Month: September 2017

122. Hears prayer

 Psalm 65:2

O thou that hearest prayer;

Unto thee shall all flesh come.

 As promised many times, God is a prayer hearer; He pays attention; He listens; He answers. This promise needs to be repeated until we begin to believe it. Since the Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, is such a caring and prayer hearing God all created people will come to Him. The loving and caring nature of God draws people to Him in time of trouble and need. Most people do not respond to the promises of God to hear and care, but after many disappointments, heartaches and heartbreaks a few will turn to God in desperation; and the Lord will hear whether He is regarded as a first resort or last resort.

Some created human beings will never respond to the reaching out of God and will miss the opportunities for salvation and deliverance; but they could, for God has made a way for all flesh.

Most people regard another person who takes the time to listen as a person who cares, is there for them, and one can pour out his heart to. God is such a person: He takes the time to listen, He is ever available, and He receives a poured out heart. Jesus says, “Come to me; I will listen; I will care; I will answer.”

121. My Salvation and Refuge

 Psalm 62:6,7

He only is my rock and my salvation:

He is my defence; I shall not be moved.

In God is my salvation and my glory:

The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.

Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him:

God is a refuge for us. Selah.

God is many things for me, and each description of God is preceded by “my,” meaning that God and the attributes described belong to me; He is not mine in the sense that I own and control Him, but in the sense that He is for me, on my side, and all the resources He controls are at my disposal for my good and my salvation. God is this for me: rock, salvation, defense, salvation, glory, strength, and refuge. These seven metaphors for my God are synonyms used in pleonasm to build up the effect and make clear who God is and what He can do for me.

Nothing could be stronger; nothing could be safer; nothing could be better for me than to trust in him at all times. And because He is so strong and safe I can pour out my heart before him. He hears and cares about me and He is able to do something about what threatens me; He will keep me safe in His refuge. Where else would I turn? To whom should I go? Only my God has given me such precious and very great promises. There is an emphasis on the word “only.” The Lord is the only God and the only Salvation. He only receives my trust and my heart.

120. Tread down enemies

 Psalm 60:12

Through God we shall do valiantly:

For he it is that shall tread down our enemies.

 God promises to tread down our enemies: Jesus crushed the head of the Serpent. This promise has been fulfilled on Golgotha and secured at the Empty Tomb. This Victory of Jesus the Overcomer comes into our daily lives and He continues to tread down, walk on, crush, and defeat the enemies that nettle, tease, bother, worry, and nag at us on a daily basis. Whether these enemies appear overwhelming or trivial in our lives God will still tread them down.

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” (Romans 16:20) “Soon” means today or tomorrow; it means presently, in the middle of your lives, God intervenes and crushes the Enemy under your feet. “Your feet” makes it feel like it is we ourselves who are doing it while it is God who is doing the crushing. “Through God we shall do valiantly” may be confusing; is it we or is it God who is doing it? God is treading though it feels like us. We do valiantly but it is through God; God is doing it, even if it feels like we are doing something. Actually, we are doing nothing; God is using us as His instrument to overcome and tread down. While God is doing it all and crushing the enemies, it may look and feel to us as though we are doing something. Although “we shall do valiantly,” in reality we do nothing; God does it all even though it feels like we are treading down. When God saves us, when God touches us, when God uses us we are blessed and sometimes we can sense activity, but we will never take credit, even a little, for something that God is doing. God is answering a prayer, but we do not take credit for praying. God forgives, but we do not take credit for deciding to let Him. God treads down the enemy under our feet, but we do not take credit for doing valiantly.

God gets the credit; God receives the thanks; God earns the praise. He is the One who Promises.

119. Defense and Mercy

 Psalm 59:17

Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing:

For God is my defence, and the God of my mercy.

 God is my strength, my defense and my mercy. The Lord is my God and I trust in Him above all things. He is for me; I am His. He will be strength for me when I am weak; He will be a defense for me when I am helpless; and He will be mercy toward me when I am a sinner. These promises are unconditional, but like all the promises of God faith is the hand that receives them. Receiving faith is engendered in me when I am willing to admit that I am a weak, helpless sinner; that I have no capacity to stop sinning; that I am not strong enough to stand up alone against the Devil and Sin.

