Psalms 38:22

Psalms 38:22

Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.

This verse demands God, the most high, the almighty for something. We do not write “do this ASAP” when communicating with our superiors. But the demanding tone in this verse is even worse. This verse is plainly unacceptable unless backed up with a strong reason. Let us meditate why this was written so.

The context

David was a person very much loved by God, The Father. Even Jesus took a lot of pride in being addressed as “son of David”. He never stopped others when they called him so. Mathew and Luke took pains in gathering the genealogy of Jesus separately and both wanted to mention Jesus was not just a Jew, but a royal son, a son of David. The bible mentions David’s name second after Jesus in the number of occurrences.

Such an honored person, failed miserably in the peak of his life time. He was a successful king, honored very much by everybody else in his country, God loved him, but still he failed. We know how he failed. (If not, please read 2 Samuel Cp.11 for details). But even after this failure, God still kept his promises to David. This meditation focuses on what made God accept David back.

The prayer of reconciliation

This psalm (38) displays the pains, turmoil, humility and surrender David did or went through to gain his love back with the Almighty. As believers, we also do fail in our lives. We need this understanding on how to get up from our failures.

Trouble David goes through

1.       Wrath of God (Vs 1 to 3)

We should know how destructive God’s anger can be.

1.       God drowned the whole earth except Noah’s family when they were evil.

2.       Sodom & Gomorrah – destroyed by fire.

3.       Lot’s wife for a simple disobedience.

4.       Many other incidents where God destroys Jews with fire, plague.

5.       When 42 young mocked Elijah’s bald head, God sent two female bears and killed them.

6.       Ananias and Sapphira – Even after Jesus died and rose again, bringing us the wonderful opportunity of being justified. They were killed in a second.

God’s anger is not survivable. Our sins are similar. We cannot just keep sinning and easily get away with.

2.       Scared enough to Lose health - Vs. 3,8,10.

a.      Broken joints, paining bones.

b.      Weak and feeble.

c.      Heart pounding.

3.       Confused to death – Vs.17.

I am ready to halt. I am that sorrowful.

4.       The enemy becomes stronger as we become weak. Vs

a.       We need to remember that Satan is much more powerful when we are weak. He had the courage of tempting Jesus when he was hungry in the wilderness and after 40 days.

b.      Here, when weakness starts from guilt, it the easiest for Satan to discourage and make us fall.

c.       One sin always leads to another and another till death.

5.       Lose all friends vs.11

This is what worldly friends and relatives are for. When you are in trouble, many help. But there are a lot of limitations for them. The only person we should depend is God.

6.       Lose God’s presence - vs.21

This is the worst situation in our lives. When God gives up on us or says "I don’t care what XYZ does", we are doomed forever.

Prayer of Reconciliation

1.       Confession – My Sin (Vs.3)

2.       My sinful foolishness – Acceptance that Sin is foolish, not just wrong. – Vs.5

3.       Wounds Stink (Vs.5) – A situation a king could never go through. But David imagines himself to be that low in life when he has sinned.

4.       Mourning all day long. (vs.6) –

a.       We do that only in funerals. But, losing God’s grace is a LOT WORSE THAN LOSING FAMILY. We need to always remember that.

b.      The mind has to be filled with the longing for salvation. Sin is that worse.

Now, we should have a justification why David “demands” God for salvation. He doesn’t demand. He is drowning. He is lost all other hope and crying aloud for help. We lose all our formal etiquette and style when doing so. All we think about at that time is that that “Any delay in help at this time when we sin, is death. We absolutely need an immediate reconciliation with God”.

As a moral of this meditation, we can take these three messages:

1.       SIN is destructive. It should not be handled or done easily. We got be as far away as possible from this sin.

2.       After we have received Grace, it is not easy to reconcile. READ HEBREWS 6:4,5,6. We have to go through all the pain.

3.       Although we are drowned in Sin, however deeply buried. “WE STILL HAVE HOPE IN GOD”. God loves us still and he will help us out. All we need is to cry out for help. Amen.

Psalms 149

Introduction: 

Vs 9 mentions about Glory of God's people. What is this glory, let us see...

