Worthy of Praise

Posted on by korgrocker

“I love you, Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my saviour; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety. I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and he saved me from my enemies.”
Psalm 18:1-3 NLT

Just a few words in Psalm 18:3, but David succinctly recorded that the Lord had saved him from his enemies, and by the way, he said that the Lord “is worthy of praise”. The previous two verses detailed David’s experience of God and he expressed his love to the Lord, “the power that saves [him]”. David’s declaration of being saved from his enemies wasn’t just hopeful talk. It actually happened on a number of occasions, and David died of old age in his bed, safe to the end. Through the prophet Nathan, God said this, “Now go and say to my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has declared: I took you from tending sheep in the pasture and selected you to be the leader of my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have destroyed all your enemies before your eyes. Now I will make your name as famous as anyone who has ever lived on the earth!” (2 Samuel 7:8-9). In 2 Samuel 22:1 we find “David sang this song to the Lord on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul”, and the words of Psalm 18:1-3 follow. Before his encounter with Goliath, David said to Saul, “The Lord who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” Saul finally consented. “All right, go ahead,” he said. “And may the Lord be with you!”” (1 Samuel 17:37). And we know what happened next. David had much to thank and praise God for because even in the hardest times, the Lord was with him, as He promised.

What about us pilgrims? Do we also have much to praise and thank the Lord for? Of course we do, and we start at the Cross of Calvary. There the Son of God was crucified, taking on the punishment for sin that was rightly ours to bear. That in itself must surely drive us to our knees in an outburst of love, thanks and praise. Each of us individually is able to personally thank God for something he has done for us. Without that appreciation of our loving and gracious Heavenly Father, we might dare to think that something good that has happened to us was because of our own efforts. But we read the truth in James 1:17, “Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow“. 

So we pilgrims look to our Saviour God, deeply grateful for all He has done for us. Sometimes it’s worth sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil, and writing down all the ways God has blessed us. There is no end to them, if we’re honest. Sadly, we so often dwell on the larger blessings but overlook the many ways that God blesses us day by day. We start the day with a blessing because we have woken up, and have before us a day of opportunities in His service. But in it all, God is “worthy of praise”, not just because of His blessings but because He is God. Our loving, gracious, merciful Creator. None other is worthy of praise like our God.

Dear Loving Heavenly Father. We praise You today because You are worthy. There is no-one like you. Ever. Amen.

An Outburst of Praise

Posted on by korgrocker

“I love you, Lord; you are my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my saviour; my God is my rock, in whom I find protection. He is my shield, the power that saves me, and my place of safety.”
Psalm 18:1-2 NLT

The preamble to this Psalm records that David wrote it “on the day the Lord rescued him from all his enemies and from Saul”. But David didn’t just write it, he sang it. David was an extraordinarily gifted man, able to govern wisely, a giant killer, a musician, song writer and singer, and all because he was favoured by the Lord. If David was asked about all his gifts, I’m sure he would have pointed to Heaven and say it was all because of His Lord.  In these first two verses of Psalm 18, look at the words David used in his song of praise and thanks. He wrote that the Lord was his “strength“, his “rock”, his “fortress”, his “Saviour”, his “shield”, and he finishes with the Lord being “the power that saves [him], and [his] place of safety”.What an accolade! David would have been the sort of person who you wanted to have around in church, encouraging people in their faith.

There was a time when David lived for a time in a cave, an account which we can read in 1 Samuel 22, but the first two verses read, “So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. Soon his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there. Then others began coming—men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented—until David was the captain of about 400 men“. There was something about David that drew people to him, and even his oldest brother, Eliab, who was recorded as saying to David, “But when David’s oldest brother, Eliab, heard David talking to the men, he was angry. “What are you doing around here anyway?” he demanded. “What about those few sheep you’re supposed to be taking care of? I know about your pride and deceit. You just want to see the battle!”” (1 Samuel 17:28). There were some interesting family dynamics in David’s life!

