A Psalm for Today: Psalms 37:4

A Psalm for Today: 37:4
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

 While many would quote this in reference to some material object they want, I believe it has a much greater implication than that. I have found that those things I delight in, I want more of. When God becomes our delight; He will also become our desire. Jesus said to seek first the kingdom and His righteousness and all these things ( food and raiment) would be added to us. It ...is more than material goods; it is His glorious presence. In His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore. God told Abraham that He was his exceeding great reward. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. David said "One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple." Can there be any greater desire than God Himself?

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 36:5,6

 Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep. O Lord, You preserve man and beast.

 The psalmist is using terms we can understand or picture to describe the vastness of God's attributes. How can we measure His great mercy, sufficient for as many as would come to Him in repentance? As Jeremiah said, " Great is thy faithfulness." He i...s faithful even when we are faithless. Most of us who have walked with the Lord a long time can testify of His great faithfulness. His righteousness is like the great mountains. Mountains represent governments. The government that overcame and survives all other governments is the kingdom of God. The stone cut out without hands became a mountain which filled the whole earth. Paul says the kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. The Lord ways are higher than our ways and past finding out. None of us is wise enough to be His counselor. The great deep is the depth of His wisdom which cannot be measured. Left to his own devices, man would destroy Himself and the animals, but God is the preserver of life and the giver of life and that more abundantly.

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 35:9,10

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 35:9,10
And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in His salvation. All my bones shall say, " Lord, who is like You, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, yes, the poor and needy from him who plunders him?"

 In this Psalm David is looking for vindication and deliverance from his enemies. We, too have enemies. Paul said our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. We see the enemy of our souls and his hierarchy seeking to destroy us. We were all poor and needy, oppressed of the devil, having no hope, but God. Jesus said," Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." To become poor in spirit is to recognize our need for God. Poverty is not measured by one's possessions or lack thereof.  A man can gain the whole world and lose his own soul. In Christ, God freely gives us all things. Our enemy was too strong for us, but through the finished work of Christ on the cross the plunderer has been plundered. Our soul can be joyful in the Lord, because we have received so great a salvation and the head of our enemy was crushed at Calvary.

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 34:9,10

 Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Psalms 34:9,10

 The reverential awe and awareness of God's presence at all times will guide a person's life. The Psalms and Proverbs both state that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The beginning means that it is a starting point and that there is more to come. The Lord has given great promises to those who fear Him. The fruit of a disciplined life is prosperity. Matthew 6;33 says to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things (food, raiment, etc.) would be added unto us. Our first priority is  to seek His rule, reign, and dominion in every area of our life and we will have everything that we need because there is no lack in the kingdom and our King owns it all.

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 33:11

The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations. Psalm 33:11

 God is not making it up as we go along. His plans will be fulfilled. There is not anything that takes Him by surprise. He is not in heaven wringing His hands. In Psalms 11, it asks the question," If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do? The next verse says, "The Lord is in His holy temple." He has not abdicated; He has not moved. His plans are... not changed. He knows the end from the beginning. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35 " Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words by no means will pass away." His counsel is sure and it does not lose its relevancy; it is as relevant to this generation as when it was first spoken. We can be at peace because our Father is still in control. You can trust Him with Your life, because His plans are good.

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 32:7

 You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Psalms32:7

 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3 Christ, Himself is our hiding place. Even as God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock, by faith, our position is in Christ seated at the right hand of the Father far above all rule and authority. Nothing shall by any means harm us. If our outer man perishes we have an eternal home with Him. It is wonderful to think about God singing over us. I don't know that this psalm is referencing the Lord singing over us, but we see in Zephaniah 3:17 "The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." One of the reactions to deliverance is great joy. In Psalms 126 it says that when God delivered Jacob they were like those who dream; they were laughing and joyfully singing. The Lord rejoices over us and the song he sings is a song of joy and gladness. He has defeated our enemies triumphing openly over them. We will join in the song of deliverance just as Israel sang on the opposite shore of the Red Sea, " I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously..."

A Psalm for Today: Psalms 31:19

 How great is Thy goodness which Thou has stored up for those who fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for those who take refuge in Thee, before the sons of men. Psalms 31:19


 There are many promises to those who fear the Lord. Some don't like to talk about the fear of the Lord because it appears to be contradictory to His approachability and His kindness. Jesus had the spirit of the fear of the Lord upon Him. The fear of the Lord is pure; it is clean. It doe...s not hinder us from approaching God. If we have been born again we can boldly approach His throne and receive mercy and find grace in our time of need. God is not in heaven waiting for you to mess up so he can swat You like a bug. He has given us the Holy Spirit that we may be empowered to live the Christ life. We can grieve the Holy Spirit and we can quench Him. In such cases we may lose the sensitivity and sense of His presence if we ignore or take lightly His promptings. One of the aspects of the fear of the Lord is not wanting to do anything that will cause us to lose the sense of His presence. Our position in Christ is that place of refuge. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ far above all rule and authority. We are hidden in the cleft of the rock. We have on the armor of God which is really being clothed in Christ. "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire." Hebrews 12:28, 29