November 24, 2023
“LORD, you are mine! I promise to obey your words!” (Psalm 119:57 NLT). The psalmist declared that the Lord Himself was his portion, his reward. He sought not the Lord’s hands, but His face. While others seek blessing, he sought the Bestower of all true blessings. Remember the parable Jesus told of the prodigal son?
November 10, 2023
“My heart is confident in you, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises with all my heart!” (Psalm 108:1 NLT). David declared the confidence of his heart towards God. In other words, David had set and established his heart on God. He had fixed his focus on God alone. Having made God the
November 3, 2023
“Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. Sing to him; yes, sing his praises. Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds” (Psalm 105:1-2 NLT). There are four words for worshiping the Lord given in the first two verses of Psalms 105. Did you notice them?
October 29, 2023
“I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar” (Psalm 101:3 NLT). David wrote this psalm, beginning nearly every verse with the personal pronoun, “I.” The psalm shows his desire to have a predetermined and settled code of conduct in facing certain situations that might tempt him to sin. In verse 3, he declared
September 12, 2023
“But when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. I praise God for what he has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me?” (Psalm 56:3-4 NLT). David knew what to do when he felt afraid. He had already decided in advance
September 11, 2023
“Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall.” (Psalm 55:22 NLT). Who carries your burdens? Are you trying to carry them alone? Why would you keep laboring under such a weight when the Lord offers to take care of you?
September 7, 2023
“Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just” (Psalm 51:4 NLT). David wrote this psalm in repentance after committing adultery with Bathsheba. Although he surely recognized he had sinned against
September 4, 2023
“O God, we meditate on your unfailing love as we worship in your Temple” (Psalm 48:9 NLT). Meditating on God’s “unfailing love” is an appropriate act of worship. What kind of love is this? The Hebrew word is “chesed,” which may be translated “lovingkindness” or “covenantal love.” In the Greek New Testament, the word “agape”
August 29, 2023
“Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God!” (Psalm 43:5 NLT). There are at least two ways of understanding this Scripture. The first is to view the psalmist as truly questioning the source of his feelings
August 27, 2023 | Psalm 32:1-5 |
We want to please God, but still have sin areas that cause us to feel guilty and defeated or past sin areas that we still feel guilty about. This robs us of living the blessed life, the happy life.
What is guilt? It’s that feeling of shame and regret we feel over a sinful attitude or behavior. It can be appropriate guilt when we are indeed responsible for an offense and feel remorse for it. Or it can be false guilt when we feel responsible for something that we had no control over, yet still feel we could’ve prevented in some way. Guilt feels heavy, like baggage that we carry with us. It fills us with shame and regret.
Some will try to help us deal with our guilt by trying to convince us that we shouldn’t feel guilty. But the Bible tells us that the reason we feel guilty is because we are guilty! But it also tells us how to give it to God! In David’s Psalm 32, he described how confessing his guilt led to living under God’s blessing. We can understand how confessing our guilt leads to living under God’s blessing.