Archive | December 2014

Psalms 13

Dec8

Good morning y’all. Happy Monday :). Today we are in Psalm 13. This psalm has only 6 verses, but there is a lot in those six verses :).

I pray for as many that are going through a tough situation, that God will comfort you through this psalm. He will help you know that He is nearer than you can imagine. He will open your eyes to see him working on your behalf. He will wrap his arms of love around you. In Jesus Name. Amen

I am reading today’s psalm from the Good News Translation.

Be blessed 🙂

Psalm 13:1-2 : How much longer will you forget me, Lord? Forever? How much longer will you hide yourself from me?  How long must I endure trouble? How long will sorrow fill my heart day and night? How long will my enemies triumph over me?

Here, David was in distress. We see a man who is weak and tired; a man who feels forgotten. He is asking God “how much longer will you forget me…”. That statement makes me believe David has been praying and asking God for a particular thing and it seems to him, God is not forthcoming; it seems God is hiding from him. He felt deserted by His God.

I can relate with David in this psalm. There are moments in my life that I ask God the same question David did here. It feels like God has left town and completely forgot about me. I don’t know if you are in the same situation today, I want you to know this morning that God has not forgotten you. His silence doesn’t mean He has moved shop. God is still God and He can never lie nor fail.

It’s not a bad thing to tell God how we feel or ask him what’s going on. What we shouldn’t do, is dwell on the negatives and wallow in self pity. David was sincere and honest with God. He wasn’t pretending at all or lying to God about his feelings. He took his feelings to the ONE he knew could help. He turned to God in all sincerity and brokenness. He told God exactly how he felt. I want to encourage us today to be open and honest with God. I believe this is one of the reasons why God said David is a man after his own heart. He wasn’t doing eye service or pretending with God. His relationship with God was real. He was honest to God about his feelings.

David wanted to know timing. Isn’t that what we all want? Most times its not that we question whether God can answer or will answer our prayer. Our greatest question is WHEN will He do it. And that was the same for David in this psalm. It wasn’t a case of him doubting God’s ability to deliver him but that of When God will you deliver. When is this salvation going to come? When am I going to get healed? When is the husband or wife or children you promised me coming? When will I get the promotion?

Is it a case that God himself doesn’t know when it will happen? No, that’s not the case! GOD knows everything. He even knows the end from the beginning. The reason why God doesn’t always tell us when, is because He wants us to learn to trust him even when we don’t know the full details . He wants us to believe that He has good plans for us and won’t fail us. He wants us to know that our future is secured and safe in him.

Look at Abraham,  God didn’t tell him when the promise will come to pass, all he was told is that He would have a son. He waited 25yrs for that promise to be fulfilled. He knew God who promised was faithful. Now, does that mean he didn’t have doubts along the way? Oh! yes he did. He got with Hagar and had Ishmael. Even when the 3 angels came, and they reiterated the promise again, he laughed at them, yet Romans 4:18 tell us that Abraham hoped against hope. He trusted God and it was counted unto him as righteousness (Romans 4:3).

Another point I want to stress here, is that those verses are all about feelings. David felt forgotten, he felt God was hiding his face. Now, does that mean His feelings were a true reflection of the truth? No, what he felt and what is true are two completely different things. The truth is that God never leaves us or forgets us even though we might feel that way. Isaiah 49:15 puts it this way: “…Can a woman forget her own baby and not love the child she bore? Even if a mother should forget her child, I will never forget you“.

What more do we need to hear God tell us this morning, for us to know how special we are to him. This is the Creator of the universe; The Almighty God; the One who spoke and it all came to existence telling us that He will never forget us or forsake us. He even went as far as saying in verse 16 of the same Isaiah 49 that “I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” ! (I’m excited 🙂 )

Friends, let’s be honest and open with God. There is no need to hide from him. Truth is He already knows how we feel but He needs us to talk to him. Let him know what’s on our mind and ask for his help and the grace to trust him more.