But David was quick to credit the Lord with all His blessings so freely poured out on him. God was there for David through some difficult times and David was quick with his thankful responses to his Lord and God. Note though, that God didn’t take away the circumstances that David encountered in his life, but He did keep David safe within them. It is the same with all His people. We live in a sinful and wicked world, but that is how it is for human beings. Because of sin this world is a hostile place for God’s people, but as Jesus said to His disciples, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Think of all those people who have fallen away from the faith because they mistakenly thought God would save them from all their troubles. Instead of saving them from their troubles, God will save them within them. David knew that and we know from previous Psalms that he was always ranting about the wicked people, his enemies, who continually caused him grief, but in this Psalm David is singing his heart out with a song of praise and thankfulness.

What about us pilgrims? What problems are we facing into at the moment? Financial issues? Worries about our families? Anxieties about the state of the world, with the wars and famines? When Jesus said that he had “overcome the world” He proclaimed that He was bigger than anything we will find in this life. And in faith we can start to thank God for being for us all the things He was to David, who lived in a much more dangerous time than we do. So today, can I hear a chorus of praise and thanks to God, a song penetrating the dark fogs of 21st Century Planet Earth? Of course I can. We all can. Because we are the choir, practising for the time when we will indeed spend eternity praising the One who saved this sad, bad world.

Dear God. You have the world in which we live snuggled in the palm of Your hand, and in spite of all its sin and wickedness. Thank You for the assurance that You are standing with us through every circumstance. Amen.

Satisfied Hunger

Posted on by korgrocker

“Arise, O Lord! Stand against them, and bring them to their knees! Rescue me from the wicked with your sword! By the power of your hand, O Lord, destroy those who look to this world for their reward. But satisfy the hunger of your treasured ones. May their children have plenty, leaving an inheritance for their descendants. Because I am righteous, I will see you. When I awake, I will see you face to face and be satisfied.”
Psalm 17:13-15 NLT

Again, a theme of the difference between people who “look to this world for their reward” and God’s “treasured ones”, a difference between unbelievers and believers, finishes Psalm 17. At first glance, David would seem to be obsessed by God’s judgement of the wicked unbelievers, comparing them with the lot of the favoured believers, between those heading for a lost eternity, and those who will go to live with God forever. But then what could be more important? Compared to eternity, the life span of a human being is indeed infinitesimally short. James 4:14, “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone”. Eternity is a concept that is difficult to imagine, because humans are constrained in a temporal world, the result of sin with lives cut short in a cursed world, a world that, as Paul wrote in Romans 8:22, “ … has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time“. But in this world, the believers and unbelievers jostle along, side by side, heading for a final separation at the End of the Age. 

David wrote that the unbelievers, by their choices, will end up satisfied with the things of this world, a portion allotted to them as a reward for their brief life. In 1 Timothy 6:7, Paul wrote this to Timothy, “After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it“. That is the truth about temporal rewards. So many people spend their short lives trying to accumulate wealth, property, goods, and the things of this world, only to reflect on their death beds that none of it can go with them across the Great Divide. And we even find that such people find that their lives are shortened by the stresses and anxieties involved in the process. 

Jesus said, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be” (Matthew 6:19-21). We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”, echoing David’s prayer for God to “satisfy the hunger of [His] treasured ones”. Our “daily bread” isn’t just the food we eat of course. It also refers to our spiritual “bread”, the Word of God that sustains our souls. God’s food is a complete formula designed for the health and wellbeing of all. 

David finished Psalm 17 with the thought that one day he will wake up and see God’s face. I sometimes think of Lazarus, graveyard dead and who had been buried in a tomb four days previously. He was wrapped in grave-clothes, lying on a cold slab in a rock tomb, when suddenly through the cloth strips covering his ears, he heard someone calling his name with a loud voice. Jesus, of course, called out, “Lazarus, come forth” or probably more colloquially, “Lazarus, come out of there!” and that was enough to miraculously wake him up and completely reverse the decaying process. We next find Lazarus hopping his way out of the hole in the rock, constrained by the strips of cloth that had been tightly wrapped around him. I would have loved to have been there, seeing the reaction on people’s faces, but the thrust of this story is what it could mean for all believers one day. After we too have died, will the next thing we hear be the voice of Jesus calling our names? What applied to Lazarus will apply to us as well, because we too have been called out of darkness into God’s wonderful light. Lazarus woke up in a dark tomb to then continue his previous earthly life, having to die again one day, but we will wake up to a life with God, and, as David wrote, “be satisfied”. 

