Tag: Christianity

Psalm 63
Day 63: Be blessed
We all know what it’s like to be thirsty.
After some exercise or bathing in the sun thirst strikes and water is needed.
Our bodies according to some estimates are 80% fluid – and we need this, because if we stop drinking suddenly coherent thoughts vanish, skin grows clammy, and vital organs wrinkle. Deprive your body of water and it’ll soon tell you.

Equally, dehydrated hearts send messages around the body too. So many people are experiencing worry, guilt and fear, hopelessness, loneliness and insecurity. The reason being is that thirst is consuming them.

Treat your heart the way you treat your thirst. Take a drink. Where do you find water for the soul? Jesus gave the answer in John 7:37-38
‘if anyone is thirsty let him come and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’

Even when like David all around you is a desert, you can come to God right now and drink from Him. Let God penetrate the very core of your life. Let Him come deep inside, into the inner workings of your life. Don’t long for church, meetings, activities, doings, but Him alone.

Thirst after Him, drink from Him and be blessed.

Psalm 62
Day 62: Be blessed
Yesterday we acknowledged we all need somewhere higher to reach for, a mighty rock, a strong tower.
Perhaps with the continuance in mind David now writes that the higher place of God needs to be the only place.
My soul finds rest in God alone.
He alone is my rock.
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone.
God alone, no one else, all in all, you’re everything.
Yet we live in a world of so called stars and heroes who do not need anyone else. They do not sign up for allegiance to something; they just want to own everything. They run faster, climb higher and reach further not to belong, but to own. We live amongst a people who have become faithful only to themselves. They have lost confidence in their government, their family and friends, but not in themselves. They still believe that with hard work they can achieve, that with determination comes success and with great moral effort they can get what they want. Huge disappointment is just around the corner.
Let the song be sung very loud! It is God alone!
He alone is the way of blessing!

Psalm 61
Day 61: Be blessed
All of us need something higher than us.
We need something to climb, to reach for, attain.
We find ourselves distant, far away from where we want to be, drifting from Him who is a refuge and strong tower.
Yet at that place, faint and hopeless it may be, from within us comes a sound.
I call
I cry out
Right now, in this place of feeling so weak, so far away.
Lead me
Carry me
Guide me
The New Testament helps us understand the Old Testament ‘rock’; it is Jesus Christ.
Jesus has always been the answer and always will be.
He is the rock.

Psalm 60
Day 60: Be blessed
Whatever the melody actually was, the person singing these lyrics would also have the lily of the covenant in their mind.
The most beautiful fragrant flower in an agreement between 2 people is in the background. Out in the open there’s a war and a feeling of God deserting them. Their world is shaking like that of an earthquake. They are not in control, as if drunk.
If that can describe your life at the moment then this Psalm is for you. If not then it can certainly describe our world.
Behind it all there is a tune; the melody of the covenantal cross of Jesus bringing peace and relationship between God and man and resulting in a beautiful you, the lily.
This covenant restores.
This covenant saves.
This covenant delivers.
It is because of this covenant that all of us can declare:
With God we shall gain the victory …! V12.
No matter the war or the feelings that war brings, we shall gain the victory. Victory is always truly found within community, within the ‘we’.
So face your war-torn world today with the knowledge that God has covenanted with you and he will never break that promise.

Psalm 59
Day 59: Be blessed!
I have done no wrong, yet they are ready to attack me. v4
Some days it is just too hard to understand. Why do the enemies of your life hem you in, threaten and intimidate you when you have done no wrong?
David was under constant scrutiny, the introduction states that this Psalm was written when Saul had sent men to watch David’s house.
But it isn’t who is watching you that is all-important, but who you are watching. David says in v9 “I watch for you.”
Are you watching the one who goes before you today? V10

Psalm 58
Day 58: Be blessed
Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day
Today 22,000 children will die because of poverty.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.
51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.
It is estimated that 2 children per minute are trafficked for sexual exploitation.
These statistics are endless.
Every one of us is moved by the injustices in the world and angered by those peddling it for their own gain.
To the tune of ‘Do not destroy’, David asks God to destroy, irony perhaps and not very Christian for us, or is it?
So often we want to take our own vengeance on the tyrants and the violent. We know those feelings of anger and I am sure we have all said “If I ever met that person I would …”
But David asks God to carry out vengeance. The Apostle Paul in Romans 12 quoted Deuteronomy 32 in saying vengeance belongs to God. So it is very Christian to pray that God has vengeance.
We need to pray that God moves towards the wicked and smashes their teeth in, v6.
We need to pray that they may disappear forever, v7.
We need to pray that all they seek to do becomes ineffective, v7
David closes the Psalm in victory because God has judged the earth.
Yesterday another evil child killer was put behind bars for the rest of his life. It was also announced in light of that wicked crime and others that the leading Internet companies are joining with the government to get rid of child porn off their search engines.
We need to pray for things like this. That God moves on the wickedness in our land.
God come and sweep away the wicked, v9.
This too is the blessed life.

