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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