David was certain that because he was righteous then he will see God one day. We have the same assurance, because Jesus Himself gave us His righteousness in exchange for our sin. That momentous day on a hill called Calvary was enough for Jesus to take on all our sins, receiving the punishment that was ours to bear. And amazingly, because of Jesus, we will see God one day. Too good to be true? Too good not to be.

Dear Father God. Thank You for Your Son Jesus and all He did for us. May we live our lives honouring to You, day by day. Amen.

Guard, Hide and Protect

Posted on by korgrocker

“Guard me as you would guard your own eyes. Hide me in the shadow of your wings. Protect me from wicked people who attack me, from murderous enemies who surround me. They are without pity. Listen to their boasting! They track me down and surround me, watching for the chance to throw me to the ground. They are like hungry lions, eager to tear me apart— like young lions hiding in ambush.”
Psalm 17:8-12 NLT

Five verses this morning, all focused on David’s prayer for God’s protection in the face of his attackers. But we get the sense that these are not foreign nations, attacking David and his people. These enemies of his seem intent on causing David harm personally, and he describes them as being wicked, murderous, pitiless, boasters, and like hungry lions, “eager to tear [him] apart”. 

The Amplified version of the Bible translates Psalm 17:8 as, “Keep me [in Your affectionate care, protect me] as the apple of Your eye; Hide me in the [protective] shadow of Your wings”. The phrase, “as the apple of your eye” is a lovely expression of love and care that conjures up a picture of how much the Lord thought of David, and the dictionary definition refers to something or someone that one cherishes above all others. It signifies a person who holds a special place in someone’s heart. That was what the Lord thought of David. During a conversation between the prophet Samuel and King Saul, Samuel said to him, “But now your kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart. The Lord has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Samuel 13:14). 

The NLT version of the Bible interprets Psalm 17:8 from a different perspective. We all know what happens when something is heading for our eyes. A reflex action results as we endeavour to protect our eyes from damage. And so David is once again praying for God’s protection from people around him, probably his own people, who are verbally and physically guilty of assaulting him. It may have been during the rebellion of David’s son Absalom and we read in 2 Samuel 15:13, “A messenger soon arrived in Jerusalem to tell David, “All Israel has joined Absalom in a conspiracy against you!””. Sad days for David, when even his own son became one of those people intent on overthrowing his reign in Israel. 

But today, we pilgrims may or may not have people around us intent on doing us harm, to our reputations, to our relationships, even to our families. But even if not we always need God’s protection from our enemies in heavenly places, those spiritual beings that propagate evil and wickedness throughout the world. There are many, of course, in our societies who fail to understand and recognise the spiritual realm. They have an internal impression, perhaps, of there being something in another dimension, with feelings that emerge during a funeral, or when they walk past a church building. They briefly pause but shrug off any thoughts of God or the devil, as irrelevant to their lives. The devil and his minions are unconcerned about such people, and instead focus their malignant attacks on the children of God, who believe in the Creator of all. The attacks can be subtle, as they were with Eve in the Garden – “surely God didn’t say …”. He introduces doubts into our minds. He seeks to divert us from our faith. He introduces error so imperceptibly and so slowly that the unwary amongst us fail to recognise the danger. But we pilgrims have all of God’s weapons at our disposal and through prayer, through reading the Bible, through fellowship with other Christians – in fact, we have all the resources we need to thwart the attacks of the enemy. With God on our side, guarding our hearts and minds, hiding us under His wings, we have all the protection we need.

