Month: December 2017

204. On my Side

 Psalm 118:6

The Lord is on my side;

I will not fear:

What can man do unto me?

The Lord is on my side and promises to always be on my side. Being on my side implies that there is some kind of war or fight or game going on, and there is. A spiritual battle is being waged for our eternal souls; this battle is to the death, eternal life and death; this battle is about winning or losing life.

 In this serious battle it is certainly good to know that the Lord is on my side. I have no doubt that with the Lord on my side I cannot lose, but I will for sure win. I will not lose life, but I will win eternal and abundant life. Therefore, I will not fear anything, for no one can do anything to me with God on my side. He Himself will fight for me against everything that would conspire against me.

During those times when I feel like I am losing, when things aren’t going well, when nothing is working out well, and I am feeling down and out, then I remember that the Lord is on my side. I know He will lift me up and give me victory. I have life and will not lose it. The promise is true and unconditional: He is on my side. The consequence of this promise: I will not fear. The truth is, if I can believe it, I do not need to worry, doubt, wonder, be afraid, or be anxious for anything. My peace of mind will be much stronger and better when I believe this promise.

203. Good and Merciful

 Psalm 118:1

O give thanks unto the Lord;

For he is good:

Because his mercy endureth forever.

 This verse is a common prayer refrain used in other places in the Bible: God is good and His mercy lasts forever. “God is good” understates the truth, for God is much more that good; He is really very good, He is great, He is incredibly good in every way. He is good in the sense of being kind and nice and treating people well. He is good at everything he does. He knows how to turn bad things into good things and to make all things work together for good. God is good in the moral sense of righteousness and He works good instead of evil. God is good at everything He does: He is a good God, a good Creator, a good King, a good Shepherd, a good Savior, a good Provider, and on and on. Finally, God is good to me individually and to my church corporately. God is good all the time and in all circumstances and that is a promise I can live with and enjoy forever.

“His mercy endures forever” says that mercy is a solid foundation on which we can rest confidently and enjoy our lives. God is not only merciful to us once to forgive and save us, but He is constantly and daily merciful to us in every situation. And once He has extended mercy we can count on Him not to take it back: it is forever. That mercy will never change in the future forever. This promises never ends.

202. Kindness and Truth

 Psalm 117:2

For his merciful kindness is great toward us:

and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.

Praise ye the Lord.

 Mercy and Truth from God are spoken of together often in the Psalms. Each quality of God is sometimes seen as two “angels, or messengers” coming to people from the Lord, but here mercy and truth are simply attributes of God out of which God acts toward us. God is always merciful and His kindness is great. The truth of the Lord is the ground and stable basis on which all things are built and by which all living things operate. If it were not for truth we could have no way of trusting anything on which to base a life or make decisions. But there is predictability to the universe and to the promises of God.

Truth is easily known and can be followed by us all the time. Truth is in and comes to us from God’s Word. Part of God’s Truth is the plain fact that we are guilty sinners who have broken the Law of God. The Word cannot be broken, but we sinners will be broken upon it and certain punishments, like death, result from breaking the Truth of the Law.

But there is another Truth: and that is that God is full of merciful kindness, and therefore He forgives our sins and declares us righteous by grace. Forgiveness of sins is as much Truth as Sin itself. Both Truth and Mercy are combined in Christ Jesus inasmuch as He has swallowed both the Law and Sin into Himself in order that He might justly show merciful kindness to all people whom God loves. Truth convicts us of sin; Mercy convicts us of forgiveness of sin.

The Promises of both Mercy and Truth endure forever, so that we can count of the promises of God for eternity.

201. Increase

 Psalm 115:14

The Lord shall increase you more and more,

You and your children.

 The Lord promises to increase you, not just the things you own or control, but you yourself; the Bible has promises of growth in wisdom and understanding, in inner stability and strength, in goodness and righteousness. Once the Holy Spirit creates faith and enters into our spirits to live there He begins working in us to increase our faith, strength, hope, love, knowledge, and understanding.

The Holy Spirit will definitely continue to increase throughout our spiritual life as long as we are receiving the Word of the Gospel by going to church to hear the Gospel, participate in Communion and remember our Baptism, by going to the quiet place and time of our choice to read the Bible and spend time with God in prayer, by maintaining faithfulness in group Bible study and fellowship with believers. When we know that this “increase” promise is true we will be more inclined to put more time into church and Bible study.

