SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/23/2012
11:08:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 139
PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation
Reference: Psalm 139:7-18
Message of
the verses: We will continue looking at the 139th
Psalm in Today’s Spiritual Diary.
God Is with Us Constantly—We Cannot Escape Him (vv.
7-12): “
7 ¶ Where can I go from Your
Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I
make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. 9
If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the
sea, 10 Even there Your hand will lead
me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me. 11
If I say, "Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light
around me will be night," 12 Even
the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness
and light are alike to You.”
We begin this section by seeing that God’s omnipresence is
seen in this section, which of course is one of the attributes of God.
I can’t help but think that the prophet Jonah should have
read this psalm before he decided that he could run away from God, but if he
did read it he surely forgot it and tried to run away from God anyway. He went from a bad situation to a worse
situation, and then back to a bad situation.
God does not want us to try and run from Him, but he
wants us to have His best, and running away is not what we should do. Dr. Wiersbe writes “We need God’s presence
with us if we want to enjoy His love and fulfill His purposes.”
God Made Us Wonderfully—We Cannot Ignore Him (vv. 13-18): “13
For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very
well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in
secret, And
skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; 16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all
written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of
them. 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is
the sum of them! 18 If I should count
them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You.”
Dr. Wiersbe points out that this is one of the
greatest passages in literature about the miracle of human conception and
birth. A friend of mine has just
welcomed another grand-child into the world earlier this week and he told me that
you can never get over the wonderful miracle of birth. Eugene Petersen states “In the presence of
birth we don’t calculate—we marvel.” I
think this is what my friend was doing.
We have a huge problem in our world and that is abortion,
I have heard that there are around 50 million abortions a year that happen
around the world. When one looks at this
passage and thinks about the great marvel of conception and then the way that
the baby is formed inside the mother’s womb and then to think that someone
could stop that life because of convenience sake is unthinkable for abortion
stops a beating heart.
In
verse 13 we see the word “woven” and this word means woven together, for the
Lord causes all to be woven together in the exact way that He desires for
them. David stated that God is
everywhere, and that is because He is Spirit and so it should be no surprise to
us to see that He is involved in all processes of forming our bodies while in
our mother’s womb.
God
did more than design our bodies for He also planed out and He determined our
days. This is an interesting subject for
us to look at, one that I am sure has different opinions, but I surely agree
with Dr. Wiersbe, and that should come at no great surprise. He states, “This probably includes the length
of life (Job. 14:5), ‘Since
his days are determined, The number of his months is with You; And his limits
You have set so that he cannot pass.’
And the tasks He wants us to perform (Eph. 2:10; Phil 2:12-13), “10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in
them.’ ‘12 ¶ So then, my beloved, just as you have always
obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out
your salvation with fear and trembling; 13
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His
good pleasure.’ This is not some form of
fatalism or heartless predestination, for what we are and what He plans for us
come from God’s loving heart (Psalm 33:11) and are the very best He has for us
(Rom. 12:2) “2 And do not be conformed
to this world, but be transformed
by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which
is good and acceptable and perfect.’ –How can we ignore God when He has given
us such a marvelous body and planned for us a wonderful life? Life is not a prison, it is an exciting
pilgrimage, and the Lord
has prepared us for what He prepared for us.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Much to
think about from these two sections, and much to praise the Lord about from
these two sections too. To think that
God formed me in my mother’s womb, and to think that He planned all my days
with things to do that will bring glory to Him is overwhelming to me. I have said before that Ephesians 2:10 is a
verse with great meaning to me because in it I see that God has planned in
eternity past works for me to do, and I desire to do all those works. Sin can hinder my path, but there is
forgiveness with the Lord as seen in my memory verses for this week. I think that God can cause some of His
children to leave this earth before they finish their course as evidenced from
the story in Acts chapter 5, and what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in first
Cor. 11, but as Dr. Wiersbe states “If we live foolishly, we might die before
the time God has ordained, but God’s faithful children are immortal until their
work is done.”
My Steps of Faith for Today: Continue to learn contentment, and continue
to be transformed by the renewing of my mind.
Memory verses for the
week: Psalm 130:1-5
1 Out of the debts I cried to You, O LORD. 2 O Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my
supplications. 3 If You, Lord should
mark iniquities, O Lord who, could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His Word
do I hope.
11/23/2012 12:39:52 PM
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