SPIRITUAL DIARY
FOR 12/3/2012 10:08:32 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm
143-PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Psalm 143:7-12
Message of
the verses: We will continue looking at the last five
verses from Psalm 143 in Today’s Spiritual Diary. I want to quote from the introduction of the
commentary that Dr. Wiersbe wrote on this psalm: “In this psalm, David presents many requests
to the Lord, all of which may be summarized in two prayers: ‘Hear me’ (vv. 1-6) and ‘Answer me’ (vv.
7-12). This kind of praying is a good
example for us to follow.” We looked at
“Hear me” in yesterdays SD, and now we will look at “Answer me” in today’s SD.
“Answer
Me”—Wait for the Answer in Expectation (vv. 7-12): “7 Answer me quickly, O LORD, my spirit fails; Do not hide Your face from
me, Or I will become like those who go down to the pit. 8 Let me hear Your
lovingkindness in the morning; For I trust in You; Teach me the way in which I
should walk; For to You I lift up my soul. 9 Deliver me, O LORD, from my
enemies; I take refuge in You. 10 Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground. 11 For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me. In Your righteousness bring my
soul out of trouble. 12 And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my enemies And
destroy all those who afflict my soul, For I am Your servant.”
What were the answers that David was looking for from the
Lord? Well in verse seven David prays
something that all true believers pray and that is to see God’s face. I am reminded of the answer that Jesus gave
to Philip in John 14:8-9 “Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father,
and it is enough for us." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long
with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how
can you say, ’Show us the Father’?”
There are days when I think about how it would have been to be alive
when Jesus walked on the earth, to go where He went, to sit and talk to Him and
see His face, and then I remember what Jesus said to Thomas after He had risen
from the dead, “Jesus said to him, ‘Because you have seen Me, have you
believed? Blessed are they
who did not see, and yet believed.’”
We as believers can talk to our Lord at any time and any place and
although we do not see His face at this time we are blessed because we have
believed without seeing His face, and yet one day all believers will see the
face of Jesus.
There is a song that the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir sang a
few years back that speaks of a person who had died and went to heaven and he
was being shown around heaven meeting all the people that he had heard and read
about and then the person says that “I want to see Jesus, for He is the One who
died for me.” Yes heaven will be the place where we will see the face of Jesus
and that is what David wanted to experience.
David knew the truth of Numbers
6:22-27, “22 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and to
his sons, saying, ’Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to
them: 24 The LORD bless you, and keep you; 25
The LORD make His
face shine on you, And be gracious to you; 26 The LORD lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.’ 27 “So they shall
invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.’” David also knew that if the Lord was
displeased with Israel that He would hide His face from them, “Why do You stand afar off, O LORD? Why do
You hide Yourself in times of trouble? (Psalm 10:1).” “How
long will You hide Your face from me? (Psalm 13:1).” “And do not hide Your face from Your servant,
For I am in distress; answer me quickly (Psalm 69:17).” “Do not hide Your face from me in the day of
my distress; Incline Your ear to me; In the day when I call answer me quickly
(Psalm 102:2).”
Dr. Wiersbe points out, “To know the shining of His face
means to walk in the light of His countenance and enjoy the smile of God upon
our lives, but the absence of that blessing was like a living death, ‘1 A Psalm of David: To You, O LORD, I call;
My rock, do not be deaf to me, For if You are silent to me, I will become like
those who go down to the pit (Psalm 28:1).’”
The next thing that David prayed for and we also pray for
is found in verse eight, “8 Let me hear Your lovingkindness
in the morning; For I trust in You; Teach me the way in which I should
walk; For to You I lift up my soul.”
Hearing God’s Word gave David strength, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans
10:17).” This verse in Romans is
one we usually think about it being a verse that is used to witness to someone,
and it surely is, but it also speaks to the believers so that are faith will be
lifted up as we read the Word of God, for the Word of God is, “living and active and
sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul
and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and
intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).”
Next we see in verse nine, “9 Deliver me, O
LORD, from my enemies; I take refuge in You.” David wanted protection from His enemies and
David knew that God was able to keep him safe from those who were trying to
harm him. The LORD was David’s Rock, and
like the song sates David wanted to hide himself in the LORD, “Rock of Ages,
cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.”
I will finish this portion of Today’s SD by quoting Dr.
Wiersbe, “Another answer we receive
from the Lord is a knowledge of the will
of God (v.10). His good Spirit (Neh.
9:20) teaches us from the Word
and shows us the path we should take (Psalm 119:105). A Knowledge of God’s will gives us confidence
in the difficulties of life; it keeps us going when the going gets tough. Finally, God answers prayer by helping us bring glory to His great name (vv. 11-12). ‘For
thy name’s sake’ was the great motivation of David’s life and ministry (1Sam.
17:26, 36, 45-47). ‘Hallowed be Thy
name’ is the first request in the Lord’s Prayer, and it ought to be the
motivation of all our prayers. David
knew that he had a great work to do for the Lord, and he depended on the Lord
to help him accomplish it and bring honor to His name.”
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: It is wonderful
how the Lord works out certain details in my life. As I have been studying many of the psalms
that David wrote our Pastor has just began a series that he says will take up
to ten months to complete and it is on the life of David. David is my favorite character in the OT and
I truly enjoy studying about his life, so it looks like it will continue for a
while. David’s life is an inspiration to
me and I hope to others as they look at my Spiritual Diaries.
My Steps of Faith for Today: For many
days I have put contentment into this portion of my SD, and the reason is from
what I have learned from Phil. 4:11b, “for
I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” Paul states that he had learned to be
content, something that is difficult to learn, and yet possible to learn as
Paul states it here, and the reason he learned this is because of the troubles
that God sent him through, and as he went through those troubles he learned to
rely on the Lord to sustain him. Paul
was like David in many ways and that is why Paul is my favorite NT
character.
I have also been putting the word “transformed” in
this section, a word that means to change from the inside out. We get the word “metamorphous” from the Greek
word that is translated “transformed.”
Romans 12:2 states that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our
minds, and the only way that this will happen is from the Word of God, which is
living and active and sharper than any two edged sword as we saw earlier in
Hebrews 4:12. Memorizing and meditating
on the Word of God will transform our minds from the inside out, it will give
us the strength we need to go through difficult situations because we will have
the mind of Christ, “’For who has
understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of
Christ (1Cor. 2:16).’”
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 130:1-7
1 Out of the
debts I cried to You, O LORD. 2 Lord,
hear my voice! Let Your ears be
attentive to the voice of my supplications.
3 If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You
may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul does
wait, And in His Word do I hope. 6 My
soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning; Indeed more
than the watchman for the morning. 7 O
Israel hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is lovingkindness, and with
Him is abundant redemption.
12/3/2012 11:48:48 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment