Psalm 143:1-4 ESV
Hear my prayer, O
Lord;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your
righteousness!
Enter not into
judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.
For the enemy has
pursued my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me sit in darkness like those
long dead.
Therefore my spirit
faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.
Satan is our enemy. And, he is always scheming against us,
trying to find ways to take us down, to break us, and to attempt to get us to
give up. And, he has many demons working for him, as well as many humans, too,
who will do his bidding. And, they will come against us, too, in many different
ways, for Satan is out to destroy us in any which way that he can.
But, these times of difficulty or persecution or sickness,
or whatever ways in which our enemy may try to take us out, must not be allowed
to undo us. In these times of trial and tribulation we must call out to God for
his mercy, based on his goodness and on his righteousness, and not based on our
own goodness apart from God.
And, we must put on the spiritual armor that our God has
supplied for us to fight off the schemes of our enemy, too, in the strength of
the Lord. We must hold fast to our faith and to what the Word of God teaches
us. We must fight off Satan’s lies with the truth. And, we must pray in the Spirit
on all occasions with all kinds of requests to God (Eph. 6:10-20).
Psalm 143:5-8 ESV
I remember the days of
old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
I stretch out my hands
to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched
land. Selah
Answer me quickly, O
Lord!
My spirit fails!
Hide not your face
from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the
pit.
Let me hear in the
morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I
should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
One of the ways in which our enemy comes against us is with
his lies to attempt to get us to doubt God and his many promises to us. And, it
is in times like these when we must review all the many ways in which God has
intervened on our behalf before. And, we must review his promises to us, too,
which are written in his Word.
This is one of the reasons I encourage journaling, and that
is because we can always go back and read how the Lord has led us before, and
what he has taught us, and of the many ways in which he has taken us through
difficult times in the past and brought us through.
It is good, too, to underline and date scriptures that have
spoken to us before, as a way to be reminded of how God has moved in our lives
in the past, and as an encouragement to how he will move in our lives in the
present, too, in answer to our prayers, and because he loves us.
And, it is good, too, to read scriptures about how God works
in our lives, and with regard to how he allows suffering in our lives for our
good, and how we need to rest in him, and trust him, even when the suffering
lingers, and even when we don’t see immediate deliverance. For, we can get
discouraged easily if we are looking for immediate relief and we don’t receive
it.
Psalm 143:9-12 ESV
Deliver me from my
enemies, O Lord!
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your
will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit
lead me
on level ground!
For your name's sake,
O Lord, preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of
trouble!
And in your steadfast
love you will cut off my enemies,
and you will destroy all the adversaries of
my soul,
for I am your servant.
When we are going through difficult times, it is critical
that we surrender our lives to the Lord, and that we trust him with our circumstances.
It is critical, too, to our survival, if we trust in his sovereignty over our
lives, as well.
This is not saying that we are not to pray for relief from
our suffering and that we should just surrender to whatever it is we are going
through. For, that is one of Satan’s schemes against us to try to get us to
give up hope and for us to just let our trials get the best of us.
But, as we are praying for relief from our suffering and
from our enemies, we must also surrender our hearts to the Lord, praying for
him to have his way in our lives, too. And, we must ask him to teach us what he
wants us to learn through our suffering, too, for our suffering is not without
purpose.
We must not let our suffering defeat us, but at the same
time we must be willing to suffer for righteousness’ sake, if it is the will of
God, in order that we might be purified, made holy, brought to maturity in
Christ, and learn what it is that we need to learn in order to better serve our
Lord Jesus.
Sometimes, as well, deliverance is not physical, but it is
mental, emotional or spiritual. In other words, we need to learn how best to
respond to our trials rather than to have them immediately removed from our
lives. We need to grow through them in our walks of faith, and we need to learn
to persevere in them, too.
The important thing for us here is that we surrender our
hearts to the Lord, that we accept whatever it is that he has brought or that
he has allowed into our lives for our good, and that we submit ourselves to the
Lord’s purposes.
And, then we need to pray that he leads us in the way in
which he would have us to go, and that through our trials he would teach us to
do his will. And, then we just need to follow his lead in what to do, in how to
respond, in what to pray, and in what actions we need to take for the glory of
God.
Broken
and Contrite
An
Original Work / May 13, 2012
I come before You, Lord, my Savior,
With humble heart and crushed in spirit.
I bow before You, I implore You,
Heal my broken heart, I pray.
Love You, Jesus, Lord, my master,
You are the King of my heart.
Lord, purify my heart within me;
Sanctify me, whole within.
Oh, Lord, I long to obey fully
The words You’ve spoken through Your Spirit.
I pray You give me grace and mercy,
Strength and wisdom to obey.
Father God, my heart’s desire,
Won’t You set my heart on fire?
Lord, cleanse my heart of all that hinders
My walk with You, now I pray.
Oh, Jesus, Savior, full of mercy,
My heart cries out for understanding.
I want to follow You in all ways,
Never straying from Your truth.
Holy Spirit, come in power,
Fill me with Your love today.
Lord, mold and make me;
Your hands formed me;
Live Your life through me, I pray.
Sunday, September 8, 2019
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