Vengence vs Punisment (Vs.7)

Both these are distinct methods. But with a contradictory purpose. We punish somebody when we love this person or when we care about this person. But, vengence is about hatred and to break all kinds of relationship with that person. Vengence is not something allowed to us. We are supposed to love our enemies. So, this has to mean the spriritual warface. 

Nations vs Peoples

This obviously means outer nations and the people of our own country. In spriitual terms, we can translate as outer forces that tempt us and lead us towards sin vs inner forces that lead towards sin. Essentially this points to the devil and our flesh. Both are evil. The devil needs to be treated with vengence and the flesh with punishment.

Kings and Nobles with fetters and shackles. (Vs. 8)

These are powerful and prideful person. This points to anything that we posses that has pride and arrogance. These has to be dealt with fetters and shackles. These objects bind a person and cause them not to move anywhere. Our price needs to be handicapped so that humility takes over.

Praise of God (Vs. 6)

In this troublesome time, our mouths will not plead for salvation but will remember God's mercy and power to praise him. The concentration and purpose is always towards him.

Double Edged Sword 

This sword when held points one sharper side to the outside and the other side to our selves. (ref vs.7). Both the persons are to be controlled by the sword. Now the sharpness on both sides is equal. This may mean that both the devil and flesh are equally powerful and dangerous to make us fall. The care and opposition required for both these entities has to be equal.

Also the duration for holding this sword is not mentioned. This means always. Not a soldier's job that completes the policing once. But, a watchman who always expects both the enemies (Devil and Flesh) and lives carefully.

This is the glory (Vs. 9)
There is no other glory than this. 

Let your face shine upon us

An important requirement for the Gospel to be shared all over the world is:

"His face should shine upon you" (Ps 67:1)

Similarly, Ps 4:6 also says that when people ask "where does goodness come from", there is no verbal answer. The answer should be our faces that shines with the Lord's face.

Numbers 6:25. Here, God gives instructions on how to bless others. "Let The LORD's face shine upon you". 

Jesus also said (Mat 5:16), "Let your light shine".

These verses clearly emphasizes the importance and requirement of the Lord's face shining upon us.

To Shine:

1. His face should shine. Not ours. We need a will to surrender and to hide all our complete honor and exhibit him alone.

This requires a need to understand that we deserve no honor in this world. Is 43:7 says that we are created for His glory. We have no other purpose to live other than glorifying ourselves. Let us remember the parable of the pharisee and the publican (Luke 18: 9 - 14). The pharisee was right in being a good person. He did not lie to God about his righteousness. But God ignored him only because of his pride and giving glory to himself.




2. An object that shines another person's face needs to be flat and polished. We need to have a will to be molded and made. A will to accept pain.

Is 64:8 says that we are just clay in God's hands. We are to be molded. Clay has no goodness in its own. Unless a potter lays his hand and does his work, it has no value. Another reference is at Is 60:21 where God says that all righteous men are the work of His hands and made for the display of His splendor. 

Jesus mentions this as an important requirement for discipleship. Luke 9:23. Taking up cross is essentially the will to suffer. 

3. This object should come in front of the light. This means all our shortcomings may get exposed here. A requirement to be pure and clean.

In John 3:19, Jesus himself mentions that if we are in darkness, we are not good and are scared that our dirtiness will be exposed. Vs.21 requires us to be in the truth that all our private secrets may be exposed, but still God be glorified. This requires a lot of holiness. 

Psalms 115

Location and Setting:

• This psalm introduces God, compares him and speaks about his blessing
• The first verse is a prayer
• The author of this psalm is unknown.
• But, it can be understood that this psalm was written when:
• The Jews had other gods (or statues very accessible to them).
• The Jews had a chance of going back and worshipping those gods.
• The Jews were very discounraged.
• So, we can understand that this can be during the exile in Babylon.

The prayer

The prayer at this time normally will be a request for salvation or help. But the ONLY prayer in this psalm asks The LORD's name be exalted.

That too twice. There is no other Prayer or request in this psalm.

This is the ideal method to pray. Even Jesus taught us this method to pray. The first request is to ask for "Hallowed be thy name". All the other requests or desires follow up. This means all these have lesser priority than "The LORD's name be glorified". The focus in the Lord's prayer is on God, his kindgom, righeousness etc and a small portion that asks for our bread. The focus should always be the LORD and never us or our requirements.

