I have trusted in your steadfast love. PSALM 13:5 David is not feeling the love of God. He has been quite candid about that: “How long will you hide your face from me?” (13:1). Now, he moves beyond what he feels to what he knows: God’s steadfast love. This is love that lasts, love you can count on. God’s love for you had no beginning; it will have no end. God has loved you with an everlasting love. What David is facing shows no sign of going away, and so his question has been, “How long?” David ...
Mar 28, 2024•3 min
Answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes...PSALM 13:3 Suppose another Christian said, “I’ve been a believer for years, but it feels like God has left me. He doesn’t answer my prayers. Does God really care?” How would you try to help him or her? First, recognise the experience. If a mature believer like David (a man after God’s own heart) can feel abandoned by God, no one should be surprised when a brother or sister experiences this. Don’t assume the worst about a believer who feels that God ha...
Mar 27, 2024•3 min
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? PSALM 13:1-2 Listen to the complete candour with which David lays out his struggle before God. He is not holding anything back. He is seeking an authentic relationship, and an authentic relationship can only happen with honesty. First, David does not hide his struggle with God: “How lon...
Mar 26, 2024•3 min
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? PSALM 13:2 Maybe you have been carrying a heavy burden for a long period of time, and the strain is beginning to show. It may be physical pain or mental anguish, or it may be the sheer weight of responsibility that God has placed on your shoulders. God has sustained you, but as time goes by, you are wearing down. You find yourself saying “How long, O Lord? I’m not sure I can sustain this much longer.” If you’re not ...
Mar 25, 2024•3 min
You Are in an Agony of Soul How long, O LORD? Psalm 13:1 Thank God Psalm 13 is in the Bible! We need it. We live in a suffering world, and a faith, quite candidly, that does not speak to human pain is not worth taking seriously. This psalm speaks to struggles that have no end in sight. Four times in the first two verses we find the question, “How long?” The hardest trials to endure are not the ones that hurt the most, but the ones that last the longest. This psalm speaks to those situations in o...
Mar 24, 2024•3 min
The upright shall behold his face. PSALM 11:7 David is saying, “How can you say, ‘Flee like a bird’? God is on His throne. And whatever happens in this world, one day I’m going to see His face.” There’s a true story of a man by the name of William Montague Dyke, who at ten years old was blinded in an accident. While in college, William fell in love with the daughter of a high-ranking British naval officer, and they were engaged. Shortly before the wedding, William had eye surgery to restore his ...
Mar 23, 2024•3 min
The LORD is in his holy temple; The LORD’s throne is in heaven. PSALM 11:4 God is still on the throne. You may be experiencing fear or frustration, but God is not in a panic. You may not be able to put things right when the foundations are destroyed, but God can. You may not be able to deal with the wicked, but God can, and He will. David overcame his fear, his frustration, and his temptation to despair by fixing his mind and his heart on God. Here’s how he takes refuge in God. Here’s how he fix...
Mar 22, 2024•2 min
Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. HEBREWS 12:26 What is God doing when He shakes the things that are familiar in our lives? He shakes the foundations so that “the things that cannot be shaken may remain” (12:27). Derek Kidner says, “The collapse of what is built on sand may be distressing; it can also be a beginning.” God shakes what is built on sand so that it might be rebuilt on a better foundation. Job was a righteous man and God had blessed him in many ways, but...
Mar 21, 2024•3 min
They have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart. PSALM 11:2 Jesus was “upright in heart” and from the earliest days of His ministry He was the target of wicked men. At least twice, He had to challenge the well-meaning advice of His friends. Once, some Pharisees said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you” (Luke 13:31). These well-meaning Pharisees wanted to warn Him of danger, but Jesus challenged the voice of fear and despair: “Go and ...
Mar 20, 2024•3 min
How can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain”? PSALM 11:1 The advice of David’s friends came from fear and frustration. “The wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string” (11:2). That’s fear. David, you’re going to get hurt if you stick around. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (11:3). That’s frustration. David challenged both voices: “How can you say [these things] to my soul?” (11:1). David doesn’t say, “In you, Lord, I take ref...
