When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. Psalm 73:16 In the first half of Psalm 73 (verses 1-14), Asaph was completely absorbed with himself. “Why are things going wrong in my life? Why is God blessing other people more than me? What’s the point in pursuing a godly life?” Asaph was convinced that his problem was with God. He thought his biggest problem was the unhappiness he was experiencing. But when he came into the presence of God, Asaph saw that the real probl...
Jun 22, 2025•3 min
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. Psalm 73:23 What would you expect the outcome of Asaph’s confession to be? “My spirit was bitter, my heart ruled my head, and I was acting on impulse… Therefore, I am a total failure”? Or “Therefore, God has no place for me”? No! Look at the outcome of Asaph’s confession: “Nevertheless, I am continually with you” (73:23). True confession never leads to despair. It always opens the door of hope. My soul was bitter, my heart ruled my...
Jun 21, 2025•3 min
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Psalm 73:21-22 “My soul was bitter. My heart ruled my head. I was acting on impulse.” This is a serious confession of sin. Asaph’s confession goes beyond anything that he said or did. It uncovers the hidden movements of his heart. There really is an appropriate sense of shame here. “My spirit was bitter. I let my heart rule my head. And You saw the chaos that followed. I was actin...
Jun 20, 2025•2 min
I was like a beast toward you. Psalm 73:22 The point about the beast is that animals act on impulse. One of the great gifts God has given to men and women is the gift of reason, logic, reflection, and analysis. This gift was not given to the animals. Animals act on impulse. Asaph says, “That’s what I was doing! When my heart was grieved, I was being pushed around by the impulses of bitterness, unbelief, and despair. No wonder my feet almost slipped!” We are living in a culture where people love ...
Jun 19, 2025•3 min
I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Psalm 73:22 “Ignorant” is a word that describes the mind, so Asaph was saying, “When my heart was grieved, everything I knew and believed about God seemed to fly out of the window.” In other words, Asaph was talking to his friends in gloomy terms, as if there was no God, no help, no hope, and no future. He was senseless and ignorant. His heart ruled his head. Maybe you have seen the film Home Alone. It’s the story of a young boy who is a...
Jun 18, 2025•3 min
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart… Psalm 73:21 These verses open up what was going on in Asaph’s heart before he came to the sanctuary. These things were hidden from Asaph himself. He didn’t understand what was going on. But when God met with him, the light went on. He saw clearly and so he was able to make this confession. There are particular sins to which you may be especially prone when you are grieved, upset, or disappointed. When things don’t go your way, the sins of...
Jun 17, 2025•3 min
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. Psalm 73:21-22 Confession has always had a central place in Christian worship. Catholics confessed their sins to a priest. Protestants confessed their sinfulness to God. But it seems that confessing our sins is disappearing from worship altogether. We celebrate God, and we celebrate ourselves, but if we do not confess our sins, we will not change. A Christianity that neglects confession of sin is not New Testam...
Jun 16, 2025•2 min
I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Psalm 73:22 This is a godly man’s confession of sin, and confession is a normal part of a healthy Christian life. The Apostle John says: “If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If you cannot see anything in your life that you might appropriately confess as sin to God, then you are deceived: “If we say we have not sinned, we make him [God] a li...
Jun 15, 2025•3 min
When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Psalm 73:21-22 This is Asaph confessing his sins to God. He is admitting to things that are wrong in his life. As soon as Asaph gets his thinking straight, he begins to pray. Prayer flows out where truth flows in. We hear the truth every Sunday as we listen to the Word of God preached, and we read the truth every time we open the Bible. One way to measure your grasp of the truth i...
Jun 14, 2025•2 min
I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Psalm 73:22 Asaph’s story tells us how God brought this man through a crisis of faith by taking him through a number of turns. The first thing Asaph discovered was that he needed to STOP. “If I had gone where my thoughts were leading me at that time, I would have let everybody down” (see Psa. 73:15). He made a decision to stop. He refused to follow where his discouraged mind was leading him. The first step to turning your life around is ...