Actions

Similarly, our actions should have the LORD prioritized more than anything else. We should be 

Ready for any criticism, failure or offences that are caused to us when God's name gets glorified.

But many times, we are in an opposite situation. We ourselves cause harm to God's name.

Conclusion

If you are alive, we do not have a choice but keep glorifying God's name. This obviously includes caution that our name doesn't get any honor than God's.

Psalms 1

Introduction

This is a complete psalm that says:

1.      What not to do

2.      What to do

3.      Benefits

4.      Losses

5.      Our differentiation of good and bad.

6.      God's differentiation

Wicked

·         A person who has evil intentions.

·         Rejoices in people going wrong

·         We cannot do anything for these guys. God will.

·         We should be careful from their advises.

·         In many verses, the word wicked = ungodly.

o   Being without god is wickedness.

Sinners

·         Sinners can be intentional sinners or unintentional.

·         We should look for their footsteps and look to avoid them.

·         Note that the psalmist says "DO NOT STAND". This means to avoid going in their way, we should not even stand. Sometimes, we may accidentally step in their footsteps which God forgives, but standing (standing firmly) is a dangerous act that leads to slavery to sin.

Scornful

·         These are the most dangerous people who break the confidence in godly men.

·         These people are full of pride. Remember God always wants us to be humble.

·         The psalmist wants us not to sit in their seats. This may mean that we are not supposed to sit in their seats even after they had left. It means that there should be no connection (not even a remotest connection) with them.

Delights in the word

·   ·         We delight only when we get something new and delicious.

·   ·         The bible gives us new bread every moment we meditate the word.

·   ·         Just reading is an useless act.
·   ·         Can be compared the kind of enthusiasm a kid shows when ice cream is served.

United Christianity

Why is Christianity so diverse

 People use different standards to measure others (sometimes themselves and mostly others). For most, the Holy Bible always has been the measuring tool. We are expected to adhere to every single rule mentioned in the Bible. The Bible was written to an audience that spanned over 2500 years and for many different situations and contexts. But we are expected to follow all these rules mentioned in the bible. Every single denomination in Christianity has its own statement of faith extracted from some portions of the bible. For everybody, their faith is the right and only way to heaven.

 Is this a problem?

 Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism etc. are different religions with their own Gods and faith. Their differences caused misunderstanding, hatred and even wars. This exactly is happening inside Christianity with the only exemption of faith in Jesus. Christians are hard working to pull Christians into their denomination. The actual true Gospel is lost in this fight. The differences in faith have become the primary discussion everywhere. I personally believe Satan has cleverly planted this poison in our minds and winning this game.

So, what is true Christianity

 Jesus just wanted us to hate our sinful self and then accept and trust him. His measuring tool always was the motive in our inner heart, you can easily see this in the bible.

 A few examples:

•  The poor lady’s offering in the synagogue. Jesus did not see what every other person gave. He was very happy to see the lady give everything she had. Her love of God was awesome.
•  A prostitute cleansing his feet with the expensive perfume. When everybody else criticized her, Jesus did accept this. He did not even think about the source of income as our current churches do.
•  Peter wishing Him not to suffer. Jesus said “Go away, Satan.”

 Jesus always saw what we actually wanted and then either criticized or appreciated us only based on our inner motives.

 This easily gives a definition for Christianity:

 ”A way provided by JESUS CHRIST that helps us out of sin and live a life that Jesus lived. This life is to have true love and clean intentions towards God and others plus give others the good news.”

  This is never mentioned or concentrated in most denominations. I am from a Pentecostal background where we have enormous pride that we are the best of all Christians. We hate jewelry, movies etc. But is this what we really have to abandon? No. We really have to abandon pride, hypocrisy, anger and all the other display of sin. This is the same situation at every other denomination. They have their own rules and understanding to misguide people.

And the Holy Bible?

 A great book written by many authors in a span of 2500 years, truly inspired by the Holy Spirit. This was absolutely the only medium through which  we all have known the gospel.

 But what are we doing with the Bible? We claim that this is the only word from God and even quoting a word outside the bible for reference has become blasphemy.  We literally worship  this book.