Oh! I am so glad the psalm didn’t end with verse 1 and 2. Let’s see what David did after questioning God regarding the timing of his suffering,

Psalm 13:3-4: Look at me, O Lord my God, and answer me. Restore my strength; don’t let me die.  Don’t let my enemies say, “We have defeated him.” Don’t let them gloat over my downfall.

David is asking God to look at him because he feels God is hiding from him. Petitioning him to turn his face towards him and answer him so that his enemies won’t gloat over his downfall.

David must have been weary and tired from all the stress and trouble he was facing. He knew God was the only one who could restore his strength. He also didn’t want to die; he wanted to continue living but not with all the troubles surrounding him and he felt if God didn’t answer him on time, he was going to die

In verse 4, he didnt want his enemies to think they have won. He needed God to show up to silence his mockers. He didn’t want them to think His God didn’t have any power, hence why he was petitioning God

Friends, we can’t give up on God. It is not over until God says so. Cry out to him and He will surely answer us. He won’t allow our enemies triumph over us.

Psalm 13:5-6: I rely on your constant love; I will be glad, because you will rescue me.  I will sing to you, O Lord, because you have been good to me.

Notice, how Davids tune has changed in these verses. This is now a man that knows his God is on His way to rescue him; a man that has been encouraged and confident in his God’s ability to save and deliver him; a man expressing his faith and trust in God.

Friends, it’s time we start encouraging ourselves in God. Lets start telling our situation how big our God is. That’s what David was doing here.

Let’s expand a bit more on his words in verse 5 and 6

“I rely on your constant love…” –  Here is a man who in verse 1 said he was forgotten and 5 verses later, he is saying he relies on Gods constant love. Focus on the word constant pls. According to google,  constant means ‘a situation that never changes’. That is, Gods love is always the same no matter what time or day or year it is. Irrespective of our feelings God’s love is constant! 🙂

“I will be glad because you will rescue me….” – oh my! oh my! see how confident David is here. What a drastic change from verse 1 and 2. He is making a choice to be glad. Notice he didn’t say, I will be glad after you rescue me, he said “I will be glad because i know you will rescue me:. David wasnt going to wait to be glad after the promise was fulfilled. No, he chose to be glad even while waiting cos his confidence, is that his God will rescue him.

Where and what is your confidence based on today? David could bodly proclaim “I will be glad…”, cos he knew and had a relationship with his God. We too can know this God and experience the kind of gladness, David had while he was waiting for his answer.

We have a choice to make: either to continue in self pity or to start praising God in advance for the victory. Bible tells us ‘God inhabits the praises of his people’. That is, when we praise him, He shows up and comes right down into the situation. I once heard a pastor say praise brings God down. Friends, praise your way through today. Decide to praise instead of complain. I am reminded of Paul and Silas while in the prison. They praised their way through, till the prison doors shook and opened for them (Acts 16:25-34).

“I will sing because you have been good to me…” – again a choice to be happy cos he could see God’s goodness in his life. How many of us stop to thank God for all He has done. We let the things He hasn’t yet done, take away our joy and thanksgiving for the ones He has done. If not for Him, where would we be and what would have happened to us.

Friends, God has been good to you. The fact that you are alive today and able to read this blog is enough proof that God is good to you. Some people didn’t get a chance to wake up this morning or some did and are paralysed or even in hospital.  So you have every cause to thank God.

What are you waiting for? Come on! get to praising your God 🙂

Prayer:
Dear Lord we thank you for today. Thank you for your love that is constant in our lives. Give us the grace to trust you more. Thank you Jesus. In Jesus Name. Amen.

Thank you for joining today.

Have a blessed day 🙂

***With God all things are possible***

Psalms 12

Dec5

Good afternoon y’all. Aplogies today’s blog is coming a bit later than usual.

We are looking at Psalms 12 and I’m reading from The Living Bible translation.

