Meditations for Ragamuffins
April 3, 2024
Lord, I Am Coming
“My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming”
Psalm 27:8 (NLT)
One of the qualities I admire in the Apostle Paul is his single-minded purpose. He told the Athenians, “In Christ we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28 NRSV), and he summarized his ministry in Corinth as, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). His devotion to Christ sustained him through very difficult times.
The psalmist David expresses a similar single-minded devotion to God in Psalm 27. His prose, as in verse 4, expresses his heart’s one desire: “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,”
Some scholars have suggested this psalm may have originally been two psalms because of the shift in tense at verse seven. In the first six verses, the psalmist speaks about God and in verse seven he begins speaking to God. I think this shift is intentional and expresses an excellent pattern for prayer. In the first portion of the prayer, the psalmist rehearses his personal convictions, his personal core values. Having thus established a firm foundation for his faith, he then makes his petitions to God.
My Takeaway: You may want to set aside some time to formulate your
own prayer using this pattern. Begin by affirming your core values, and then be
open to the Lord leading you to shape your petitions,
Psalm 27:8 (NLT)
Sē’lah
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2024 by Alex M. Knight
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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