Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
We thank the Lord for preserving for us the Christian experience of David, the Psalmist. He is brutally honest with himself: he confesses that he is a sinner of sinners, that he deserves to have the Lord remove from him forever the blessing of the Holy Spirit (Psalm 51:11). This meant--his eternal salvation.
He makes no effort to hide the guilt of his double crime--his sin of adultery, his coveting of his neighbor's wife, plus the sin of adultery with her, plus the terrible sin of his murdering the lady's husband (we can't say one sin was worse than the other!). David is reduced to the lowest place and he doesn't try to hide it.
In Psalm 27 he teaches us in a simple way how to be happy in the Lord:
(1) He begins by recognizing the truth: The Lord [alone] is his light of life, and his salvation. A good confession of faith; let this be our confession, to begin with (vs. 1).
(2) He accepts the Lord's New Covenant promises and contradicts Satan's effort to make him afraid (vss. 2, 3).
(3) He states the truth in powerful terms: even if an enemy army comes against him, he chooses that his heart shall not be afraid (that's how to conquer fear: choose not to let your heart be troubled, says Jesus in John 14:1-3).
(4) David makes the choice: what he wants above all else in life is simply to "dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life" (vs. 4).
(5) And that's not to become wealthy: no, his prayer is to "behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple" (vs. 4). The infinite wealth of the Lord is for anyone to take, and it makes Him happy to see someone on earth who appreciates Him enough to desire Him more than what this earth can offer us.
(6) "The time of trouble" scares many serious-minded Christians; it doesn't hurt to think about it ahead of time, BUT think as David does--in absolute confidence that the Lord whom you worship "in His temple" will hide you "in the secret of His tabernacle" (vss. 5, 6).
(7) You are not to feel proud because of this holy preference the Lord has for you; it's simply His "family love" for you since you are a member of His family by adoption (see Eph. 1:3-6)!
(8) Your heart is moved to sing, because His love (agape) has redeemed you (vs. 6).
(9) But yes, there is something for you to do: when the Lord said to you, "Seek My face," you responded immediately, no dilly-dallying about it, "Your face, Lord, I WILL seek!" (vs. 8). Your heart was one with the heart of the Lord!
(10) You think of the loving care your earthly father and mother lavished on you, but good as they were, your parents could only go with you a certain distance: they had to leave you to go on alone with the Lord in ways they could not understand (vs. 10).
(11) David confesses that he would have "fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (vs. 13), that is, unless he had believed that he would see the answer to all his prayers while he was still living--before the Lord comes. Sobering thought!
(12) But what you can't see with your earthly eyes, see with eyes of faith. Psalm 27 is a treasure; adopt it as yours.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 31, 2008.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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