SPIRITUAL DIARY
FOR 11/23/2012 11:08:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 139
PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 139:7-18
Message of
the verses: We will continue looking at the 139th
Psalm in Today’s Spiritual Diary.
God Is with Us Constantly—We Cannot Escape Him (vv.
7-12): “7 Where can I go from Your
Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You
are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell
in the remotest part of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your
right hand will lay hold of me. 11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will
overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night," 12 Even the darkness
is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light
are alike to You.”
We begin this section by seeing that God’s omnipresence
is seen in this section, which of course is one of the attributes of God.
I can’t help but think that the prophet Jonah should have
read this psalm before he decided that he could run away from God, but if he
did read it he surely forgot it and tried to run away from God anyway. He went from a bad situation to a worse
situation, and then back to a bad situation.
God does not want us to try and run from Him, but he
wants us to have His best, and running away is not what we should do. Dr. Wiersbe writes “We need God’s presence
with us if we want to enjoy His love and fulfill His purposes.”
God Made Us Wonderfully—We Cannot Ignore Him (vv.
13-18): “13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. 14 I
will give thanks to You, for
I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my
soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from
You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were
ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them. 17 How precious
also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I
should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with
You.”
Dr. Wiersbe points out that this is one of the
greatest passages in literature about the miracle of human conception and
birth. A friend of mine has just
welcomed another grand-child into the world earlier this week and he told me
that you can never get over the wonderful miracle of birth. Eugene Petersen states “In the presence of
birth we don’t calculate—we marvel.” I
think this is what my friend was doing.
We have a huge problem in our world and that is abortion,
I have heard that there are around 50 million abortions a year that happen
around the world. When one looks at this
passage and thinks about the great marvel of conception and then the way that
the baby is formed inside the mother’s womb and then to think that someone
could stop that life because of convenience sake is unthinkable for abortion
stops a beating heart.
In
verse 13 we see the word “woven” and this word means woven together, for the
Lord causes all to be woven together in the exact way that He desires for
them. David stated that God is
everywhere, and that is because He is Spirit and so it should be no surprise to
us to see that He is involved in all processes of forming our bodies while in
our mother’s womb.
God
did more than design our bodies for He also planed out and He determined our
days. This is an interesting subject for
us to look at, one that I am sure has different opinions, but I surely agree
with Dr. Wiersbe, and that should come at no great surprise. He states, “This probably includes the length
of life (Job. 14:5), ‘Since his days are determined,
The number of his months is with You; And his limits You have set so that he
cannot pass.’ And the
tasks He wants us to perform (Eph. 2:10; Phil 2:12-13), “10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.’ ‘12 So then, my beloved, just as you have
always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,
work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at
work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.’ This is not some form of fatalism or
heartless predestination, for what we are and what He plans for us come from
God’s loving heart (Psalm 33:11) and are the very best He has for us (Rom. 12:2)
“2 And do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which
is good and acceptable and perfect.’ –How can we ignore God when He has
given us such a marvelous body and planned for us a wonderful life? Life is not a prison, it is an exciting
pilgrimage, and the Lord
has prepared us for what He prepared for us.”
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: Much to think about
from these two sections, and much to praise the Lord about from these two
sections too. To think that God formed
me in my mother’s womb, and to think that He planned all my days with things to
do that will bring glory to Him is overwhelming to me. I have said before that Ephesians 2:10 is a
verse with great meaning to me because in it I see that God has planned in eternity
past works for me to do, and I desire to do all those works. Sin can hinder my path, but there is
forgiveness with the Lord as seen in my memory verses for this week. I think that God can cause some of His
children to leave this earth before they finish their course as evidenced from
the story in Acts chapter 5, and what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in first
Cor. 11, but as Dr. Wiersbe states “If we live foolishly, we might die before
the time God has ordained, but God’s faithful children are immortal until their
work is done.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to
learn contentment, and continue to be transformed by the renewing of my
mind.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 130:1-5
1 Out of the
debts I cried to You, O LORD. 2 O 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.
11/23/2012 12:39:52 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment