Psalm 121:1-2 ESV
“I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does
my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven
and earth.”
Too many Christians these days are looking to Capitol Hill
and to politicians and to the government for their help instead of looking to
the Lord who created them, and who knows them completely, and who is fully
sovereign over their lives, and who is the one who knit them together in the
wombs of their mothers, and who placed them where he wanted them (Ps 139).
But we aren’t supposed to be looking to the world to solve
our problems, or to give us hope, or to fix human hearts. Only God can do that.
We aren’t supposed to be looking to man to lift us up out of
our circumstances. If we do, we are in for trouble, for our circumstances could
get even worse. For, man does not have the mind or purpose of God for our
lives. He has his own purpose which is opposed to God. So, we are likely to go
from bad to worse, rather than from bad to better, if we look to man.
When God made you black, he knew what he was doing. When he
made me white, he knew what he was doing then, too. When he put me in a home
where I was severely abused by my father and emotionally neglected by my
mother, he knew what he was doing then, as well. He put me there. He knew what
I was up against. He is either sovereign or he isn’t! For, he had a plan for my
life, and he has a plan for you, too.
He makes no mistakes. He didn’t make a mistake by making you
you and me me. And, we didn’t get a vote in the decision, either, which is a
good thing. But he knew the suffering we would face. He knew we would be
mistreated, despised, and scorned. But it isn’t for naught. He has a purpose
for it all. Through what we suffer he molds us, and he makes us into who he
created us to be, for his glory and praise, if we will yield to his purposes.
Psalm 121:3-4 ESV
“He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps
you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither
slumber nor sleep.”
The assumption here is that we are the Lord’s, by God’s
grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. And, the name “Lord” is not just a title
we give to God the Father or to God the Son. It means he is boss of our lives.
He is our master. We are his bond-slaves, and slaves of his righteousness (Rom.
6:1-23).
So, this means we have surrendered our lives to the Lord
Jesus, and we have forsaken our lifestyles of sin, and now, by God’s grace, and
in his strength, we are walking (conducting our lives) according to the Spirit
and no longer according to the flesh (Rom. 8:1-17; Eph. 4:17-24).
Jesus, through his death on a cross, made the way of escape
for us out from underneath temptation to sin so that we can now be free from
slavery to sin, and so that we can now walk in the Lord’s holiness and
righteousness. And, he will strengthen us and empower us to resist Satan, to
flee temptation, and to put on the armor of God with which to fight off Satan’s
schemes against us. In this way, he keeps our feet from slipping.
But we must do what he says. We have to take that way of escape.
We can’t play with sin. We can’t play with temptation and then blame God because
he didn’t keep us from sinning.
We are not marionettes with God pulling all the strings.
Daily we must die to sin and self. By the Spirit we are to be putting to death
the deeds of the flesh. We must put on that armor of God. And, we have to walk
in the Spirit, so we don’t fulfill the lusts of the flesh. And, we must cut out
of our lives all that is leading us into sin, too.
Psalm 121:5-8 ESV
“The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is
your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by
night.
“The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep
your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out
and your coming in
from this time
forth and forevermore.”
When we trust in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our
lives, by God-given faith, the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within us. He
speaks God’s words to our hearts. He makes the word of God alive and practical
to what we are going through right now. He counsels us and he directs us in the
way we should go. He pricks our consciences, too, when we begin to go astray.
He equips us, and he fills us, and he provides for us all that
we need to live holy and godly lives surrendered to Jesus Christ. He
strengthens us, too, in our fight against the enemy.
He is our helper. We can depend on him. He will not leave us
or forsake us. He won’t let us down. He will protect us from the evil one. We
will hear him in our heads directing us in the way we should go, and he will
warn us, too, if we begin to yield to the enemy.
Our Lord watches over us. He is the one who sustains us. He
is our defense. He counsels and encourages us through his written word, and
through other believers in Jesus, and sometimes through the innocence of
children and their child-like faith. He encourages and gives us hope, too,
through the singing of the hymns which are so rich in faith and doctrine, too.
When the enemy is on the attack, we need to call on the Lord,
and he will answer, if we will listen, and if we will do what he says.
We can’t blame God if we are foolish and if we don’t listen
to him, but we go our own stubborn way because we think we know best, or
because we don’t want to hand control of our lives over to him. He will not
force obedience, though he requires it. So, we must choose who we are going to
obey, the flesh or God, but there are consequences if we choose wrongly (Rom.
6:16).
By Thomas O
Chisholm
Be with me, Lord – I
cannot live without THEE,
I dare not try to
take one step alone.
I cannot bear the
loads of life, unaided,
I need THY strength
to lean myself upon.
Be with me Lord, and
then if dangers threaten,
If storms of trial
burst above my head,
If lashing seas leap
ev’rywhere about me,
They cannot harm, or
make my heart afraid.
Be with me Lord! No
other gift or blessing
THOU COULDST bestow
could with this one compare –
A constant sense of
THY abiding presence,
Where’er I am, to
feel that THOU ART near.
Be with me, Lord,
when loneliness o’ertakes me,
When I must weep
amid the fires of pain,
And when shall come
the hour of “my departure”
For “worlds
unknown,” O Lord, be with me then.
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