Tag Archives: The righteous

THINGS THAT DAVID SAID – 12

Devotion, ,

ROCK SOLID!

Among the many things David said are statements about God that are rock solid testimony to His character. Let’s examine a few of them.

Psalms 5:12 NIV
[12] “Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.”

Favour! Who doesn’t need favour especially when the whole world sometimes seems against us? Simple things can go horribly wrong without God’s favour.

There’s no favour like the favour of God. God’s favour or, as the Hebrew word suggests, both delight and pleasure, is all around us like a fortified castle of protection.
Imagine that! It’s as though, like a watchful father, He says, “Don’t touch my kids!” and makes good His warning with necessary action.

What does this declaration mean to us?

God blesses the righteous! This is an amazing observation! First, God blesses. Google provides a comprehensive list of God’s blessings… spiritual, physical, material, and circumstantial… too many to enumerate here. Most important is that all these blessings are promised and given in the context of His covenant. His covenant, in turn, is a package deal in response to our faith in Jesus.

Ephesians 1:3-8, 11-12 NIV
[3] “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. [4] For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love [5] he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— [6] to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. [7] In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace [8] that he lavished on us…
[11] In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, [12] in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.”

“In Him…in Him!” All this happened because of Jesus. We owe every we get from God to Him.

Second, even the righteousness which qualifies us to receive all His covenant blessings is His gift to us. Our righteousness is completely inadequate to earn His favour. In fact, according to Isaiah’s observation, our righteousness is no better than “filthy rags”. Our “righteousness”, our very best efforts, stink!

Isaiah 64:6 NIV
[6] “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.”

So, the only righteousness that is acceptable to God is the righteousness of His Son which He earned by His obedience to the Father at tremendous cost. This is the righteousness that the Father reckons as ours and blesses with the abundance of His favour and delight.

Imagine that! God lavishes on us blessing after blessing… goodness, favour, loving kindness, covenant love, promises… whatever you want to call them, because of Jesus! God’s favour around us, like a protecting shield, has nothing to do with our merits, only with Jesus’ merits which He freely gives to us. He not only gave us His righteousness. He MADE US the righteousness of God, as righteous as God is.

2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV
[21] “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Jesus became what we are, sin, so that we can be what He is, righteousness in person.

Now, God can freely lavish on us everything that He is and wants to do for His children. There is nothing to stop Him from being the Father He is to us.

Third, God blocks every evil intention of devils and people with His favour. We are encased in His fanour like a “bubble”, above, beneath, and all around us. Wherever we go, favour accompanies us. We go shopping… favour! We run into problems…favour! We encounter people, conflict, opposition, whatever…favour! We need help…favour! God’s favour is indispensable, reliable, and capable as we meet every situation.

So, how do we appropriate God’s favour when we need it?

Psalms 18:19-20 NIV
[19] “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

David gives us the answer.

Psalms 116:12-13 NIV
[12] “What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me? [13] I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”

In the cup of salvation is all the favour we ever need, the blessings of His covenant. He is only a call away.

SHINES EVER BRIGHTER

Christian Life, ,

Proverbs 4:18 NLT‬
[18] “The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day.”

I sit in my lounge every morning, long before daybreak, watching for the first rays of light that promise another new day. When the sky is cloudless, the moonlight and starlight slowly give way to the first rays of sunlight and the glory of the day.

What a picture of our walk with God from the gloom of earthly life to the glory of heaven! In this life, our vision of heaven and eternal life is dimmed by the imperfections we live in, in ourselves and in this fallen world. Heaven seems vague and far away while we struggle to make sense of life down here. We understand little of what God has done, is doing, and what lies ahead for us.

But we have this hope…

‭1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT‬
[12] “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

Like distorted images in a broken mirror, we have distorted visions of our future in God’s presence. The Bible resembles the broken pieces of the mirror. Never do we see a picture of the real thing, just fragments here and there to whet our appetite and make us long for more…

And yet, as we grow older and gain more experience of God’s ways, a clearer picture begins to emerge like the way the growing light of dawn reveals the shapes and colours of things around us ever more clearly.

Sixteem years ago, I prayed David’s prayer, specifically and earnestly…

‭Psalms 86:11 NIV‬
[11] “Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.”

In an older version, the prayer went like this….

“Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth…”

… And for sixteen years, God has been and still is answering my prayer. The older I grow, the brighter the light of revelation and understanding becomes, and the stronger my desire to walk in the truth of the insights of His ways the Holy Spirit gives me.

This Scripture is becoming more real to me as I converse at length with one who refuses to believe the truth and rejects the blessing of life in the care of a heavenly Father who has the perfect solution to every problem and wisdom for every question.

For him, God does not exist. Only as his own intellect attempts to sort out all the threads and
make sense of what is nonsense to him, can he invent a philosophical solution which doesn’t work. His mind is a mess of tangled ideas which need heavy medication to save him from insanity! What a way to live!

Perhaps my greatest discovery on this journey into light is the revelation that God’s way for us to live in this world is VERY SIMPLE. His way consists of two basic prescriptions which the situations and circumstances of our lives flesh out as we travel.

‭1 John 3:23 NLT‬
[23] “And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us.”

Believing in His name is a call to submit to His absolute authority in all the details of our lives.

‭John 8:12 NLT‬
[12]”Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”

‭John 8:31-32, 34-36 NIV‬
[31]” To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. [32] Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”…
[34] Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. [35] Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. [36] So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

Do you get it?

Solomon’s prescription for life is the same,

‭Proverbs 3:5-8 NLT‬
[5] “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. [6] Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. [7] Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. [8] Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones.”

Loving one another is the natural outflow of believing in His name. With Jesus at the helm, His example and His power in us, the resident Holy Spirit, enables us to do what He does, to love one another.

‭John 13:34-35 NLT‬
[34]”So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. [35] Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

That’s it! Simple! And, as we follow these instructions, our understanding of His ways grows clearer as surely as the dawn promises the brightness of a new day.