We pray, “deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s prayer, and God will answer that prayer, as we are obedient to whatever He says and directs. So a sinful thought or image emerges in our minds and we immediately shut it down in our thinking. A TV programme attracts our eyes and we immediately reach for the off button on the remote. A media report promotes a particular belief and we immediately look elsewhere, back to God. As children of God we live in a different Kingdom, one in which the devil and his angels cannot enter. There is no sin and wickedness there. Yes, we have to live in the kingdom of the world for a while, but in all that we avoid being tarnished by its wickedness. Jesus prayed for His disciples, and for us by association, in John 17, “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold” (John 17:9-12). We pilgrims are protected by “the power of [His] Name”. as the song says, “There is power in the name of Jesus”, and indeed there is.

We find in Mark 3:11, “And whenever those possessed by evil spirits caught sight of him, the spirits would throw them to the ground in front of him shrieking, “You are the Son of God!”” Any inhabitants of the kingdom of darkness had no choice but to obey Jesus. Even His name was enough to cause them to flee from Him. But it wasn’t just Jesus who had the power. We read from Luke 10:17, “When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!””

The Lord will protect us. Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:3, “But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.” It says that in the Bible, folks, so when we feel under attack and exposed in a place we would rather not be, we look up and see the One who guards, hides and protects us. He will never let us down.

Father God. What can we say but a big thank You, to the One who loves and cares for us, each and every day. Amen.


Wonderful Ways

Posted on by korgrocker

“I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray. Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.”
Psalm 17:6-7 NLT

Where was David when he was praying these verses? My imagination takes me this morning to a holy place where a lonely figure is standing in an attitude of prayer, his hands raised with a face turned upwards towards Heaven. Perhaps the figure was fearful of the threats of the warring nations around him. Perhaps he was even surrounded by his enemies who were intent on capture or death. But regardless, he was standing in the presence of the Lord God of Israel, the Creator of Heaven and earth. He was the same Lord who had parted the Red Sea and brought His people through on dry land, destroying the Egyptian army in the process. The same Lord who had miraculously fed an entire nation with something called manna for forty years. And more recently, the same Lord who had directed a pebble into the unprotected forehead of a Philistine giant, a pebble slung from a weapon carried by the lonely figure standing there in an attitude of prayer and worship. 

David would have been aware of the writings of Moses, and of God’s love for His people. Deuteronomy 10:15, “Yet the Lord chose your ancestors as the objects of his love. And he chose you, their descendants, above all other nations, as is evident today”. David knew that his Lord loved him. All those days and nights spent in the wilderness looking after his father’s sheep had assured him of God’s love. He had no doubts, and answered prayers had bolstered his knowledge of God’s love to the point that he looked to God, expecting Him to do wonderful things for him, things desperately needed because of the predicament he was in. After all, he thought, who would have expected God to do such wonderful deeds for a group of Israelite slaves many years before? 

David did not have God constrained in a box of his own making, boundaries applied through his human thinking. He had an expectation that God had some “wonderful ways” ready and waiting to be applied to David’s predicament. What was his expectation of God? A miracle on the battlefield? Another Goliath moment? Another parting of a sea of adversity as he stood on the banks of danger before it? David wasn’t specific – he just looked to God in faith, his hands raised in prayer and worship. His upturned face shining in the light of his Lord.

But here we are, pilgrims in another world. We may not be surrounded by physical threats. We may not be in a place of danger, “seek[ing] refuge from [our] enemies”. Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places”. God has provided for us a rich armoury of spiritual weapons, more than capable of protecting us from such enemies. We know, like David, that God loves us with a perfect and eternal love, that will never end. And He has equipped us for all that we are likely to encounter in our journey to glory. But there is a little verse that intrigues and challenges us, a verse that David knew something about many years before it was written. Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:20 (AMP), “Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us“. We pilgrims have God’s power within us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Power just waiting to be released as God directs, and unconstrained by our human thinking. The power that parted the Red Sea. The power that fed a nation for a generation.  The power that David prayed about in his prayer for God to “show … His wonderful ways”. 

