Psalm 130 - Persistent Prayer

I wait for the LORD, to hear my prayers and answer. There have been a few prayer petitions that I have been praying for forty, even fifty plus years. Like the persistant widow, (Luke 18) I will not let up.  My whole being waits for the LORD to answer. There are times, when the prayers are answered, and then thanks to the human condition, everything goes back to the way it was before.

Psalm 130 reminds us that God does not keep a record of the sins of those whom He forgives. The problem is that we do. Even though God forgives; sometimes, it is impossible for us to forgive ourselves and we carry along the old baggage, doomed to repeat those things that have separated us from God. We are doomed to repeat those very things which we hate about ourselves.

Through faith in the one who died for our sins, we are forgiven. Believe it so that you might move on. Believe it so that you will be one less prayer petition on someone else's tongue! 

I have seen so many prayers for salvation of others answered. They serve the LORD with gladness. I was one of the prayer petitions for an aunt for many years. The LORD heard her and answered, leading me to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, guiding me beside still waters (Psalm 23). Thanks be to God for this persistent widow! Like the persistent widow, I will not stop crying out of the depths to the LORD for those who are lost. I may never see, with these eyes, the answer to my prayer. But, with the eyes of faith, I know that it is already done.

The LORD forgives you. He has wiped the record of your sins clean. You are free to reverence and serve Him.  Thanks be to God!

God's Peace - Pr. J

Psalm 62 - None are Good

"God has spoken once, Twice I have heard this: That power belongs to God. Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy; For You render to each one according to his work." (Psalm 62:11,12 NKJV)

I'm never quite sure why the Psalmist thinks he is so good and everyone else is so bad.

^"'Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.'" (Luke 18:19-20)

If God rewards everyone for what we have done, we are all in big trouble.  Has anyone really followed faithfully, doing only what they ought, all the days of their lives?  If we trusted in our own good works for our relationship with God, we would not have one.  Fortunately, for us, God in His infinite grace and mercy, in His unfailing love, established a new covenant with us.  This covenant is not based on what we have done for God, but what God has done for us, through the giving of His only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. 

I don't mean to imply that we should not be doing good. If we are truly grateful for this loving gift of eternal life, we would truly love the One who first loved us and not just pay lip service to Him. This does not mean that we are free to do anything we want to please ourselves.  It does not mean that we are free to trample on the name of the LORD, or our neighbors so that we might please ourselves.  It means that we are free, by the power of God, to love and serve God and our neighbors.  We are free to be in relationship with God and one another.  In the knowledge that we are free from the power of sin, death and the devil, we actively seek to love as God loves us. Because of the covenant God has made with us with the blood of Jesus, we are forgiven.  Our sins are blotted out.  The slate is wiped clean through faith in the One who died for us.  The only works that God will recall on that last day are those things that were not blotted out - those things that Jesus did through us. Our salvation and honor depend on God; He is our Rock and our Refuge.

"Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."

Have you been refreshed, by the power of God, by the Spirit, of Christ, so that He might live in and through you, to the glory of His holy name?  All honor and power and glory belong to God.  Find rest in His unfailing love.

God's Peace - Pr. J   P.S.  Been thinking about this some more.  If the Psalmist was indeed David, David was only good in that he believed God.