SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/20/2012 9:27:45 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Strength for the Journey
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 119:153-160
Message of the verses: “153 ¶
Resh. Look upon my affliction and rescue me, For I do not forget Your
law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; Revive me according to Your word. 155 Salvation
is far from the wicked, For they do not seek Your statutes. 156 Great are Your
mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances. 157 Many are my
persecutors and my adversaries, Yet I do not turn aside from Your testimonies. 158
I behold the treacherous and loathe them, Because they do not keep Your word. 159
Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your
lovingkindness. 160 The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your
righteous ordinances is everlasting.”
We are
getting to the end of Psalm 119, and it has been a great journey for us to go
on, but the psalmist is realizing that as he nears the end of the Hebrew
alphabet that his trials would continue, and so will ours. The psalmist still needs help from the Lord
as he goes through trials, and he will draw that strength from God’s Law. Dr. Wiersbe states that the Christian life is
like the land of Canaan, for we read in Deuteronomy 11:11 these words, “’But
the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills
and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven.’” (Italics added) Yes the Christian life is full of hills and
valleys as we go to mountain top experiences and then are plunged down into the
valleys of life, but God is always the same and His Word is always the
same. One of the most dangerous times in
the life of the believer is after a mountain top experience, and we have to
remember this so that we are not defeated after a mountain top experience. I can say been there done that.
We see a
key phrase in this section that we have seen before and that phrase is “revive
me.” Dr Wiersbe points out that this
word means “give me life, lift me up and keep me going.” We as believers need to be revived many times
in our walk with the Lord and we must remember the statement from an old
Scottish Pastor who stated that “The successful Christian life is a series of
new beginnings.” Revival is a necessary
part of those new beginnings.
Revive me, for you are my Redeemer (vv.
153-155): “Look upon my affliction
and rescue me, For I do not forget Your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me;
Revive me according to Your word. 155 Salvation is far from the wicked, For
they do not seek Your statutes.”
One way to better understand the
Bible is to look at a concordance like the “Strongs Concordance,” where you can
look up a word and see how it is used in different part of the Bible. I am going to copy and paste verse 153
including the Strongs numbers and then copy and past Genesis 22:8 the same
way. “Look <07200> upon my
affliction <06040> and rescue <02502> me, For I do not forget
<07911> Your law <08451>.” “Abraham
<085> said <0559>, "God <0430> will provide <07200>
for Himself the lamb <07716> for the burnt <05930> offering
<05930>, my son <01121>." So the two <08147> of them
walked <01980> on together <03164>.” We see the number 07200 in both verses and
this helps us to understand what the psalmist is saying to the Lord. The meaning of the word is “The Lord will see
to it, and that is what Abraham is saying to his son Isaac when he asks where
the sacrifice is that they were going to sacrifice to the Lord. We know that our Lord not only sees our
afflictions but will see to them, providing what is needed. Now let us look at verse 154 and look at the
word redeem: “to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer, avenge, revenge, ransom, do
the part of a kinsman.” We know this
word from the book of Ruth as Boaz was the kinsman-redeemer for Ruth, but we
also know this word in the NT as Jesus Christ is our kinsman as he entered into
the human family and in the crucifixion Jesus paid the price to redeem us from
sin, death, and hell. The words plead [defend] my cause ties in with the Lord
Jesus Christ as our Kinsman Redeemer and He is also our Surety as seen in verse
122: “Be surety for Your servant for
good; Do not let the arrogant oppress me.”
Jesus is our Mediator, and He is our Advocate, who represents us before
the throne of God (1John 2:1-2): “1
¶ My little children, I am writing these
things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only,
but also for those of the whole world.”
Just as the psalmist knew that in his affliction the Lord would hear his
prayer and intercede for him, we can have that assurance too.
Revive me, for you are merciful (vv.
156-158): “. 156 Great are Your
mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances. 157 Many are my
persecutors and my adversaries, Yet I do not turn aside from Your testimonies. 158
I behold the treacherous and loathe them, Because they do not keep Your word.”
If we prayed to God on our own merit
we would not get to far, but Jesus told His disciples and they passed it on to
us that we are to pray in the name of Jesus and we are also to pray in the help
of the Spirit. “John 15:16, “’You did
not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear
fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father
in My name He may give to you.’” Romans
8:26-27, “26 ¶ In the same way the
Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray
as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with
groanings too deep for words; 27 and He
who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He
intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
We see in
this section that the psalmist was still disgusted with the way the unbelievers
were living, yet their bad habits did not change his own convictions, and that
is something that we need to remember when we see all the things that are going
on in our country today.
Revive me, for Your Word can be trusted
(vv. 159-160): “159 Consider how I love Your precepts;
Revive me, O LORD, according to Your lovingkindness. 160 The sum of Your word
is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”
We see the
wonderful promise of verse 160 stating that God’s Word can be trusted, and that
is because God can be trusted. Dr.
Wiersbe states “The totality of God’s written revelation is not just true—it is
truth.” He goes on to state “The Bible
is not a magic book that conveys divine life to anyone who picks it up and
reads it. God’s living Word communicates
His life and power to those who read it, meditate on it, and obey it because
the love God and His Word. When Jesus
raised the dead, it was through speaking the Word (Luke 7:11-17; 8:40-56; John
11:38-44; see John 5:24), and His Word give us life today when we find
ourselves in the dust (25).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: There are times in my life, and I suppose the
in the lives of others when we look for truth.
Pilate looked for truth when Jesus was on trial before Him, and the sad
fact is that he was looking Truth right in the face. I can know for certain that when I read the
Word of God that it is not just true, but it is Truth.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Remember that the Word of God
is not just true, but is the Truth.
Memory verses for the week:
1Cor. 13:1-7
1 If I speak
with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy
gong, or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the
gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all
faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed
the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love it
profits me nothing.
4 Love is
patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,
5 does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does
not take into an account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
9/20/2012 10:48:26 AM
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