We pilgrims are a people of power through God’s Spirit within us. We sing about it in our worship services. But do we really believe it? So let us pray like David did today, for God to show us His “wonderful ways” in response to all that is happening in our lives and around us. These are times that really need a manifestation of God’s power, power to save the world in which we live.

Dear God. We sing about You “building a people of power” but we confess our lack of faith and belief in these words. Please help us, we pray, as we go about doing Your work today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Prayerful Assurance

Posted on by korgrocker

“I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I pray. Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways. By your mighty power you rescue those who seek refuge from their enemies.”
Psalm 17:6-7 NLT

David expressed his assurance about his prayer life. Put simply, he prayed because he knew God would answer him. There is something about prayer that people misunderstand. We have our liturgical prayer books such as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Or we can soon find books of prayers overflowing with feel-good poetry. And of course we have the Psalms, a wonderful God-inspired resource written many years ago. A dignitary might write down a prayer when asked to open an assembly, and we have the time of prayers at a school assembly. But prayer has become to many a stilted and flowery statement rather than what it should be – part of conversation with God. In a human setting, two people will engage in a conversation and will talk to each other in a way that communicates their thoughts and feelings, opinions and fears. Human communication is very much a two-way process of talking and listening, as issues are discussed and even problems resolved. But somehow we struggle to communicate with God. It could be that we can’t see Him. Or because He may not respond in a way that we need Him to, so that the conversation can continue. And so we have devised a process called prayer, a one-sided verbalisation of our needs and wants that we launch into the air like paper aeroplanes in the hope that one of them will fly all the way to God’s throne and He will pick it up and answer. Some people get quite good at praying, with long monologues full of “thee’s” and “thou’s”, spontaneously spoken out in a church meeting, and afterwards they feel quite good about themselves, considering the job done. A cynical view? Perhaps, but even Jesus’ disciples struggled with prayer – it’s not a new thing that only modern believers suffer from.

Conversation with God is what prayer is really all about, and, like any other conversation, it is two-sided. David was assured of that, because he knew confidently that God answered his prayers. But what do we pilgrims expect when we pray? Are we equally as confident that God will answer our prayers?

Part of a conversation between two people is a getting-to-know-you process. The way another person responds to a question, or reacts to a statement, exposes their inner person and contributes to a relational process that either grows well, even into friendship, or it brings the conversation to a speedy end with incompatible differences. We can’t ask God direct questions about Himself, but all the information we need is contained within His Word, the Bible. And the more we read it, the more we will find out about our wonderful God.

Jesus taught about prayer in His Sermon on the Mount. We read in Matthew 6:5-6, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get. But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you”. Jesus continued, “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!” And then we have what we call the Lord’s Prayer, a template for praying the God way. Matthew 6: 9-13, “Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one“. How many times have we recited that prayer in a church service, words that we know from memory, but what do they really mean in practice? Jesus didn’t say that His prayer was all that there was. He said “Pray like this …”. There’s worship here, gratitude, expression of needs, an appeal for God to touch earth once again, a confession of sins, and protection from evil. Not a complete list of tick boxes, but an outline to which we add our own flavour, seasoned by our relationship with God.

With regard to his prayer life, David was a simple soul. He spoke out his fears and his needs. He reminded God of His obligations. He ranted and raved at God when under duress, emotional outbursts that we wouldn’t dare repeat in case we upset God. But David knew His Lord, and could confidently say that his prayers were answered. How about us pilgrims? Are we just was confident or merely going through the motions? But one thing we do know is that at the start of the day we need to get close to God. It may not always be convenient. Some days we won’t even feel like it, preferring to have extra time in bed. But the more we spend time with God in prayer, the more we will find that he respond to our stuttering verbalisations, giving us the assurance we need in times of need. The assurance we receive from God is indeed blessed.

Dear Father God. Once again we come to You in worship and with thankful hearts. We know that You are there for us, each and every moment, leading, guiding and assuring us on every step of our pilgrimage to Heaven. Amen.