Jun 13, 2025•3 min
My feet had almost stumbled. Psalm 73:2 Asaph was a godly man. He was a spiritual leader. This is the kind of man we would all look up to with great respect. Asaph didn’t just read the Scriptures, he was chosen to write some of the Scriptures under the direct inspiration of the Spirit of God. Perhaps there is not a deeper experience of the Spirit than that. This was a man who walked with God. But in Psalm 73, Asaph tells us that there was a time in his life when he almost lost it: “I looked at w...
Jun 12, 2025•2 min
Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. Psalm 73:20 Asaph uses a second picture here, waking up from a dream, to show us what he discovered in the sanctuary about the ultimate outcome of the wicked. Imagine a beggar who has a dream. And in his dream, he wins fifty million pounds in the lottery! He dreams about the home he will buy and the car he will drive. He dreams about the motorboats and motorcycles he will have in his expansive garage. In...
Jun 11, 2025•2 min
Surely you set them in slippery places. Psalm 73:18 When Asaph came to worship, he remembered God’s truth, and he met with God’s people. That was where God straightened out this man’s thinking. Remember, Asaph’s problem began when he wondered why the wicked prosper (73:3). So how did God straighten out Asaph’s thinking? He reminded Asaph of the ultimate outcome of the wicked. Here Asaph uses the picture of walking on ice to describe their end: “Surely you set them in slippery places” (73:18). Ho...
Jun 10, 2025•3 min
When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God. Psalm 73:16-17 You see what Asaph is saying: “Here I am struggling with my problems. But my questions and struggles are part of something much bigger.” It’s a great thing to have personal faith, but behind your faith there is the faith. Behind your little struggle to believe, there stands a great company of men and women through the ages who have faced the same questions and the same ...
Jun 09, 2025•3 min
When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. Psalm 73:16 Asaph was saying, “When I looked at the problems in my life and at the problems in the world, I kept asking, “Why is this happening?” My mind went around and around, trying to figure it all out, but I couldn’t. It was oppressive to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it! It is a terrible thing when your mind is confused. The second step in Asaph’s recovery was to straighten out the confused thinking that had reig...
Jun 08, 2025•3 min
I would have betrayed… your children. Psalm 73:15 Asaph knew that if he were to give up, he would betray God’s children, and that stopped him in his tracks. Now, there is more to climbing out of a black hole than that, but this is where it begins—with a decision, a commitment: Lord, I will not betray your children. On the night when He was betrayed, John tells us that Jesus prayed. He was about to endure the agony of the cross. But the focus of His prayer was on His disciples and what God would ...
Jun 07, 2025•3 min
If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed… your children. Psalm 73:15 You would think that the turning point of his life would begin when he gets some answers. But that’s not Asaph’s story. Asaph wants us to know that the first step to turning our lives around is not finding an answer but making a decision. His mind is driving down this dark road of despair, so he makes a decision. “I am not going any further down this road. I will not go where these despairing thoughts are leadi...
Jun 06, 2025•3 min
If I had said, ‘I will speak thus,’ I would have betrayed… your children. Psalm 73:15 Asaph was saying, “If I had followed where my confused thoughts were taking me, I would have let everybody down. I would have become the Judas of the Old Testament. I would have betrayed your children.” Asaph doesn’t want to go there, and so he takes himself in hand. Imagine spending a few days away, and the place where you are staying is off the main road. So you arrive in the evening, and it is pitch dark. Yo...
Jun 05, 2025•2 min
All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. Psalm 73:13 Maybe you have coworkers who have very little integrity, and yet they seem to be thriving. You, on the other hand, have tried to do business in a way that honours the Lord, but instead of thriving, you are facing all kinds of trouble. It leaves you saying, “What’s the point?!?” One of your coworkers, who was fooling around with someone in the office, just got a promotion. But you were faithful to your spouse, an...
