SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/16/2012 8:15:26 AM
My
Worship Time
Focus: “Trusting
the Lord”
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Psalm
25:8-22
Message
of the verses: “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.”
Our God Can Be Trusted (vv. 8-14): “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.”
David
takes some time now to meditate on the character of the Lord. This is a wonderful thing to do for by doing
it one can understand that God is a God that can be trusted, for after all
David was in trouble for that was the reason for this psalm, and David had to
know in his mind that he could trust the Lord whom he was praying to. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we too
need to realize that He can be trusted to care for us even if we go through
difficult times in life and to understand His character will give us the
confidence to continue to trust in the Lord in all circumstances of life.
In verse nine of this psalm in the
KJV the word “meek” is used while in
the NASB the word “humble” is
used. The Hebrew/English dictionary says
that the word means poor, humble, meek, or lowly and is translated as meek 13
times in the KJV version of the Bible.
When one thinks of a person who is meek one often times thinks the
person is weak. Jesus described Himself
as being meek and we never think of Jesus as being weak. The word can describe a horse that has been
broken, a soothing wind on a hot day, or a healing medicine and none of these
describes weakness. Meekness is power
under control. When we think of Jesus
being meek we know that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead had the
power to speak and the universe came into existence, and yet here He was
walking on earth as a man having all of that power under control at the will of
His Father in order to humble Himself: “He
humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a
cross.” What a wonderful Savior!
In verse eight we see that David
describes the Lord as good and upright.
Goodness is one of the attributes of God and He can only do good for
that is part of His character. The verse
goes on to talk about grace and mercy for it is only by grace and mercy that
the Lord can instruct sinners in His way.
What a comforting thought that is.
In verse nine we learn how it is
that the Lord can teach and lead a person and the means of this is to be humble
before the Lord and then He will teach and lead you.
“God
can bet trusted to guide those who obey His Word (v.10), for a willingness to
obey is the first step toward spiritual understanding: “"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word
is truth’” (John 17:17).
In verse eleven we see the need for
repentance of our sins for this will bring about forgiveness. Forgiveness
happened at the cross when the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins. Repentance
is recognizing that a person has sinned, and therefore agrees with the Lord
that the sin is wrong. David realizes
that his sins are many and so the need for repentance is also great.
We see in verse twelve that the Lord
will instruct those who fear Him. Again
we are not talking about fear as being dread, but fear is that of a child being
fearful of a parent and wanting to please the parent because of the love the
child has for them. “I will instruct you
and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye
upon you.” (Psalm 32:8)
In verse fourteen we see how
important it is to obey the Lord and to trust Him and we have already seen the
need to fear Him. The result will be
good for your family, they will benefit this as they see how you love and trust
the Lord they too will begin to do this.
I read a story of one of the early Puritans who lived back in the 1700’s
and they followed their family down through the years and it was reported that
there were many doctors and Pastors and even senators. The story tracked another family who did not
fear the Lord and it told of the millions of dollars that were spent on that
family to house many of the offspring in the jails and prisons.
Verse fourteen in the NLT reads as
follows: “The LORD is a friend to those
who fear him. He teaches them his
covenant.” In the NASB we see the
word secret and this word means “intimate
conversation, plans and purposes.”
John 15:15 reads as follows "No
longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is
doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My
Father I have made known to you.”
The last part of verse fourteen in Psalm 25 goes along with the last
part of John 15:15 in that Jesus speaks of telling His disciples (friends) what
the Father has made known to Him and that would be what was written in the NT
written by them. The end of verse
fourteen reads as follows “And He will
make them know His covenant.”
Trusting God Brings Us Victory (vv. 15-22):
We see
in this section that the psalm again turns into another direction, the
direction it was at the beginning and that is of prayer. David speaks of the dangerous enemies that he
is facing, the distressing emotions that were within him because of these
outside troubles, so his troubles were within and without. Dr Wiersbe writes: “But he
wouldn’t mention them to the Lord if he didn’t believe the Lord could help
him!” What were the enemies that God
helped him to conquer?”
Danger
(v. 15): “15 My eyes are continually toward the LORD, For He will pluck my feet
out of the net.” David
knew that his enemies were trying to set traps for him but trusted that the
Lord would see him through these obstacles.
Loneliness (v.16): “16
Turn to me and be gracious to me, For I am lonely and afflicted.” David was a leader and there were times in
his life when he had to make decisions as a leader that could cause him to
become lonely. Being a leader can cause
you to make decisions that are in the will of God, but will cause alienation
between you and your family or you and your friends.
A
broken heart (v.17): “17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
Bring me out of my distresses.”
David could have sat down and felt sorry for himself, but instead he
turned to the Lord with his troubles asking that God bring him out of his
distresses. His troubles were enlarged
and so he needed a big God. This was a
critical point in his life and it can be in ours when troubles come, for we can
turn to God or turn away from God.
Regrets
(v. 18): “18 Look upon my affliction and my
trouble, And forgive all my sins.”
We have already talked about the sin that David knew about and yet here
he mentions it again which seems to show his regret. We have all sinned and have had regrets
because of the sin and at times Satan will accuse us of those sins, bring them
up, but if we have confessed them to the Lord His Word says, “As far as the east is from the west, So
far has He removed our transgressions from us (Ps. 103:12)” I for one am
glad that it is as far as the east is from the west and not as far as the north
is from the south. That is only 12,500
miles, but it is endless from east to the west.
Fear
(vv.19-20): “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.” It is not clear what situation David was in
but there was fear in his heart and not only fear for his life, but fear that
he would bring disgrace on the name of the Lord. This was greatly troubling to him.
Despair
(vv. 21-22): 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait for You. 22
Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles.” To wait on the Lord means to have hope in the Lord and one thing
David did not want to lose was his hope in the Lord, for that would mean to
surrender the future to the enemy, and that only destroys the meaning of the
present. We can see that in verse
twenty-two “We are never alone in our
trials, for as members of God’s believing community, we have encouragement for
one another. Our brothers and sisters around
the world are also suffering trials (1Peter 5:9), so we are not alone.”
“David
survived his trials and was able to write Psalm 26:12—‘My feet stand on level ground; in the great assembly I will praise the
Lord’ (NIV). May we follow his
example.” (Warren Wiersbe)
Spiritual meaning for my life today: This psalm has spoken to my heart because of
what I am going through at this time of my life and so it has caused my faith
in the Lord to increase because of what I have seen in the life of David in
this psalm, and how with the help of the Lord has overcome the difficulties he
went through.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1.
Trust the Lord in times of trouble
knowing that He will help.
2.
Continue to have a fear of the
Lord. For when I fear the Lord I need
not fear anything else.
3.
Continue to learn contentment through
the circumstances of life.
1/16/2012
10:03:27 AM
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