Run With It: Holding On

Psalm 119:145-148 ESV

With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O Lord!

I will keep your statutes.

I call to you; save me,

that I may observe your testimonies.

I rise before dawn and cry for help;

I hope in your words.

My eyes are awake before the watches of the night,

that I may meditate on your promise.

When we have questions about things going on in our lives, especially if we don’t know what to do, or how to respond, we need to call on God in prayer. And, we need to seek his counsel and his wisdom. And, we need to let his Word speak to our hearts. For, he will lead the way, and he will guide us and direct us into what we should do, or in what we should say.

Satan is our arch enemy. He is out to get us in any which way that he can. He will hound us at every turn. He will twist the scriptures to his advantage, and he will use them against us to try to convince us that his way is the right way. He will try to get us to doubt God and his promises to us, too. So, it is important that we study the scriptures so that we know the truth, so that we can combat Satan’s lies with the truth when he attacks us.

Satan and his many hordes are very good at taking scriptures out of context, too, to try to convict us of wrongdoing when we are doing no wrong. So, this is why it is so important that we study the Word of God in context, and that we compare scripture with scripture, so that we know what the scriptures teach on any particular subject, as a whole.

For example, the scriptures do teach that we are to be subject to those in positions of authority over us. This is absolutely true! But, they also teach us that there are exceptions to that rule. We are not to obey human authority when that authority overrides God’s laws, i.e. when human authority demands that we disobey the Lord, or that we deny our Lord, or that we compromise the truth to make peace with the world. Also, we are never to obey human authority when they require that we sin against God.

Psalm 119:149-152 ESV

Hear my voice according to your steadfast love;

O Lord, according to your justice give me life.

They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose;

they are far from your law.

But you are near, O Lord,

and all your commandments are true.

Long have I known from your testimonies

that you have founded them forever.

When the enemy is on the attack, and he is hounding us, and especially if we are physically weak and/or tired, or if we are sick or going through a time of emotional grief, it can sometimes be difficult to hear God’s voice speaking to us. And, so we need to cry this out to the Lord, and we need to pray for relief, and we need to resist our enemy, and flee temptation, and then let the Lord fill us with his peace and his calm reassurance.

Those who persecute us with evil purpose are far from the law, yet it doesn’t mean that they don’t know the law. And, it doesn’t mean that they won’t attempt to use the law to their advantage to try to instill doubt, fear and guilt within our hearts for no cause. For, Satan is the author of confusion, so he will try to instill confusion in our hearts so that he can convince us that wrong is right and that right is wrong.

So, we need to draw near to the Lord in these times, and we need to meditate on his Word, and to find our solace there. And, we need to put on the armor of God with which to fight off Satan’s evil schemes against us, and then fight off his lies with the truth (the whole truth) of God’s Word. And, then we need to keep following the truth that we know, and hold fast to it.

Psalm 119:153-156 ESV

Look on my affliction and deliver me,

for I do not forget your law.

Plead my cause and redeem me;

give me life according to your promise!

Salvation is far from the wicked,

for they do not seek your statutes.

Great is your mercy, O Lord;

give me life according to your rules.

When we know that what we are following is truth, but Satan comes in with his lies, and he attacks us, and he tries to convince us that we are not following the truth, then we need the Lord to plead our cause. And, one of the ways in which our Lord does this is that he leads us into truth, and he brings scriptures to mind which we then can use to refute the enemy’s lies against us. We just need to pray and to ask him for his help.

It is good, too, if we have the ability to write journals or to record what he is teaching us in some type of document, if we can file it on our computers under a subject heading, then when the devil comes at us again, we can go back to those documents and journals and we can be reassured of what the Lord taught us, and we can use that Sword of the Spirit against our enemy.

Psalm 119:157-160 ESV

Many are my persecutors and my adversaries,

but I do not swerve from your testimonies.

I look at the faithless with disgust,

because they do not keep your commands.

Consider how I love your precepts!

Give me life according to your steadfast love.

The sum of your word is truth,

and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

At all times and in all situations we need to hold fast to God’s Word, which is our delight. We need to know the truth, and then we need to stand on the truth without wavering. For, our enemy will use all kinds of tricks against us to try to get us to disobey God’s Word, even by convincing us that we are obeying God’s Word when we listen to him.

And, this is why it is so critical that we are those who study the scriptures in context, and that we compare scripture with scripture, so that the enemy, who knows the truth intellectually, cannot throw us off balance.

Scriptures teach us that we are to hate evil and to cling to the good, that we are to love what God loves and to hate what he hates. We are not to hate people, though, but we are to love them. But, we are to hate the evil that people do so that evil does not cling to us, and so that we don’t become entrapped by it.

The psalmist keeps praying that God will give him life. It isn’t that he does not have eternal life with God, but it is that, when the enemy fiercely attacks us, we may despair of life, or we may feel as though our joy or our confidence has been robbed from us and that we are drowning.

So, we need refreshing. We need to be renewed in our spirits. And, we need to be strengthened in our faith and in our resolves to keep on in doing what we know is right despite our persecutors trying to convince us the opposite.

For, the closer that we draw to the Lord, and the greater our obedience to his commands, and the more that we share the truths of his Word with others, the more the enemy is going to come against us to try to stop us from spreading the truth of God’s Word. Because he doesn’t want people to reject him and to follow after the truth. But, we must hold on to the truth.

Standing on The Promises

By Russell K. Carter, pub. 1886

Based off 2 Pet. 1:2-4; Heb. 10:23

Standing on the promises of Christ my King,

Through eternal ages let His praises ring,

Glory in the highest, I will shout and sing,