1 O Lord my God, in You I have taken refuge; save me from all those who pursue me, and deliver me, 2 or he will tear my soul like a lion, dragging me away, while there is none to deliver. 3 O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is injustice in my hands, 4 if I have rewarded evil to my friend, or have plundered him who without cause was my adversary, 5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it; and let him trample my life down to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah.
6 Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; lift up Yourself against the rage of my adversaries, and arouse Yourself for me; You have appointed judgement. 7 Let the assembly of the peoples encompass You, and over them return on high. 8 The Lord judges the peoples; vindicate me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and my integrity that is in me. 9 O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; for the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. 10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. 11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day.
12 If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready. 13 He has also prepared for Himself deadly weapons; He makes His arrows fiery shafts. 14 Behold, he travails with wickedness, and he conceives mischief and brings forth falsehood. 15 He has dug a pit and hollowed it out, and has fallen into the hole which he made. 16 His mischeif will return upon his own head, and his violence will descend upon his own pate.
17 I will give thanks to the Lord according to His righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.
I get an overwhelming sense of protection from this passage, especially in verse 10. He protects us and vindicates us because He is a righteous Judge, yet He receives indignation - strong displeasure at something considered unjust - every day. He gets sin from us every day but sees us as righteous. As a fair and just judge, the only way that makes sense is that someone mustve brought righteousness to us. This whole concept is still mind boggling to me, but i like it.
There have been a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head this past week. Break has been good, but I think I'm not letting myself really enjoy it. I love seeing everyone back at home, but I cant help but think everytime im with anyone that this activity or this conversation doesnt matter or doesnt help us work towards eternity. do you guys ever feel like youre holden caulfield, only instead of being caught between age groups, youre caught between locations, churches, fellowships, friend groups? Maybe im sinning against God in not being satisfied with the fellowship that I have here, but I just long to be with gospel minded people who want to talk about how each other is doing, how our times in the Word have been, or even how thankful we are that God is in our lives.
Praise God that He sees us as righteous. Praise God that He protects us and shields us. Praise God for trials and times where we dont know what were doing, because when we figure out its more glory to Him. love you girls.
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i went to church with my whole family today. the service was great, the performed one of the songs i really liked from the Christmas song "O Come, o come Emmanuel." remix version with two groups, the smaller group, joyful sound kind of acted like the percussion group...singing "Come, come adore Him...come, come adore Him." uplifting music for the soul. jmac preached on 1 Tim 3:16. i never realized that the verse most likely came from a hymn. the theology packed in that one verse is amazing. "He who was revealed in the flesh"...God was revealed to us in the form of human flesh!..."Was vindicated in the Spirit"...look at the beginning of Romans 1 in verse 4..."seen by angels"...to think that the angels look down at this Lamb who was slain and long to understand redemption and salvation (1 Peter 1:12)..."proclaimed among the nations"...His birth had been prophesized thousands of years before He had been born...to think that angels appeared to regular shepherds in Luke 2 to proclaim that He had finally come..."Believed on in the world"...that we who would believe on Him...all scattered around the world...we would be given life!..."Taken up in glory."...Christ is living again...and one day He will come down and establish His dominion forever...we will know His glory in full. tmr is Christmas day...girls let's remember our Christ. He came and lived among us. i can't wrap my mind around the incarnation. and to think that He is still living today. we serve a living God! we are part of the living God's church! most of you are struggling at home...struggle for Christ with joy especially during this time. so many times i have complained to God about GOC, but what if we are the miracle? what if the miracle that we are looking for...the spark in our fellowship or homechurch is us? but then...aren't we all miracles? the fact that we can say we are children of God is a miracle! i have been reading a biography on Jim Elliot and i will end this long comment with this quote.
"Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me." - Jim Elliot
praise God for His Son that we could ever hope to say such things!
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