Passing the Exam

Posted on by korgrocker

“You have tested my thoughts and examined my heart in the night. You have scrutinized me and found nothing wrong. I am determined not to sin in what I say. I have followed your commands, which keep me from following cruel and evil people. My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.”
Psalm 17:3-5 NLT

David points out to God several ways in which he claims he has achieved perfection. God, he says, “You have scrutinised me and found nothing wrong“. David said his speech is sinless and his following of God’s commands faultless. But who can ever make such claims as these? Is David stating facts or is he self-deluded? The one theme threading through these verses today is that David is doing nothing that will cause God to censor him. He is ticking all the boxes required of a follower of God. Of course, that was how God created human beings, sinless beings who would follow Him and would fellowship with Him forever. But after sin entered the world, everything went wrong and God, the perfect sinless and holy Being, had to recoil from contact with His creation and their new-found desire for sin and evil. They had become tarnished and polluted by sin to the point that their evil and wicked ways created an impenetrable barrier between God and man. But there were Davids around in every generation. People who were determined to follow God and His ways, and aspire to be sinless in their thoughts and behaviour.

God gave His people, through men like Moses, laws and regulations that defined how His people should behave, in the hope that this would resolve the problem of sin. And for many it did, with Godly men and women following Him faithfully all their lives, but as we know, the animal sacrifices were replaced by the ultimate sacrifice, God’s Son Himself. Jesus died, taking on the punishment for sin that was ours to bear, so that we could be covered by His righteousness and able to come into God’s presence, pure and holy, acceptable in His sight. So our thoughts and deeds are cleansed by the Blood of Jesus, and we can claim correctly that we are truly without sin.

If only that was how things were going to stay. Sin is always waiting for an opportunity to destroy the perfection God intended. In Genesis 4:7 God said to Cain, “You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master“. But our redeemed hearts and minds are constantly being tempted by sinful desires. The Apostle James wrote, “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15). Peter also gave a warning, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith …” (1 Peter 5:8-9a). We pilgrims, like David, live in a hostile environment, where there is always something or someone trying to pull us back into the sinful ways of the world. The battle is incessant, and if it wasn’t for Jesus, it would have been unwinnable. 

We pilgrims must regularly pray David’s prayer at the end of psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. It’s a dangerous prayer to pray, in that something might, in fact it probably will, bubble up to the surface and stare us in the face. We find yet another crossroads in our lives. The way of sin to the left, the way of God to the right. Which path do we take? We know which way we should go, but it’s difficult and costly. At this point so many of God’s people camp out, unable to move on, deferring the decision for as long as possible. Other people take a left turn, hoping for a miracle to happen, with the sin that is consuming us disappearing. However, they are more likely to find the left path circles around and brings us back to the crossroads with the same sin still there. Even more sinners will find that God introduces some discipline. Proverbs 3:11-12, “My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you. For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights“. God may even allow us to face the consequences of the sin, forcing us to stop procrastinating and instead make us deal with it.

But in it all, we pilgrims are on a journey to Heaven and some of us can see a glow in the sky before us. God wants us to be holy like His Son Jesus, and our journeys we call sanctification. Of course, we will never succeed in our own strength, and it is only by allowing God to work within us that we can clean up our lives, leading us to claim as David did that He has “scrutinised [us] and found nothing wrong“. But we are human and we keep short accounts with God, confessing our sins when we do wrong. And His peace and acceptance will flood over us, once again.

Dear Father God. You see our hearts and we pray that You indeed bring to the surface anything that shouldn’t be there. We’re so grateful for Your love and grace, bountifully available to all who call upon You. Amen.

Justice

Posted on by korgrocker

“O Lord, hear my plea for justice. Listen to my cry for help. Pay attention to my prayer, for it comes from honest lips. Declare me innocent, for you see those who do right.”
Psalm 17:1-2 NLT

We start our journey through another of David’s Psalms, and we find that in Psalm 17 David is pleading “for justice”. In the first verse David asks God to respond to “my plea”, “my cry”, and “my prayer”, so David is setting out his attempts to find justice at the hands of the honest and righteous Judge. It would seem that David is being falsely accused of something and he wants God to vindicate him because, as he reminds God, he is innocent and praying with “honest lips”. 

