shall slay the wicked.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The Lord is able to keep our enemies in check, and
their evil deeds will destroy them, for sin is its own executioner.”
“His own iniquities will capture
the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin Proverbs 5:22.”
The Bible never assures us that when
we become believers that are lives will then be without troubles, but we see
verses in this section of Scripture that tell us that the Lord will be with us
through all of the troubled times. Verses
17-20 gives us this promises and we can see that even though at times we don’t
feel like the Lord is with us and helping us He is doing this. We must remember what we said about feelings
in an earlier SD and that is they cannot always be trusted. These verses say what I wrote in an earlier
SD and that is that God will heal us every time but the last time and at that
time we can be assured that our work on earth will be done.
It makes me sad and also it makes me
angry when I see on TV from time to time that a “preacher” will come on and say
that if you send me some money then I will pray over your letter and the Lord
will heal you. I have also heard them
say that once you become a believer that your life will be wonderful and that
you will not have any more problems.
These are lies that come from the enemy.
To illustrate what I am talking about I want to tell a story about a
butterfly and the struggle that it takes for a butterfly to get out of the
cocoon. This story begins with a worm
and the worm will begin its life eating and will continue to eat and then it
will be time for the worm to make a cocoon for itself. We can see in this story something that
pictures a person who is born into this world and then is transformed into a
new life once they realize that they are a sinner and believe in their heart
that Christ died for their sins and we see in 2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things
passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Now back to the butterfly and we mentioned that it is a struggle for the
butterfly to get out of the cocoon and this is a good thing for the struggle
will make it strong in order for it to accomplish the things that butterflies
do. If someone would see the butterfly
struggling and decide that it would be better for them to help it out of the
cocoon then the butterfly would probably die because it would not have the
strength to live because it did not build up its strength by getting out of the
cocoon on its own. Now what can we learn
from this story is actually seen in this section of Psalm 34? We can see that God allows us to go through
difficult times, we have seen this when we looked at the book of Job, and we
know that God has a plan for our lives and will see us through the difficult
times so that we can bring glory to Him, and also so we can help others who
will go through perhaps the same trouble that we are going through. Paul writes about this in 2 Cor. 1: 3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us
in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any
affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For
just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is
abundant through Christ. 6 But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and
salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective
in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.”
One more thing from Psalm 34 and
that comes from verse twenty were at the end of this verse we read “Not one of them is broken.” David is writing about bones and we know that
Jesus is the Passover Lamb and it is said of the Passover Lamb that none of its
bones are to be broken and so John quotes this verse in John 19:36 speaking of
Jesus: “For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, "NOT A
BONE OF HIM SHALL BE BROKEN."
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: As I look
at the nation that I live in and see all of the moral corruption that is going
on and what seems to me that the blessings of God are not like they once were
on our country I am distressed and saddened over this, and I must admit at
times a little bit frightened. The words
of this section of Psalm 34 have been an encouragement to me in that I am once
again reminded that the Lord is surely in control and will see me through until
my work on earth is done either by dying of by going to be with the Lord in the
clouds after I am changed on the way up to meet the Lord. 1Cor. 15:51-58 and 1Thes. & 4:13-18 speak
of this event which is called the rapture of the Church.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Continue to trust the Lord
through the difficulties of life knowing that he will never leave me and He
will never forsake me.
2. Continue to learn contentment
through the trials and difficulties of life.
1/28/2012 10:53:42 AM
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