Mar 19, 2024•3 min
Flee like a bird to your mountain. PSALM 11:1 Perhaps this resonates with you. There used to be a Judeo-Christian consensus in our country: There is a God in heaven, and He gave us the Ten Commandments by which we should live. That’s not much, but it is a basis for talking to people about sin and our need for Christ. Much of that foundation has eroded away. In the minds of many today, “god” is whoever they want him, her, or it to be. “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?”...
Mar 18, 2024•3 min
How can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain”? PSALM 11:1 Someone was giving David advice, and this advice went straight to his heart: “It’s time to move on, David.” Why? We are given two reasons in this psalm. First reason: “The wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart” (11:2). There’s going to be trouble, David, and you’re the target. Second reason: “If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do...
Mar 17, 2024•3 min
O LORD, you hear the desire of the afflicted. PSALM 10:17 Does God feel far away? Do you wonder if He has forgotten you? If so, this psalm is for you. God is calling you to stand in faith, and you can do that because Jesus will stand with you. Not only did Jesus endure wickedness, He triumphed over it. Peter said, “You crucified and killed [him] by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23), but God raised Him up, and He is the King forever and ever (Psa. 10:16). Jesus hears the prayer of the afflict...
Mar 16, 2024•2 min
Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. PSALM 10:12 Jesus would have known this psalm. What did it mean to Him? What use would it have been to Him? Did Jesus ever know what it was like to feel that the wicked were winning? Or to feel that His Father was far away? If you walk through this psalm, you will see Jesus all over it. Jesus knows the greed of the wicked. He saw “the one greedy for gain” (Psa. 10:3), selling animals in the temple courts, turning the place of pra...
Mar 15, 2024•3 min
Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart ‘You will not call to account’? But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation. PSALM 10:13-14 The wicked person says that God has hidden His face and forgotten. But David says “No, you don’t! You don’t forget.” (10:14). Here are some core convictions that will help you pray when the wicked seem to be winning: God’s eye: “You do see” (10:14). David says, “You see everything. Nothing is hidden from you.” God knows every injustice that’s ev...
Mar 14, 2024•3 min
[The wicked] says in his heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.” PSALM 10:11 There’s a fascinating turn in this psalm. At the beginning, David prays: “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself?” God, you seem so far way, so remote, so uninvolved. You don’t seem to be doing anything at all! But at some point in the psalm it dawns on David: That’s what the wicked believe! David says: “Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (10:1). The wi...
Mar 13, 2024•2 min
Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? PSALM 10:1 It’s hard enough to pray when the wicked seem to be winning, because that’s really discouraging. But how in the world are you going to pray when God seems far away? At one time or another, we have all experienced this feeling of being far from God, so it is helpful for us to hear that someone like King David knew about this and experienced it too. The Holy Spirit was present and active in David, even whe...
Mar 12, 2024•2 min
Why does the wicked renounce God? PSALM 10:13 Wickedness is not a new phenomenon; it only takes new forms. In one generation, wickedness is clothed in hypocrisy. But in another generation, wickedness is clothed in defiance. Once you see this, it will help you in praying through the issues of our day. In 1980, about 11% of the UK population regularly attended church. Today less than 5% of the UK population attends church. This means that at least 95% of people, the vast majority, are now outside ...
Mar 11, 2024•3 min
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. ROMANS 1:18 “What if there really is a God?” Most of the time, the wicked manage to suppress this disturbing thought. But the wicked can never really escape this question, and here’s why... Since the wicked are made in the image of God, and they live in a world created by God, this is not easy to do. It takes a constant effort of mind and heart because evi...
Mar 10, 2024•2 min
The wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” PSALM 10:4 God has given us a fascinating insight into the heart of a wicked person, who constantly tells himself or herself that there is no God. This is an active pattern of thought. We sometimes talk about preaching the gospel to yourself, telling yourself what God has done for you in Christ. But the wicked person keeps telling him or herself that there is no God. In order to live the way he wants to, the wicked person has...