The intriguing addition is that this promise of increase extends to our children. The more we share the Word of God with our children and grandchildren the more we all will increase and grow in all that is godly and good. This kind of promise for children prompts us to pray for succeeding generations.

When Christ comes to us He gives us all things, but it still takes time to grow into more and more of what God has planned for us. God grows us bit by bit, day by day, as we come into more and more of His fullness, which we have already received, grace upon grace.

200. Mindful and Bless

 Psalm 115:12, 13, 15

The Lord hath been mindful of us:

He will bless us;

He will bless the house of Israel;

He will bless the house of Aaron.

He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great.

Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth.

 The Lord will bless us; He will bless those who fear the Lord. The promise of blessing runs throughout the Psalms. Blessing comes as a regular and expected consequence of believing God and being faithful to Him. This is why the Law of God is a bountiful and wonderful gift to mankind. When Law is kept everyone wins and everyone is blessed. Blessing is a positive consequence for all believers in Christ who have received the perfect obedience and Law keeping of Jesus: this righteousness has been given to those who live by faith.

The promise given here in addition to blessing is that the Lord is mindful of us. The amazing and comforting promise is that God is thinking about us all the time; we go off about our lives without giving God a thought much of the time, but God does not stop thinking about us even for a minute. We are always on His mind: God is curious to see what we do and decide, how we react and perform, and why we respond to certain thought processes to make choices. God is paying attention to us and He is aware of the troubles and problems we get ourselves into, and He is looking at ways He can help us and solve our problems. God is not mindful of us in order to catch us slipping up and making sure bad consequences follow; God is not watching for sins to judge. God is watching over us constantly to protect and preserve and enhance the enjoyment of life.

He is mindful of us because He loves us just like young lovers can’t get their loved ones out of their minds; He cannot forget or ignore the one He favors with love and mercy. We forget Him, but He never lets us escape His notice. His ability to remember includes looking upon us with favor and blessing and finding ways to do good. The One who thought about me from eternity found a way to save me by sending His Son. The same One is thinking about me every minute to bless me. This same One will be the One who will come to judge on the great white throne.

199. Help and Shield

 Psalm 115:11

Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord:

He is their help and their shield.

 The Lord is a help and shield for those who fear and trust Him. A faithful believer wants to fear, love, and trust in God above all things; he fails to keep this First Commandment, but he repents daily and returns to the Lord in faith. The natural result of this kind of faithfulness is that He is a help and shield. The believer trusts the Lord to be a present help in trouble and a shield against the attacks of the enemy.

As weak and helpless human sinners we are weak and helpless all the time. We have no power against what Sin, Death, and Devil want to do to us regularly. Sometimes we are aware of helplessness and sometimes we are not; at times we are led to believe that we are strong enough and smart enough to take care of ourselves and solve our own problems. Now it is true that God has given us a measure of brains and brawn to apply to the solutions we seek and in that way He helps; but we must acknowledge that we still need help. Since He is our Help we go to Him and ask for help; then He gives it as we have need. And often He has helped us many times when we did not even know it; God works behind the scenes and He answers before we even ask.

As powerless, weaponless, and armorless soldiers thrust into battle we take up His armor, sword and shield, and we stand. But more than giving us a shield He Himself is our shield, standing in front of us and surrounding us to preserve our life. We don’t see the shield because we don’t even see the battle, but God sees the enemy and the threats and He stands up for us to take action. This promise of help and shield is comforting and assuring for us.

198. Children for Barren

 Psalm 113:9

He maketh the barren woman to keep house,

And to be joyful mother of children.

Praise ye the Lord.

 The promise is that God will give children to the barren. If only this could be literally true many sterile couples would rejoice. The Lord granted children to some famous women in the Bible who seemed to be sterile. These events were seen as truly miracles from God; however, not everyone who prays for children will receive this promise and become a joyful mother.

God created, designed, and meant women to bear and raise children according to His purpose, but childbearing does not always happen for every woman. Therefore, we are left with the conclusion that God’s purpose for a few women is not to have children. We can be certain that God’s purpose for every child of God will be fulfilled; but we cannot assume we know what that purpose must be; we by faith leave that up to the Lord. But in some way that we may not like or understand every woman will be a “joyful mother.”

The promised truth that we can take away from this verse is that God’s purpose and design for our life will be realized. Humans have the freedom to thwart God’s purpose and mess up His design. When we submit our will to God’s will, however, we can be sure His purposes and promises will come about. Even when we must say, “Thy will be done,” it may mean redemptive suffering for something good. When God’s will is done the barren are joyful, the empty are filled, and the meaningless are given significant purpose.