My strength is not strong; my strength is weak; I cannot fight; I cannot stand up to Sin, Death and Devil. However, my “Strength” is very strong, for God is my Strength. I do not ask for God to give me strength or make me stronger; I ask God to be my Strength. If God just made me stronger I might take credit for it and make the false claim that I defeated Sin and Satan; God just helped me. No, I need the Lord to be for me what I cannot be (strong); I need Him to do it for me and fight my battles. There is a difference between God giving me strength to fight and God being strong to fight for me. That is what “My Strength” means. “I will sing unto Him.” That is what I do; I do not fight; I not try to fight. I praise and thank God and give the battle to Him and let Him be My Strength.

I have no defense against the strong and subtle lies and attacks of Satan. I cannot overcome His temptation with my own defenses. I must take up the spiritual armor of God and stand, but God Himself is my Defense; He is the wall and the shield that I can hide behind and be safe. I cannot reason with Sin, for I lose; I cannot control my own emotions, for that is Satan’s playground; I cannot set up in front of Satan my strong will, for my will is not always God’s will, which is a strong defense. God does not just defend me; He sets Himself as my defense between my weak soul on one side and Sin and Satan on the other. I sing unto him for God is my defense.

I have no merit or worthiness within me whatsoever; I have no claim in myself on His promises; I have no right to expect any help from God for any reason in me. The only hope I have, the only hope I will ever have, is that God will be merciful to me, a sinner. If God is not mercy I am lost and without hope, ever. But not only is God merciful to me He is My Mercy. He is the God of My Mercy: He gave me His mercy and now it is Mine. Now I am worthy; now I have a claim to all His promises because of my mercy; I have a right to expect answers to prayer and deliverance from evil because “My Mercy” avails before the Lord. The Key = Jesus is My Mercy.

118. Send salvation, mercy, truth

 Psalm 57: 3

He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah.

God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.

 The Unconditional Promise is that “God shall send…” God sent Messiah to fulfill this promise; God gave His Son; God sent forth His Son; Christmas happened. It is finished; it is over: salvation and mercy and truth have come to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Savior, the Son of the living God.

But salvation and the need for mercy and truth is ongoing, and we continue to need and to trust in God’s sending every day. Thankfully, God’s fulfilled promises also apply to daily need and He continues to fulfill His promise for specific situations and present day issues. Today He sends from heaven and saves me from a particular problem. A typical problem may be the reproach of him that would swallow me up. This reproach could be from the mouth of a person or people used by Satan to devour me. The reproach could be from a disease or injury that comes from Death that seeks to swallow me up. God sees the reproach and sends salvation.

God also promises to send forth mercy and truth: “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” (John 1:17) Mercy and truth are characteristic traits of God, but they are pictured here as personified entities like angels sent to certain people for a specific purpose. And God promises mercy and truth for us when we need to hear and receive it. The “truth” is that we have sinned against a holy God and deserve eternal punishment; the “mercy” is that the Son of God died for our sin and took the punishment on Himself. Sometimes we need one message more than the other, but most of the time we need to hear both messages clearly and sharply applied to our present situation and human condition. In other words, “Repent and believe the Gospel.”

The Lord “sends” the Holy Spirit through people who speak the Gospel to us so that He can apply it to the need of the day. Thereby God saves me daily; and we can be sure God will do this; He said so.

117. NTurn back enemies

 Psalm 56:9

When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back:

This I know; for God is for me.

 If I pray for salvation and deliverance from and help and victory over my enemies, then God will turn my enemies back. I know this and I can rest confidently assured of this promise because God is for me. God is for me and against my enemies; God wants to give me life and the enemies want to take it away. Since I know who is on my side fighting for me I will pray and ask His help when the enemy attacks.

How do I know when to cry unto the Lord and ask Him to turn my enemies back? I know that sin, death, and the devil are trying to attack and steal and destroy when things aren’t going smoothly and well: emotions, relationships, finances, health or sense of wellbeing is in some kind of dysfunction or disruption. Sin is crouching at the door and the devil is seeking to devour. Then it is time to pray and see my enemies turning back, slinking away, defeated once again by the mercy of God and the blood of Jesus Christ.

I know I have this promise of victory because I know God is for me. I know God is for me because I see Him dying for me on the cross. The Holy Spirit has convinced me by the Gospel. He assures this Promise of God to my heart: I know; therefore I pray. We simply need to recognize the enemy and remember God’s promise in order to cry out. Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

116. Not moved

 Psalm 55:22b

He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.

