Daily Encouragement

SEPTEMBER 14, 2008 - Bless The Lord

Meditation on Psalm 103

This popular psalm calls for us to bless the LORD. The richness of this psalm will take a life time to comprehend them all. Let each of us have an understanding of the overall subject. And then we will meditate upon the special word or verse(s) that is so attractive to us personally.

David first of all called for himself to bless the LORD within His soul. He brought forth some specific reasons for praising and thanking God. (v. 1-14)

He emphasized the frailty of men contrasting with the everlasting mercy of God to those who remember God's commandments. (v. 15-18)

He even called on the angels and all God's works everywhere to bless the LORD. (v. 19-22)

I am mostly touched by the concept of mercy of our heavenly father in verses ten to twelve, "He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." (NKJV)

God's mercy is so great and His forgiveness is so thorough that it is almost incredible. There is no limit of distance from east to west since the earth is round. That is how far God would take away our sin and guilt. Just to contemplate this would cause us to bless Him and fear Him even more.

Which part of this psalm is your favorite?

SEPTEMBER 15, 2008 - The Lord's Supply

Meditation on Psalm 104

Psalm 103 and 104 are a pair. Psalm 104 blesses the LORD for His supply for His creation. He created the world and He continues to care for all that are in it.

From verse one to nine, we find that God is a Spirit of light. He also created the heavens and the angels. He created the earth and set limit for the water that covers it.

Continuing from verse ten to eighteen, the psalmist gave rich description of God's provision of flowing springs for cattle and vegetation so that man may have food and wine as well as the animals may have shelters.

What marvelous revelations from verse nineteen to twenty six they are. God did appoint the seasons and the day and night. Even young lions seek their food from God. God has designed for man to work as well as to sail. The sea is full of living creatures, large and small. He possesses all things on earth.

"These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season." (v. 27 NKJV) is God's affirmation that He supplies for all who live in the world. The following three verses clearly point out the living creatures' dependence upon His will and the earth's dependence upon His renewal.

In summary, the psalmist calls for our honoring and praise to Him. It also calls for our meditation upon Him be sweet and the destruction of sinners. (v. 31-33)

"Bless the LORD, O my soul! Praise the LORD!" (v. 35b) He has provided and He does provide for you. Would you not wait on Him?

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008 - Recording God's Faithfulness

Meditation on Psalm 105

Faithfulness is God's character and what He expects from us. God is always dependable. He never changes though His method of dealing with man may change. Thus we must obey Him with faithfulness. One of the ways to learn faithfulness is to remind ourselves His faithfulness by recording His faithfulness.

The first fifteen verses of this psalm was composed by King David when he placed the ark in the tabernacle.(1 Chronicles 16:7-22) Here in psalm 105, he or other psalmist illustrated further the faithfulness of God to His people in history.

Throughout the multiple teaching of this psalm, I find some precious gems which are so helpful to me personally. Perhaps you may feel the same:

Seeking God is so very important. "Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD! Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore!" (v. 3b-4 NKJV) Whether God will show up in your life or not is depending on how urgently you seek Him.

"He remember His covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant which He made with Abraham, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant" (v. 8-10) God's promise never fails. What he said regarding Israel and Abraham will be fulfilled for sure. Through Abraham those who come to God by faith will also be blessed by His promise of faithfulness.

"He permitted no one to do them wrong; yes He rebuke kings for their sake, saying 'Do not touch my anointed ones, and do my prophet no harm.'" (v. 14-15) These verse tells me that nothing can harm us without God's permission. For we are also His anointed ones. (1 John 2:20, 27)

Verse nine tells us that the word of the LORD tested Joseph, the son of Jacob. Indeed, he received God's promise to him in a dream when he was young. But we can see how many trials he had gone through time and time again before He finally became the prime minister of Egypt. If you are under severe testing today, be of good cheer, God has great future for you. Keep holding on to Jesus' promises.

God is faithful. He remembers His holy promise. (v. 42a)

SEPTEMBER 17, 2008 - Spiritual Absentmindedness

Meditation on Psalm 106

Several times in this psalm, it was recorded that the Israelite did not remember or forgot God's work and multitude of mercies. That was why they rebelled against God and tested God in the wilderness. This psalm reminded them a long history of sins and failures as well as God's judgments upon them. Yet God still remembered them delivered them from their woes. That is why this psalm began and closed with Hallelujah.

