SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 9/20/2012 9:27:45 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Strength
for the Journey
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Psalm 119:153-160
Message
of the verses: “153 Resh. Look
upon my affliction and rescue me, For I do not forget Your law. 154 Plead my
cause and redeem me; Revive me according to Your word. 155 Salvation is far
from the wicked, For they do not seek Your statutes. 156 Great are Your
mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances. 157 Many are my
persecutors and my adversaries, Yet I do not turn aside from Your testimonies.
158 I behold the treacherous and loathe them, Because they do not keep Your
word. 159 Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to
Your lovingkindness. 160 The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your
righteous ordinances is everlasting.”
We are getting to the end of Psalm
119, and it has been a great journey for us to go on. The psalmist is realizing
that as he nears the end of the Hebrew alphabet that his trials would continue,
and so will ours. The psalmist still
needs help from the Lord as he goes through trials, and he will draw that
strength from God’s Law. Dr. Wiersbe
states that the Christian life is like the land of Canaan, for we read in
Deuteronomy 11:11 these words, “’But the land into which you are about to
cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys,
drinks water from the rain of heaven.’”
(Italics added) Yes, the
Christian life is full of hills and valleys as we go to mountain top
experiences and then are plunged down into the valleys of life, but God is
always the same and His Word is always the same. One of the most dangerous times in the life
of the believer is after a mountain top experience, and we have to remember
this so that we are not defeated after a mountain top experience. I certainly can relate to those experiences.
We see a key phrase in this section,
something we have seen before and that phrase is “revive me.” Dr Wiersbe points out that this word means “give me life, lift me up and
keep me going.” We as believers
need to be revived many times in our walk with the Lord and we must remember
the statement from an old Scottish Pastor who stated that “The successful Christian life
is a series of new beginnings.”
Revival is a necessary part of those new beginnings.
Revive
me, for you are my Redeemer (vv. 153-155): “Look upon my affliction and rescue me,
For I do not forget Your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; Revive me
according to Your word. 155 Salvation is far from the wicked, For they do not
seek Your statutes.”
One way to better understand the
Bible is to look at a concordance like the “Strongs Concordance,” where you can
look up a word and see how it is used in different part of the Bible. I am going to copy and paste verse 153
including the Strongs numbers and then copy and past Genesis 22:8 the same
way. “Look <07200> upon my
affliction <06040> and rescue <02502> me, For I do not forget
<07911> Your law <08451>.”
“Abraham <085> said <0559>, "God <0430> will
provide <07200> for Himself the lamb <07716> for the burnt
<05930> offering <05930>, my son <01121>." So the two
<08147> of them walked <01980> on together <03164>.” We see the number 07200 in both verses and
this helps us to understand what the psalmist is saying to the Lord. The meaning of the word is “The Lord will see
to it, and that is what Abraham is saying to his son Isaac when he asks where
the sacrifice is that they were going to offer to the Lord. We know that our Lord not only sees our
afflictions but will see to them, providing what is needed. Now let us look at verse 154 and look at the
word redeem: “to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer, avenge, revenge, ransom, do
the part of a kinsman.” We know this
word from the book of Ruth as Boaz was the kinsman-redeemer for Ruth, but we
also know this word in the NT as Jesus Christ is our kinsman as he entered into
the human family and in the crucifixion Jesus paid the price to redeem us from
sin, death, and hell. The words plead [defend] ties in with the Lord Jesus
Christ as our Kinsman Redeemer and He is also our Surety as seen in verse
122: “Be surety for Your servant for
good; Do not let the arrogant oppress me.”
Jesus is our Mediator, and He is our Advocate, who represents us before
the throne of God (1John 2:1-2): “1 My
little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And
if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours
only, but also for those of the whole world.”
Just as the psalmist knew that in his affliction the Lord would hear
his prayer and intercede for him, we can have that assurance too.
Revive
me, for you are merciful (vv. 156-158):
“156 Great are Your mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances. 157 Many
are my persecutors and my adversaries, Yet I do not turn aside from Your
testimonies. 158 I behold the treacherous and loathe them, Because they do not
keep Your word.”
If we prayed to God on our own
merit we would not get too far, but Jesus told His disciples, and they passed
it on to us that we are to pray in the name of Jesus and we are also to pray in
the help of the Spirit. “John 15:16,
“’You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go
and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of
the Father in My name He may give to you.’”
Romans 8:26-27, “26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit
Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the
mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the
will of God.”
We see in this section that the psalmist was still
disgusted with the way the unbelievers were living, yet their bad habits did
not change his own convictions, and that is something that we need to remember
when we see all the things that are going on in our country today.
Revive
me, for Your Word can be trusted (vv. 159-160): “159
Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your
lovingkindness. 160 The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your
righteous ordinances is everlasting.”
We see the wonderful promise of
verse 160 stating that God’s Word can be trusted, and that is because God can
be trusted. Dr. Wiersbe states “The
totality of God’s written revelation is not just true—it is truth.” He goes on to state “The Bible is not a magic
book that conveys divine life to anyone who picks it up and reads it. God’s living Word communicates His life and
power to those who read it, meditate on it, and obey it because the love God
and His Word. When Jesus raised the
dead, it was through speaking the Word (Luke 7:11-17; 8:40-56; John 11:38-44;
see John 5:24), and His Word gives us life today when we find ourselves in the
dust (25).”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: There are
times in my life, and I suppose in the lives of others when we look for
truth. Pilate looked for truth when
Jesus was on trial before Him, and the sad fact is that he was looking Truth
right in the face. I can know for
certain that when I read the Word of God that it is not just true, but it is
Truth.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Remember that the Word of God is not just true, but is the Truth.
Memory
verses for the week: 1Cor. 13:1-7
1 If I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong, or a clanging
cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of
prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so
as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed
the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love it
profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, and
is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act
unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into an
account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices
with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
9/20/2012
10:48:26 AM
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