Lord, Be Gracious
Psalm 86:1-7 ESV
Incline your ear, O
Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for
I am godly;
save your servant, who trusts in you—you
are my God.
Be gracious to me, O
Lord,
for to you do I cry all the day.
Gladden the soul of
your servant,
for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are
good and forgiving,
abounding in steadfast love to all who call
upon you.
Give ear, O Lord, to
my prayer;
listen to my plea for grace.
In the day of my
trouble I call upon you,
for you answer me.
We all go through trials. They are part of life. No one
promised us that life would be easy. If they did, they “sold us a bill of goods,”
i.e. they deceived us.
And, walking in obedience to our Lord is not easy, either.
He said it would be hard. He said that we would be hated as he was hated. He
said that as they treated him, so would we be treated. So, he didn’t promise us
an easy life. He promised us that the Christian life would be a life of
suffering, but that it would reap a harvest of righteousness and of joy.
For, you see, even though we may be saved from our sins, and
we may be in relationship with God, and we may have the hope of eternal life
with God, we still live in flesh bodies, and our flesh is at war with the
Spirit, and the Spirit is at war with the flesh. So, that is why scripture
teaches that we must daily take up our cross and follow Jesus; that we must, by
the Spirit, die daily to the flesh and to sin (Lu. 9:23-26; Rom. 8:1-17; 1 Jn.
1:5-9).
And, so the Lord helps us with this process of daily dying
to sin, self, and the flesh by regularly pruning and disciplining (chastising,
reproving) us, and by allowing us to go through difficulties, so that we might
be holy as he is holy, and so we might grow to maturity of faith in Christ. He
allows hardships in our lives, too, so that we learn to depend on him and not
on ourselves, and so we can encourage others, too, who are going through
similar trials.
[Ro. 5:3-5; Phil. 3:7-11; 1 Pet. 1:6-7; 4:12-17; 1
Thess. 3:1-5; Jas. 1:2-4; Matt. 5:10-12; Lu. 21:12-19; 2 Co. 1:3-11; Heb.
12:3-12; Rev. 3:19]
So, sometimes he will lift the burden of suffering from us,
and other times he doesn’t, if it is necessary in our lives in order to
accomplish his purposes in our lives. Sometimes he will deliver us out of
situations where we are suffering greatly, and sometimes he doesn’t, but he
delivers us through them by giving us his strength, and by teaching us his ways
and his truths so that we can apply them to our lives in our suffering.
Sometimes he may remove us from a difficult situation to
restore our joy, while other times he will teach us that we can rejoice in our
suffering and that joy does not have to be contingent on our circumstances. So,
sometimes the way he saves us is by helping us to endure suffering for his
sake, and by growing us in our walks of faith through suffering.
You Alone Are God
Psalm 86:8-13 ESV
There is none like you
among the gods, O Lord,
nor are there any works like yours.
All the nations you
have made shall come
and worship before you, O Lord,
and shall glorify your name.
For you are great and
do wondrous things;
you alone are God.
Teach me your way, O
Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.
I give thanks to you,
O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
For great is your
steadfast love toward me;
you have delivered my soul from the depths
of Sheol.
So, we shouldn’t resist suffering. It doesn’t mean we
willfully invite it into our lives, though, unless it is just the natural
result of us obeying our Lord. But, when we go through hard times, we need to
be asking the Lord to teach us what he wants us to learn through these
difficulties.
What lessons do we need to learn? How does he want to grow
us spiritually? What changes does he want in our conduct or in our attitudes?
Is there something we are doing that we need to stop doing? Is there something
we haven’t been doing that he has been nudging us to do that we need to start
doing? Have we gotten off the path of righteousness at all? Are we being
distracted by the things of this world? Are we listening to the wrong voices?
What needs changed in our lives? We need to let him teach us his ways.
God does have a purpose for our suffering. He is still God!
He is still on the throne! He is still completely sovereign over all that He
has made. Nothing escapes his notice. He knew this was going to happen to us
before he even made us, before he even created the world. And, he had a plan
for it all along. So, whatever we are going through, we need to submit to him
in it.
We need to have hearts that fear the Lord, and so many do
not, even so many who profess faith in Jesus Christ do not walk in the fear of
the Lord. They are still worldly, still yielding to the flesh, still caught up
in what they want out of this life, while not submitting their lives to the
Lordship of Christ.
So, the Lord allows suffering, too, to bring his wandering
ones back to him, so that they will follow him in obedience, and so that they
will honor him as Lord of their lives in all of their conduct. And, not one of
us is perfect.
Give Your Servant
Strength
Psalm 86:14-17 ESV
O God, insolent men
have risen up against me;
a band of ruthless men seeks my life,
and they do not set you before them.
But you, O Lord, are a
God merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast
love and faithfulness.
Turn to me and be
gracious to me;
give your strength to your servant,
and save the son of your maidservant.
Show me a sign of your
favor,
that those who hate me may see and be put
to shame
because you, Lord, have helped me and
comforted me.
If we are truly following Jesus Christ wholeheartedly, and
we are denying our sinful flesh, and we are walking in the ways of the Lord,
doing what he says, we are going to face opposition from those who do not honor
Christ as Lord. And, this opposition can come from within the gatherings of the
church, too, for not everyone who professes the name of Jesus honors him as
Lord of their lives. Many are living in spiritual adultery against God.
Some who are opposed to us are insolent, i.e. they are
insultingly contemptuous in speech or conduct (M-W). So, why are they this way?
Well, they are sinners, for one. But, sometimes this stems from deep-rooted and
longstanding sinful practices, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, and the like. And,
sometimes this is because they have made a long standing practice of not using
good judgment, but of doing what is unwise (stupid and careless). And, they
haven’t changed.
They are angry people, mainly with themselves, but they take
that anger out on others, and they blame others for their own sins. They don’t
let go of the anger, and they don’t forgive others who they feel have injured
them, and so they store all that hatred and bitterness inside of them. So, even
if they appear outwardly happy, they are really very angry bitter people with
bad-tempers.
So, they often end up following after their flesh and they
deny the Spirit of God by their lifestyles. So, they end up doing things to
hurt others, perhaps to get even for any injustices they feel they have
suffered. And, so they end up plotting evil against others, too. And, they may
even slander others just to cover their own hides, i.e. to protect their own
secrets which they fear may be exposed. And, they may engage in manipulation
and trickery to accomplish their evil schemes, too.
So, we should anticipate that we could be betrayed, falsely
accused of wrongdoing, lied about, and slandered. We shouldn’t be afraid of
this happening, though, not that the idea of it is pleasant, by any means. But,
we shouldn’t worry that this might happen to us, for our Lord said that when we
are brought before rulers on account of our faith in Jesus Christ that he will
give us the words to say. So, we need to trust him, and rest in him.
So, this is a cry for help from our Lord in these
situations, when we face such opposition from such people as these. We need to
pray that the Lord will give us strength to endure what we are going through or
what may yet be on the horizon for us. And, we can endure anything he allows in
our lives because we are in Him, and we are depending on his strength to
endure.
All The Way My Savior
Leads Me
Lyrics by Frances J
Crosby, pub. 1875
Music by Robert Lowry,
pub. 1875
All the way my Savior leads me,
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy,
Who through life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.
All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread,
Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living Bread.
Though my weary steps may falter
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see.
All the way my Savior leads me,
Oh, the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father’s house above.
When my spirit, clothed immortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day
This my song through endless ages:
Jesus led me all the way.
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