It is difficult to see why the people of God for the first time failed to understand the wonders God performed in Egypt and did not remember the multitude of God's mercies "but rebelled by the sea- the Red Sea." (v. 7 NKJV) Perhaps they had been subjected to the control of the hash treatment of Egyptians for so long that they had developed a kind of slave mentality like the kidnapped victims. They did not know that they had been freed to be the people of God. They rather served the former captors because they were chased by them. (Exodus 14:11-12)

After they crossed the divided Red Sea, they rejoice and believed. But, "They soon forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel". (v. 13) Man is often impatient because of our greed and lust. We too fail to wait for God's guidance for our lives. So we aggravate our spiritual absentmindedness.

Thank God for sending His Son, Jesus to solve our problem of lack of understanding and spiritual disease. 1 John 5:20 tells us that "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." So when we accept Jesus we receive an understanding also about the truthfulness as He is. We would then comprehend His power of salvation in our lives. As we continue to pray we will even know His might power more and more (Ephesians 1:15-21) Eventually, we will be cured of spiritual amnesia.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2008 - Thank God For Redemption In The Journey Of Life

Meditation on Psalm 107

In our journey of life, we may run into troubles because of our rebellion and misunderstanding of God, or we may encounter many hardships because of our enemies. But we can cry out to the LORD for His deliverance and guidance as the Israelite did. God will save us because His mercy endures forever. Therefore we should heed the psalmist's call to give thanks to the LORD.

After the initial call to give thanks, this psalm continued for four other sections to call all men to give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!

The first section with seven verses dealt with God's settling them in a city so the people needed not wondering anymore. The second part of seven verses praised God's deliverance of His people from bondage due to their refusal to accept God's Word. The third grouping of six verses (v. 15-20) thanked God's healing upon their distressing conditions. The fourth section with ten verses described God's salvation from the storm of life and God's guiding them to a safe haven. The fifth section with twelve verses talked about God's miraculous provision in the difficult journey of their lives. In conclusion, the wise were called to reflect upon God's blessings in the past, and then they can understand the lovingkindness of the LORD.

God is good and wonderful to the redeemed! Let us thank Him always.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 - Praise God For Victory

Meditation on Psalm 108

A believer's life is a life of praise. We can praise God for His victory in our lives over our enemies and the triumph of His Gospel over all nations. I believe this psalm was a prediction of the present spreading of God's truth. King David wrote Psalm 57 and Psalm 60 which some parts of them were the same content in Psalm 108. God wanted him to repeat His message of victory and teach us to determine to praise Him early.

Recently we have read articles about a son of a powerful leader of Hamas from Palestine who has become a Christian because of the message of Jesus' forgiveness over His enemies. Much more, we should rejoice for the fact that many Iranians have become Christians today. Recent nationwide surveys indicate that over 70% of the population in Iran is watching Christian satellite programs. These same surveys reveal that at least one million have already become believers, and many millions more are on the verge. According to U S Center for World Mission's report on Iran, "The growth has happened so fast, the underground church can hardly keep pace.....Starting church is easy! Everywhere you go to evangelize, people are ready to receive the gospel…" No wonder the religious and political leaders of Iran are in panic. They are proposing a law how to punish anyone whom they consider as apostasy. It can lead to death.

But the more persecutions there are against Christians, the more converts there will be among all nations. God is winning them through His bold followers.

For this we shall awake the dawn to praise Him! (v. 2)

SEPTEMBER 20, 2008 - Prayer Against Satanic Attack

Meditation on Psalm 109

This psalm is one of the most difficult psalms to understand because of the cursing languages against an enemy. It is not "G" rated.

Christians are taught by the Scriptures to show love even to the enemies and do good to them. But in this Psalm, King David said that the enemies returned constant hatred for his love. (v. 4-5)

In situation like this, what should we do? It seems to me that generally we may not run into this kind of enemies. But in some case when Satan has entered into the heart of an opponent of the Gospel who stirs up all kinds of schemes to attack us so that the Word of God cannot be shared. When this happens, we may learn from the apostle Paul to deliver such a person to Satan. (1 Timothy 1:20) Remember also how Paul cursed Elymas who was used by Satan to disturb others from hearing the Gospel. It is important to notice that from verse 6 to 20 the enemy became singular. It seems to indicate that this opponent of David was inspired by Satan.

God is just and He does revenge against the wicked in due time. But we need to know that this psalm did not suggest that we would do the revenge. David merely prayed that God would do it. In the book of Revelation, we read about God's answer to the saints' prayers who were persecuted. So David's prayer was relevant. At the same time David showed us that we need to pray for God's protection upon us.(v. 21-29)

Then of course, David always praises God. (v. 30-31)

Christians can and should pray against Satanic attack even with tough language.