February 27 – Treading and Trampling

“O give us help against the adversary, For deliverance by man is in vain. Through God we shall do valiantly, And it is He who will tread down our adversaries.”  - Psalm 60:11-12 (NASB)

King David did not win all his battles against his enemies. Our Psalm today is a song of lament coming after he was defeated in battle.  He cried out to God, asking why it seemed that God had deserted His people.  But God had not deserted the nation of Israel. God takes the time to straighten David’s understanding and David records it.  Our verses of promise today are from the last words of this song.  With enemies on every side, God promises their defeat if we rely on Him.  Relying on ourselves is useless and vain. The promise God gives to us is that if we trust God we will be able to acknowledge that all our essential victories come only from Him.  There really are no victories over our adversaries without God treading and trampling them down. We can always rely on God to do our fighting and we can always know that His promise is victory for us by His might and for His glory.  

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December 11 – Walking Close

“They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength.’ All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.” Isaiah 45:24 (NIV)

Today's verse is an example of God giving to His prophet the very words that He wanted written down and delivered to His people. We call the Bible the Word of God and we know that its teachings come from our creator. In this instance Isaiah received the Word of God directly from God. God predicted here what people would say about Him.  If we are walking close to the Lord in our Christian life we can say what God predicted we would say.  Yes, as we walk with the Lord we find that He is the source of our ability to live right. We find His righteousness keeps us in the straight way. It is how we find strengths that we need to do what we need to do. Walking close to the source of the promised strength, let's commit to doing that today.

January 17

“You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.” Psalm 32:7 (NIV)

The psalmist in this verse is thanking God for protecting him from trouble and mentions the method that God uses to protect him. He thanks God for surrounding him with songs of deliverance. But we might ask, how can songs protect anyone from trouble? The truth, of course, is that when we remember how God has delivered us from trouble in the past we are reminded to trust Him for any problem we face today. Praising God for deliverance in the past strengthens our faith and calls on God to help us again. He hears the songs of deliverance as expressions of our faith and he responds again. So we say with the psalmist what he said in our verse – God is our hiding place and our protection from trouble and we can sing about it.

October 29

“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.”  Psalm 34:17 (NIV)

We don’t find anywhere in the Bible a promise that God’s people will never face any problems during their life on this earth. These words today are about the righteous – about those who have chosen to obey God and to follow Him. It presumes that they will have troubles. But no matter how many troubles a follower of God faces, this verse promises that God will deliver him or her from ALL of their troubles. How does this come about? The deliverance comes when the believer cries out for help. This is a prayer of faith addressed to God. This is the kind of cry to which God responds. He hears when we cry to Him when we are in trouble.