In many ways our societies today are no different to David’s times, because human nature is riddled with sin, and selfish desires will never be far away. We read the media reports and find that our world seems to be fast losing its moral, God-based, compass, and is becoming more and more confused about what is right and wrong. We find parents who are confused themselves and they are bringing up children equally confused, compounding the problem. A society that has turned its back on God will soon find that justice and righteousness are scarce commodities.  

But in it all, we know that there is a God in Heaven who sees all. He knows when justice is being eroded. He knows who is guilty and who is innocent. And He listens to prayers that cry out for wrongs and injustices to be corrected. Here in the UK the majority of our laws are based on our Judeo-Christian roots, and most cases that end up before a judge are resolved righteously. But there are still some cases that warrant anguished prayers for justice, because innocent people are suffering a wrong. 

We pilgrims pray when we observe a lack of righteousness in our societies. In Psalm 7:11, we read, “God is an honest judge. He is angry with the wicked every day“. We pray that God’s anger is focused on righting the wrongs that blight our society. We pray for those who have been falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit. We pray that laws already passed and those that are still being considered, those that are potentially unrighteous, will be repealed and corrected. We pray for the people who have lost their moral way, and are doing what they consider to be right, in error because they are guided by their own skewed standards. And God will hear our prayers and sooner or later the wrongs will be righted.

But we pilgrims must be careful that we pray with a heart free from sin and from a position of innocence. In Psalm 66:18-19 we read, “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer.” It is easy to take up a cause that, superficially, looks righteous, but inside it contains a different agenda. God  looks on with a holistic view that sees right into the hearts of those involved, so perhaps a starting prayer is to ask God to reveal to us what He, the righteous Judge, sees in it all. Prayers that align with God are powerful prayers indeed, and when He pays attention, righteousness will result. It might not happen quickly. It might not bring about the outcome we expect. But God “sees those who do right”, even us if it applies, and justice will be served.

Dear Father God. You are indeed the Righteous Judge who sees all and will administer justice sooner otherwise later. We trust in Your perfect love and righteousness, and worship You today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Grave Thoughts

Posted on by korgrocker

“No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.”
Psalm 16:9-11 NLT

David was in a good place, assured of God’s presence in his life, assured for his future beyond the grave, and experiencing spiritual blessings with a “glad heart” and “the joy of [His] presence”. 

David also had a prophetic glimpse of what was to come, when Jesus came to this world. We fast forward to when Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch and Paul was preaching in the local synagogue with a message entwining Jewish history with the message of salvation through Jesus, their Messiah. Paul referred to Psalm 16:10 and then explained why David’s prophesy was for Someone else. He said, “Another psalm explains it more fully: ‘You will not allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.’ This is not a reference to David, for after David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died and was buried with his ancestors, and his body decayed. No, it was a reference to someone else—someone whom God raised and whose body did not decay” (Acts 13:35-37). In those years before Christ, I wonder what the Jews made of David’s statement, because they would have been there when David died and was buried, and his body decayed in the tomb like anyone else’s did. Come to that, I wonder what the Jews today, who don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah, make of this prophesy.

David wasn’t fearful of death, because he was totally secure in his relationship with God, and because of that he was assured that God would look after him beyond the grave. The Hebrews believed that after death, a person’s soul ended up in the Place of the Dead, or Sheol. But David faithfully believed that God wouldn’t let his soul stay there because he was looking forward to “the pleasures of living with [God] forever”. 

We Christian pilgrims needn’t be afraid of death either because we have been promised that we will spend eternity with Jesus. We will migrate from this evil world, with all its sin and wickedness, into a place of God’s glory, a place of holiness and purity. Jesus said, as we know so well,  “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Yes, our physical bodies will be left behind on Planet Earth, where they will eventually be subsumed back to their constituent parts, one way or another, but our souls will live forever in the presence of the Lord. Jesus said to His disciples, and by association to us as well, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am”(John 14:1-3). Jesus never told a lie, because he was the perfect sinless Man, so He would not have said something that was untrue. 