The term “mother of children” in this promise context means that something of your self will be a blessing to the created world according to His purpose. The faithful child of God will “bear” fruit that will be salt and light to the world. We cannot always see this kind of “seed” being born, but we can believe it by God’s Word.

197. Lift up the needy

 Psalm 113:7, 8

He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,

And lifteth the needy out of the dunghill;

That he may set him with princes,

Even with the princes of his people.

 God promises to raise up the poor and lift up the needy. He regards the poor and needy by seeing them as princes; according to the way God sees people He regards everyone as princely. All sinners are poor and needy, spiritually bankrupt, empty of value, worthless and helpless. We are beggars, we have nothing, and worse, we are nothing; in this world we live in the dust of death and the dunghill of sin.

But what does God see? God sees princes, men and women enjoying the comfort and wealth of the palace; God sees people with worth and value far beyond their own imagination; God sees privileged men and women who are given the riches of the kingdom. God sees us in our lowly estate and lifts us up to a higher place; God sees the filthy pigsty of our sins and brings us into a fresh and clean mansion.

Not only does Jesus look at us differently than we see others and ourselves, he even seeks us out and looks for us in our misery. Jesus searches out the poor, the widows, the orphans, the lepers, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the crippled, the blind, the demonized, the lepers, the oppressed and the helpless. Thank God for His Mercy which looks upon us with love and sees miserable sinners as forgiven saints.

By sight we are poor and needy; by faith we are rich and full. When one really sees himself as God sees him he sees two unseen realities: 1) I am much, much more evil and dark than I think I am; 2) I am elevated to a far higher plane of princely worth and am much, much more righteous than I can even imagine. The Word of God reveals the person as he really is. Listen to the Gospel.

196. Wealth

 Psalm 112:3

Wealth and riches shall be in his house:

And his righteousness endureth forever.

 A part of the blessedness for those who fear the Lord is wealth and riches. Yes, God promises believers wealth, but we are careful to define the wealth that is ours in Christ. Most people want wealth and more money for one reason: to be free of stress. We want to be able to buy and get whatever we want whenever we want it. We want enough money so that we will never have to worry about having enough to live and enjoy life, and we also believe we need a cushion, a nest egg, an emergency savings, and a good amount in the bank just in case. If one gets control of enough money that he can easily take care of all needs without worry and stress, obtain whatever pleasures he desires whenever he wants, and have enough saved away so that future security is assured, that man is wealthy.

“Wealthy” in some sense simply means “worry-free living.” Thus there is no particular number that defines wealth. Wealthy is truly a state of mind more than a pile of money. When a person is contented and happy and carefree he can be considered wealthy. This is the kind of wealth promised to believers in Christ: resting confidently in the love and security of a really good friend and shepherd. Taking this promise seriously we can say with Paul, Philippians 4:19: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Because of Jesus I can confidently say: “Wealth and riches shall be in my house.” Jesus is mine and when I have Him I have all the wealth and power that belong to Him. And I am assured that He can and will use that wealth on my behalf and for my benefit.

195. Blessed

Psalm 112:1, 2

Praise ye the Lord.

Blessed is that man that feareth the Lord,

That delighteth greatly in his commandments.

His seed shall be mighty upon earth:

The generation of the upright shall be blessed.

 Another “Blessed is…” promise is presented to us. The condition for blessedness, as often, is fearing the Lord. “Fearing the Lord” = “Believing in Christ.” The God-fearer delights in the Commandments of the Lord. “Delight” means keep and obey. Jesus obeyed and delighted in the Ten Commandments and gives us His obedience. By faith in Jesus we have earned the promised consequence, blessedness. Blessed is that man in every way: physically, materially, spiritually, emotionally, relationally, mentally, and socially. The all-encompassing promise of “blessed be…” causes every believer to proclaim and exclaim daily: “I am blessed!”

The promise of blessing for those who fear the Lord is here given also for the children and children’s children of the God-fearing and faithful believers in Christ. There is blessed assurance in the security of eternal life that believers enjoy now, but there is even more blessed assurance in the knowledge that succeeding generations will remain faithful to the Lord and enjoy the eternal promises of life in Christ. Seeing and knowing people of God from our family’s previous and succeeding generations when we enjoy eternity together is one of the eternal blessings of faith in Christ.

Take hold of this promise and pray for blessing and salvation for children’s families unto the third and fourth generation of those who love Him.