 Remember, Jesus had prophesied many important things. The Holy Spirit was his promise to us to be our comforter and guide. He mentioned about the fall of Jerusalem, the tribulation, his coming and a lot more. But he did not mention anything about a book that has to be followed strictly by his people.

 When the Levites were starving (as they should not work for money), it was fair for the other eleven tribes give one tenth of their earnings so that the Levites could live. How does this apply to our current situation where rich Pastors with 500 earning members receive one tenth of their member’s income, making them even richer. Remember, none of the apostles collected tithes and none had a lot of money. This is one result of having the Bible as the rule book.

So, Do I stop reading the bible?

 Never. This bible is a wonderful resource of God’s word written by many men who were with Jesus and have experienced Jesus more than all of us. This is the only source of God’s direct words to us. Let us just not judge other fellow Christians by bible verses. Let God do the judging.

 Consider Mother Theresa. If this person can dedicate her whole life for Jesus, loved others more than herself and was worshipping an image of God, I really do not think God will be mean to her by letting me enter heaven for not being an idol worshipper and not her for being a catholic. The God who saved me is full of love and is a very fair Judge.

Does this mean, “No Rules!” ?

 Absolutely not. Remember, God always looks at the inside of our hearts. Let us forget our differences and join hands to give others the good news : “Jesus took our punishment and paid for all our sins. We can be free!!!”.

Relief

Our problems
We have a lot of problems. These are in forms of sickness, debt, poverty, anger, loneliness and a lot more. When God created man, (Wait! do you say that you don’t believe in God, you might as well say that you don’t believe you yourself exist. Do you think that a marvelous being called “MAN” can exist on his own?) God never wanted man to be in this state. We ourselves have spoiled this. We did one action that caused God to punish us. This action is called SIN.

What is Sin
Sin is an action either in our mind or body that God does not approve of. He does not approve our actions that cause harm to His name. He does not approve actions that cause harm to His children, our fellow human-beings.

What happened originally
God loves us so much that he wants us to live a very beautiful and perfect live. When man sinned, God corrected him by giving the conscience so that he would feel guilty when he went wrong. Most men either were arrogant and did not listen or failed after listening to their consciences.
Next, God gave us a lot of laws. (The old testament of the Holy Bible.) This law defined how we should live and stated that a SIN should be answered with a blood sacrifice. This means, you should either sacrifice the best of your cows, goats or birds as per your financial state. Again, many failed.
God never gave up on us. He loved us so much that he wanted to correct us all by his LOVE. This love was so big that He was willing to sacrifice His own Son.

JESUS CHRIST
God’s own Son, JESUS CHRIST chose to come to us as a sacrifice for our sins. Also, He did not choose to die easily. He actually showed us how we should live by living His life perfectly. He taught us how to overcome(win) sin. He took up real pain for hours, was humiliated and was killed in a cross. He rose again to life in three days. This incident made an important change to humanity. This entitled every human being to get all his sins forgiven and get saved from his sinful nature. Man has an opportunity to become good once again with God’s help. To help us every day, God has sent The Holy Spirit to be inside us an help us lead a life God wanted us to live.

If JESUS is God’s Son, why did he have to die.
Even though the law as defined by God himself, it is not right for Him to remove that. He fulfilled the law by sacrificing His Son. This can be compared with a judge who sentences a big penalty to his son, later comes down and pays the penalty himself.

So, What should I do
Ask God for the salvation (The process of getting saved).
For this, the bible says, you have to:
1. Accept you are sinful and confess them to God.
2. Repent – Take a decision that you want to live a clean life.
3. Testify that Jesus Christ’s death has been the price for your sins and .
4. Ask God to forgive you and save you from sin.

This is simple from then on. God will not just forgive you, He’ll help you lead a clean life.

A Prayer
Our Heavenly Father, I accept that I am sinful and do not have a way out. I really want to be saved and lead a clean life. I acknowledge that Jesus has died for me and paid for my sins. I also proclaim that there is no other way to come to You than through JESUS CHRIST. Please forgive my sins and help me lead a good life.

In JESUS CHRIST’s Name

……………………………………..
(Your Name)
Amen.

Further On
Please read The Holy Bible. Specially the Gospels according to Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.
Please contact a church nearby where you can join hands with good friends and live a life God would approve of.