 We who believe in Jesus Christ are the righteous, and the promise for believers like us is that we will never be moved. Spiritually, when the enemy comes in like a flood I shall not be moved; the three spiritual enemies cannot move me from a solid stance of conviction and strength; come hell or high water I am still standing on the promises of God and cannot be moved from that firm foundation.

 Satan tries daily to shake my faith and weaken my position in Christ with doubts, fears, worries and anxieties using all kinds of lies and temptations and reminders of my sins and shortcomings. Jesus is my Rock and He will not let me be tempted to get off the rock and try to swim through the muck of the world on my own.

The enemies of my soul cannot move me from the solid rock on which I stand by force or coercion because nothing can move any human against his will; the enemies cannot tempt me to move by persuasion or motivation, try as they might with empty promises, subtle lies and alluring temptations. I cannot stop the strong floods or the subtle winds, but I do not have to be moved by them; I have the Lord’s promise that I shall not be moved. These words can be spoken to Sin, Death, and Satan: “I have a promise that God will not let me be moved. Do your darnedest; I’m not moving.”

115. Sustain

 Psalm 55:22a

Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee:

 A conditional promise: if you cast your burden upon the Lord, then He will sustain you. God promises to sustain you, that is, hold you up, nourish you with energy and grant you enough strength to keep going strongly through the day. Losing one’s burden trusting the Lord to provide and strengthen sets one free to live greatly and enjoy life.

Daily life piles one more worry and care and responsibility after another upon us throughout the day until we become overwhelmed with the weight of the burden. Humans are reluctant to relinquish the burden and roll it over onto the Lord, for they are afraid then that it is out of their control and it won’t get done. But this promise removes that fear, for He says He will sustain you: the Lord will take care of you when you are not in control. He will take care of what it is that you are hanging on to and piling on your own back.

Jesus picks up on this promise: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) “I will lighten your load, and I will do for you what you cannot do yourself. You are walking under a heavy load of life’s burdens because you do not really believe that I can take care of it better and sustain you. Believe me, I can and I will.”

114. Hear me

 Psalm 55:17

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud:

And he shall hear my voice.

 The repeated promise that God will hear our prayers (hear my voice) encourages us to pray, even to cry aloud often, at least 3 times a day. Three times a day seems to be fairly standard practice for praying to God: Daniel, though forbidden, still prayed three times every day, in public defying the lion’s den. There is no prescription for frequency of prayer; just “pray without ceasing.” Considering our sin and our need it would seem like three times a day would be the minimum required.

God promises to hear: this means that prayer can never be considered useless, a waste of time or that it never works. Therefore the promise to “hear my voice” says to me, “If I am listening, why are you not talking? Talk to me; I care; I listen; I will respond to your prayer requests.” Whether the response from God is “Yes, No, or Wait” it is helpful for me to pay attention to the Lord’s answers. Often I can wait in faith knowing that the Lord has heard me and He is taking me into consideration.

When I walk by sight I do not usually hear or see God hearing, and trusting in my own understanding and experience I see nothing and so I give up on God and neglect prayer. Then I walk by faith and I know God hears; I persist in prayer even more faithfully. Even if I don’t see with my eyes I know God hears my prayer and gives answers; how do I know? Because God said so in his Word and Promise. I pray, leave it with the Lord, and go happily about my day (3x): God said I could.

113. Save me

 Psalm 55:16

As for me, I will call upon God;

And the Lord shall save me.

 Of course, God promises to save me; in fact, that’s what He sent His Son to do: to seek and to save the lost. Jesus saved me once, for eternity, with His innocent death. That “the lord shall save me” is certainly wonderfully and gloriously true. It is done. This promise has been fulfilled.

However, “save” in many contexts, especially in need and in response to prayer, means that God will intrude into our life in the midst of difficulties and save us from the trouble we find ourselves in. Many times I need a specific salvation for a specific problem or need: when I call upon God the Lord will save me. The many times that the Lord has already saved me in the past encourages and emboldens me to ask again. Jesus told me to ask; He says it will be given. “Lord, save me this time once again. I need you now.”

Romans 10:13: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This verse, quoting Joel 2:32, repeats the wonderful promise. Certainly the promise applies to eternal salvation, but it also applies to today’s need in a particular situation. Believe the promise: “call upon God.”