Psalm 57
Day 57: be blessed!
Someone is waking up today and it is as if you are hiding from the circumstances that are oppressing you. You are retreating, being squeezed into a corner, quietened whilst all around the bellow of noise is frightening.
David described Saul’s army as that of lions and ravenous beasts. Maybe it’s not that bad for you, maybe your life is not under threat. However, you do feel bereft of the opportunity and the space to be who you are created to be.
Today I want to tell you that this cave can become a worship centre. It can become the holy of holies, a place for the presence of the living God. It can become this because you can make it this.
The previous 2 days we have seen how David wants to fly away on the wings of a dove (Psalm 55) and also express his thoughts that he was a dove in a distant place (Psalm 56). Here in verse 1 it is God who is described as the bird and David takes refuge in the shadow of His wings.
How long does he do this for?
“Until the disaster has passed” v1
Today the day of your disaster will pass. You will come out of the cave you are in. Until then make it a refuge, make your life a place for God’s presence, sing and worship the Lord.
And of course be blessed!

Psalm 56
Day 56: Be blessed!

We have now become used to taking note of the opening lines in the introduction of the Psalm.
To the tune of “A Dove on Distant Oaks.”
When David had been seized by the Philistines.

David found himself distant from all he knew, from people he loved and his purpose for life. He felt distant and trapped in the grip of his enemy.
Under attack, pursued, afraid, plotted against, watched, under threat and tearful.
But he said these words:
By this I will know that God is for me.
Now you may not have a crazy weird and insecure king chasing you with a spear in hand as David had. However the things you face today and the uncertainty of your life may have chased you into the distant place and you are now surrounded by enemies of fear, doubt and of pain. “What can mortal man do to me?” “What can this set of circumstances really do to me?”
In the imperfect place David brought himself to that place where he could say as God deals with the enemies of my life I will know He is for me.
David may not have known how things were going to change for him, how he was going to get free from the enemy or how and when he would become king. But he did know God was for him and with God being for him then God will make a way for him and that is all he needed to know.
There may be a lot of things you do not know. The future may be unclear. Fear may be attacking you. You may feel distant from where you are meant to be. But because of the cross of Jesus who defeated every enemy you can say today:
This I know God is for me!
And that my friend is why we are blessed!

Psalm 55
Day 55: Be blessed
O for the wings, for the wings of a dove!
Far away, far away would I rove!
In the wilderness build me a nest,
and remain there for ever at rest.
Composed by Mendelssohn in 1844, first performed a year later but it was the recording made in 1927 by a boy soprano Ernest Lough which made it most famous.
“Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest”
Composed by David for stringed instruments approx 1000 BC and sang by many today!
I’ve just woken today with this thought found in verse 6 occupying my mind.
I am sure you know the feeling of not wanting to face your day?
Anywhere but here, anytime but now.
David wanted to be in the desert away from his trouble.
For him, it wasn’t his enemy that was causing him to want to fly away, it was his close friend betraying him. Most likely Ahithophel, who sided with David’s son, Absalom, in chasing after David to kill him.
We’ve all known a betrayal from a close friend: the kiss of Judas on the cheek of Jesus experience.
Whatever the reason today, what keeps us from flying away?
• Belief in a saving God, v16
• Regular, continual prayer, v17
• God will bring you through, v18
• God is on the throne, v19
• Casting your cares on the Lord, v22
• The Lord will sustain you, v22
• Trust in God, v23.
Sometimes blessing is not having something. Thank the Lord you don’t have the wings of a dove and today you will face your circumstance with the above 7 truths.

Psalm 54
Day 54: Be blessed!

This Psalm was written at a time when David and his men were hiding and the Ziphites attempted to betray them into the hands of Saul.
David escaped into the desert of Maon and it was probably written here. But Saul chased after them and then probably as an answer to this cry God stepped in and Saul was called home.

Surely God is my help.
Today you are being helped by so many things, people and situations. God is not one of those helpers. He is more than these. He is the main help behind all these helpers. He is upholding these helpers for you.
Just think for a moment at the possibilities you, a church, an organisation can have when you truly believe that your life is founded on the God who is your help. With God as your help there is nothing that cannot happen!

You may be in a desert today, but God is your help.
You may have a person trying to bring you down, but God is your help.
Surely God is my help.