Moment to Moment (Bible blog)
Realize that the Lord shows the godly special favor. (Psalm 4:3, NET)
Those words really hit me this morning.
God shows me special favor.
He vindicates me, declaring me righteous by his grace. (1)
He hears me when I cry out to him. (3)
And when I look up to him, he isn’t frowning at me in anger or disappointment. He shines the light of his face on me. (6)
So in a world which often cries out, “Who will show us any good?”, I say, “My God will!”
I truly love this psalm, and I could write many things on it, but today, here were the verses that struck me.
Lord God of Armies, hear my prayer;
listen, God of Jacob.Consider our shield, God;
look on the face of your anointed one. (Psalm 84:8-9)
In verse 9, the psalmist asks God to consider their shield, and to look on the face of their anointed one.
Both “shield” and “anointed one” refer to the king at that time, but ultimately they look forward to Jesus Christ.
(“Messiah” and “Christ,” by the way, both mean “anointed one,” that is, the one God anoints to be king.)
But anyway, has it ever occurred to you to wonder why God would hear our prayers?
It’s certainly not because we deserve his favor. Rather, it’s because the Father considers our Shield.
He looks on the face of his Anointed One. He looks at what Jesus did on the cross for us. And because of Jesus, he looks on us with favor.
It is because of Jesus, that we can enter the very presence of God.
It is because of Jesus, that we are able to pass through the valley of tears, going from strength to strength.
And it is because of Jesus that one day, we will be home with him.
So let us praise God each day for his glorious grace.
Psalm 124 was written by David, but it’s not clear what the context of the psalm was.
In all probability, it was written after a great victory in battle when the odds seemed against them. It’s the type of psalm that could’ve been written after David’s victory over Goliath (although I doubt this was the case).
At any rate, we see David rejoicing at the favor of God in his life.
He shouts outs in joy, “If God had not been with us, if he had not been on our side, we would’ve been wiped out. But because he is with us, he broke the trap they set for us and we escaped.” (Psalm 124:1-7)
Then he concludes by singing,
Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (8)
I (fortunately) have never experienced a personal attack on my life, but I am grateful that God saved me from the spiritual trap Satan set for me. That while I was powerless to save myself, Christ died for me. (Romans 5:6-8)
Why did he do so? Because he loved me. Because he was on my side. I don’t know why he would choose to help me, but he did.
And he’s on your side too. So as we read this psalm, let us never forget the grace that the Lord has poured out so richly upon us all.
It strikes me that Esau’s response to his parents in this passage is very similar to people’s response to God sometimes.
Esau married some Hittites, who didn’t believe in God, and it deeply upset his parents.
Esau didn’t even realize how upset his parents were until Isaac sent Jacob off with his blessing, but telling him not to marry one of the Canaanites.
In order to gain favor from his father, Esau decided to marry someone who would be more acceptable to his parents.
He of course couldn’t go where Jacob went, so he went to what he felt was the next best thing: the descendants of Ishmael.
But how much better that was in the eyes of Isaac and Rebekah is very debatable.
In the same way, many people often do things that deeply hurt God, and they don’t even notice it.
When they do, they try to make up for it, usually by doing some kind of good things to balance out the bad things that they did. But in Isaiah, it says,
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. (Isaiah 64:6).
In other words, the good things that we do is simply not enough in the eyes of God to take away the stain of sin in our lives.
It’s like saying, “God, I’m really sorry for my sins. But let me give you a present.” And as a present, you give him dirty, filthy rags.
The picture Isaiah gives here is very graphic. The word he uses for “filthy rags” is a “menstrual cloth.” Do you think that anyone, no less God, would accept that as a gift? Of course not.
Yet time and again, people come before God with the mindset that if they just do enough good things, God will accept them. But it doesn’t work that way.
Let’s put it another way.
My two-year old daughter will sometimes offer me a kiss. Usually, I’m very happy to accept that kiss.
But if she’s been eating spaghetti and there’s sauce all over her mouth, there’s no way I’m going to accept a kiss from her until that sauce is wiped away. Her kiss is stained with the spaghetti sauce.
In the same way, we may try to offer things to God, but if it’s stained with the sin in our lives, God will not accept it.
How then can that sin be dealt with and cleansed? There’s only one way. It’s through Jesus Christ. In Romans 5, it says this:
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11)
We were powerless to save ourselves. Everything we did was stained by sin in our lives.
But while we were still powerless, Jesus died on the cross and took the punishment for our sin.
And because he took our punishment, we are saved from God’s wrath, and even more, we are reconciled to God. Not because of our own good works. But because of Jesus’ work on the cross.
Are you trying to win God’s favor by doing good things?
It won’t work. Everything you do is stained by sin.
The only way to be made acceptable to God is to have your sins cleansed. And the only way to have your sins cleansed is by putting your faith in the work Jesus did on the cross.
Will you put your faith in him today?
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 