Be blessed 🙂

1 Lord! Help! Godly men are fast disappearing. Where in all the world can dependable men be found? 2 Everyone deceives and flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left.

David begins this psalm by crying out to God for help, “Lord, help…”. He was desperate for help. He knew to run to the only one who has the power to help him. He wasn’t looking to man for help, rather to God.

Who or where do we run to when we need help? Man’s help will fail us but God has promised to always be there for us when we call to him. Psalm 121:1-2 says “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my hero,  my help comes from the Lord the one who made heaven and earth”.
I pray we will always remember to turn to God at all times. Not only when we are in trouble but even when things are going good. We will learn to include him in our everyday affair and decision making. 

As we continue reading the rest of verse 1 to 2, we see the reason why David was crying for help. He felt that “Godly men are fast disappearing” and “where in all the world can dependable men be found”. He was frustrated because everyone around him where doing their own thing. No one trying to live righteous or godly anymore. He says “Everyone deceives and flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left”. Sometimes I feel like David too. Seems everyone just living their life as they please. Even Christians lying, deceiving and  flattering people.

3-4 But the Lord will not deal gently with people who act like that; he will destroy those proud liars who say, “We will lie to our heart’s content. Our lips are our own; who can stop us?”

Here David is telling us that the Lord will deal with people who act  as in verse 2. Those people who think they have no need of God and are not subject to his rule. This people are proud. They think they are not accountable to God. I once heard someone say “pride is defiance against God, the root of all ungodliness”.

Lets examine ourselves today. In what way are we exhibiting pride. Are we fooling ourselves by thinking that our life is our own and we can do anything we want with it? As Christians, we are told that we are bought at a price and our lives is no longer ours (1 Cor 6:19-20).  Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, God is in control of our lives. He is Lord over all.

5 The Lord replies, “I will arise and defend the oppressed, the poor, the needy. I will rescue them as they have longed for me to do.

Here we see God’s response to David’s cry for help. Sometimes it might seem as if God is deaf or blind to all that is going on around us, but this verse tells us that He is aware and in His time, He will arise and do something about it. He has promised that he will not leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). So even if we feel God is far off from us, let’s remind ourselves of this promise

6 The Lord’s promise is sure. He speaks no careless word; all he says is purest truth, like silver seven times refined. 7 O Lord, we know that you will forever preserve your own from the reach of evil men, 

David is confirming God’s words are true and reliable and that he would definately preserve his own from evil. I love how the living bible puts verse 6. It says “The Lord’s promise is sure. He speaks no careless word; all he says is purest truth, like silver seven times refined.”

God doesn’t say something and not do it. If He has said it then he surely will bring it to pass (Numbers 23:19). He is not like us humans that just speak carelessly. We can rely and depend on His word for it will never fail. Heaven and earth may pass but His word will never fail.(Matthew 24:35)

Also, God has power to save and deliver his own. It might not seem that way to us now, but we ought to be rest assured that He is working things out on our behalf.

8 although they prowl on every side and vileness is praised throughout the land.

The psalm ends with David reflecting on why there is so much ungodliness. He says it’s because immorality has become the norm – “vileness is praised throughout the land”. In our society today, this is very true.  We celebrate what is ungodly and shun anything that is godly.

We christians are guilty of this. We honor and celebrate the so called celebrities that are living immoral. We don’t stop to take care of the needy and poor; infact we don’t want to be caught with them because we think it’s not cool and will mess up our swag or image. We chase after our own fleshly desires as opposed to what God wants from us.

I pray God opens our eyes to see those areas where we are honoring vileness in our lives.

Prayer:
Dear Lord we thanks you for today. We thank you for reminding us that your word is sure and can be trusted. We ask you show us those areas of our lives where we are living like the ungodly. We ask you give us grace to value the things you value and honor the things you honor. Thank you Lord In Jesus Name. Amen.

Thank you for joining today.

See u again on Monday as we continue with Psalms 13.

Have a blessed day and wonderful weekend 🙂

***With God all things are possible***