Jun 04, 2025•3 min
I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Psalm 73:3 You can hear Asaph’s distress in his words, “I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” The wicked act as if no one can touch them, and God does nothing about it. But here I am trying to serve the Lord in ministry, and all I see is the agenda of those who hate God and despise His Word moving forward. Why does God allow it? It makes no sense to me. You can understand Asaph’s problem. Can you make sense of the way God rule...
Jun 03, 2025•3 min
Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. Psalm 73:1 This psalm begins with a statement of faith. It was like a creedal statement, the sort of thing you would recite every week at worship. It is rather like us confessing “Jesus is Lord” when we meet for worship. “Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.” Asaph was saying, “This is what I’ve always believed. This is what I built my life on. But I have to tell you, ‘As for me, my feet had almost stumbled’” (7...
Jun 02, 2025•3 min
As for me, my feet had almost stumbled. Psalm 73:2 Psalm 73 is the personal testimony of a man who came through a great crisis in his life. He tells us how he nearly lost his faith, but God helped him, and he found his way through the crisis and into a stronger faith than he had before. If you look at the heading of Psalm 73, you will see that it was written by a man called Asaph. Asaph was one of the men that King David put in charge of music in the house of the Lord (1 Chr. 6:39; see also 6:31...
Jun 01, 2025•3 min
"I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you… I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." Ezekiel 36:26-27 When you come to faith in Jesus Christ, God puts His Spirit within you. That’s His promise. The first evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life will be that you have a deep desire to please God and to serve Him by being a channel of His love into the lives of others. This will be the greatest strug...
May 31, 2025•3 min
If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Philippians 3:4 You see what the apostle Paul is saying: “I saw myself as a morally upright person.” But then Paul says, “All that changed,” and he tells us what led him to a complete reevaluation of his position: “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (Rom. 7:7). This religious man had concluded that he was morally upright. But now he is telling us the commandments showed him that he is a sinner....
May 30, 2025•3 min
"You shall not covet." Exodus 20:17 Coveting happens in the secret places of your heart. It is known only to you and to God. Your neighbour would know if you stole his car, but he would never know if you coveted his car. Nobody knows the secret desires of your heart. Nobody knows your secret fantasies. The tenth commandment is the key to understanding the other nine. All the other commandments are about specific actions. Murder, adultery, stealing, and perjury are all behaviours that can be seen...
May 29, 2025•3 min
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29 The essence of lying is saying what will achieve the desired result, irrespective of whether it is the truth. Gossip: This involves passing on news about another person that may or may not be true. Someone has likened gossip to ripping open a feather pillow on a windy day. The feathers fly in the wind, and once they’re out, there...
May 28, 2025•2 min
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Exodus 20:16 It’s good to remember that each of the Ten Commandments reflects the character of God. The Bible tells us that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), and that He always keeps His promises. When we come into a relationship with God, He calls us to reflect His character in the way that we live our lives, and that means we seek to be characterised by truth in everything that we say and do. Now, strictly speaking, the ninth commandment addr...
May 27, 2025•2 min
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy." John 10:10 Satan is the great taker of what does not belong to him. He is always trying to get as much as possible, while giving as little as possible. He pays terrible wages—“the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). If you do his work, you will be terribly disappointed when you get your paycheck. But Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Satan is the great taker of what does not belong to him, but ...
May 26, 2025•3 min
"You shall not steal." Exodus 20:15 There’s a story about a thief who was serving time in prison. Stealing had become his lifestyle, and eventually the long arm of the law caught up with him. But while he was in prison, he heard the good news of Jesus Christ and was wonderfully converted. When the day came for his release, he knew he was in for a difficult time. Most of his friends were criminals, and it wouldn’t be easy to break old patterns. So on the first Sunday of his new freedom, he slippe...
May 25, 2025•3 min
"You shall not steal." Exodus 20:15 Here is a definition of stealing that will get you thinking about the struggle of the eighth commandment: Stealing is trying to get as much as possible, while giving as little as possible. Remember, each of these commands speak not to one sin, but to a whole category of sins. We know this from Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. We also see this in the Old Testament, where the rest of the law is an exposition of the Ten Commandments, showing how they a...
May 24, 2025•3 min