Mar 09, 2024•3 min
But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands. PSALM 10:14 Even though he knows that God sees everything, David spells out in this prayer what the wicked person is doing. He gives us a profile of the wicked person and shows us what wickedness looks like. Pride: “The wicked boasts of the desires of his soul... He says in his heart ‘I shall not be moved’” (Psa. 10:3, 6). The wicked make a virtue of whatever they do. Whatever they want is good because they...
Mar 08, 2024•3 min
Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none. PSALM 10:15 There is no doubt what this prayer is about. It is all about wicked people. It is about evil that seemed to David to be coming in like a flood. It is an outpouring of the grief and distress that a godly person feels when evil becomes rampant. When David sees evil multiplying in the land, he takes time to lay out the problem before God. This is important when we are praying about the darkness ...
Mar 07, 2024•2 min
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. MATTHEW 7:7-8 Pray because when you seek Jesus, you will find Him. There will be times when you feel that nothing much is coming of your prayers. This is a promise to help you persevere. Ask and go on asking. Prayer is how you will guard against temptation. “Watch and pray that you may not enter i...
Mar 06, 2024•2 min
My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. MATTHEW 26:39 Another reason to pray is that this was the practice of Jesus. Jesus went to a solitary place to pray when He came to the hour of greatest trial (26:36-46). The Bible tells us that Jesus prayed the same thing three times. He was wrestling and so He went back to the Father again and again to find help and relief. If the Son of God did this, how much more should we do this in our we...
Mar 05, 2024•2 min
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. HEBREWS 4:16 Prayer may be the most underused gift that God has given to His people. One reason to pray is that God invites you to come to His throne of grace. John Bunyan said, “God has more than one throne...”. The throne of grace is very different from the throne of judgment. God invites you to come to the throne of grace. How often would you want to pray if you knew you were coming before the throne of judgment? And when you come,...
Mar 04, 2024•2 min
We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God. HEBREWS 4:14 If we have an important conversation, we are often grateful to have someone else with us. Is there someone who can come with us who knows the person better than we do? This is how Moses felt when God sent him to speak to Pharaoh. God sent Aaron, the High Priest, with him. Who will go with us when we go into the throne room of Almighty God? Hebrews says, “We have a great high priest.” Think about t...
Mar 03, 2024•2 min
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace. HEBREWS 4:16 You have a direct audience with Almighty God every time you pray. Where can we learn this holy art of prayer? God has given us an entire book of prayers in the Bible—the Psalms. One reason we have been given the book of Psalms is to help us in our praying. The Psalms are a training manual for prayer. In the book of Psalms, there are model prayers for every circumstance of life. These prayers have been breathed out by the ...
Mar 02, 2024•2 min
Draw near to the throne of grace. HEBREWS 4:16 Spontaneous prayer is a marvellous gift, but when things are really important, we rarely trust spontaneity. If you work in sales, you try to understand your client’s needs in order to recommend a product that will be helpful to them. You research their website, you learn about their business, and you prepare a presentation that is adapted to the particular customer. Why? Because the meeting matters. So why would you not do the same with prayer? Supp...
Mar 01, 2024•2 min
Draw near... HEBREWS 4:16 Prayer is a holy art that is better caught than taught. The best way to learn to pray is to start praying. But there are some things that can be learned. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a little book called Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, in which he said, “It is a dangerous error... widespread among Christians, to think that the heart can pray by itself... Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him,...
Feb 29, 2024•3 min
This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death. DEUTERONOMY 33:1 Chapter 33 gives us the last recorded words of Moses. The whole chapter is full of blessing. Moses was raised in the palace of Egypt. He was surrounded by opulence and wealth. Is that what it means to be blessed? Around age 40, everything changed for Moses. He had to leave Egypt, and for the next 40 years he scratched out a living as a shepherd in the desert. For 40 years he exper...
Feb 28, 2024•3 min