We pilgrims trust in the Lord. What David prophesised about the Holy One’s body came to pass on the first Easter Sunday and the tomb is empty. There is no body rotting away there. No tell tale bones. And in front of witnesses, that Body rose up into the heavens before them, as we read in Acts 1:9, “After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him”. We have faith that there is a Man with a resurrected body in Heaven just now, busily preparing our new home. Like David, we believers won’t find ourselves in the Place of the Dead either after we die. Sheol (or Hades in the Greek) is the place for souls that don’t know Jesus, There is no point in them being in Heaven because it is a place that they know nothing about, a place where they cannot enter because of their unconfessed sins, a place of torment as they mull over their missed opportunity.

For most people, those who don’t know Jesus, the reality of the Place of the Dead should inspire “grave thoughts” indeed, but it needn’t be that way. We pray for our unsaved friends and family, that they too will know the “joy of [His] presence”. 

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for Jesus, the Holy One anticipated by David all those years before he was born. We pray for our families that they too will come to know Him. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

The Lord’s Guidance

Posted on by korgrocker

“I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me. I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety.”
Psalm 16:7-9 NLT

Have we pilgrims ever woken up in the morning with the answer to a difficult and seemingly insoluble problem solved, and in the front of our minds? Well, the answer is here before us today. David wrote “even at night my heart instructs me”. How can that happen? Well, we might spend the night sleeping but our wonderful God doesn’t. Psalm 121:3,“He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber“. God is awake and watching over us, night after night. We may toss and turn, fretting over the problem, but quietly and in the background, the Lord is working, and sorting things out for us – if we let Him. And here’s the thing. Why is it that we so often turn to God as a last resort instead of praying, asking for help, and, in faith, sleeping peacefully while God works things out for us. Of course, the solution He gives us might not be the one we would ideally like, but if we trust Him then He will resolve the issues.

David writes some wonderful promises of God in these two verses before us today. The Lord guides us, He is always with us. He is right beside us, and through all of that, we will not be shaken. What a wonderful picture of God’s care for each one of His children. David had no doubts because he knew, a positive statement of fact.

And because of these promises, David “bless[ed] the Lord”. How did he do that? By his praise, his worship. His prayers, his faith, his obedience – in fact by acknowledging all that God had done for him and for all His wonderful attributes. David had a close relationship with God, so close that as he went about his business he was conscious of God beside him, leading and guiding. Was this just for David and the saints of old, and not for us? Was a personal relationship with God just for the times long ago and not applicable in today’s world? Of course not because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), and if that is true of God’s Son then it must be true of Father God as well. 

So, how do we develop a personal relationship with God, as David did? It starts at the Cross of Calvary, where God’s Son Jesus died instead of us taking on the punishment for our sins personally. We confess our need for Him, admitting that we are sinners, and in faith look to Jesus as our Saviour. But this is not to be just a one-off experience. We then need to develop a personal relationship with Him, by prayer and reading all about Him in His only written Book, the Bible. Like David, we spend time with God, including Him in our daily lives, in our decisions, in how we relate to those around us, in our jobs and schools, and not just on a Sunday. It’s a day by day thing. And we find that the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. In John 14:16-17, Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you”. And, of course, we can’t do all of this on our own, because we must join a Bible-believing church where fellow believers can help us to grow spiritually. 

Of course, our relationships with God don’t end with the grave, and we know that we continue to live with God, enjoying eternal life with Him forever. I had the privilege of being able to pray with a dear lady lying in a hospital bed, in her last hours yesterday. She had had a life full of troubles and problems but through them all, she had remained firm and vibrant in her faith in the Lord. And as my wife and I prayed, the peace that came over her was remarkable. She received a glimpse of Jesus, I’m sure, a preview of what was to come just two or three hours later. What a wonderful God we serve, and, as David did, we bless Him today, and every day.

Thank You Father, that You are with us day by day, Your presence always there. Amen.