September 10, 2014
The Lord Is King Forever
The Lord is king forever and ever! The godless nations will vanish from
the land.
Psalm 10:16
In the Hebrew Bible, Psalms 9 and
10 are combined as one psalm. Thus the foundation of praising God with “all my
heart” continues. To praise and pray in this way is indicative of a lively,
personal relationship with the LORD.
Too many Christians live their
lives as though the church is a memorial to Jesus Christ. They tend to live as
though the church is a place to remember Jesus’ life and the things he did and
said. Jesus wants more than just to be remembered; he wants a lively, personal
relationship with each of his followers. In her devotion, Jesus Calling,
Sarah Young encourages us to pause before responding to people or situations,
thus giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to lead us. When we don’t wait upon
the Lord, when we react with hasty words and actions, we are living as though
we do not have a personal relationship with Jesus. An atheist does not believe
in God and thus seeks to solve their problems out of their own wisdom, strength
and resources. Some people truly believe in God, but they live as though they
are totally responsible for the course of their life. They function as an
atheist because they are not living as though they expect God to act in their
life.
As Christians, we affirm God as
personally present in our life, a living Spirit. With nothing between us and
God, our faces shine with the brightness of His face. We are transfigured, much
like the Messiah, and our lives gradually become brighter and more beautiful as
God enters our lives and we become like Him. (See 2 Corinthians 3: 16-18 The
Message)
If your heart resonates with that
affirmation from Second Corinthians, you can appreciate the lament of the
psalmist. He is surrounded by atheists; nevertheless, his hope is in the
LORD. Today is a good day to make a
complete list of your struggles. What issues are you facing? How are your adversaries
taking advantage of you? Now, with your list in hand, make up your mind to pray
with the psalmist:
The LORD is king forever and ever!
The godless nations will
vanish from the land.
LORD, you know the hopes of the
helpless.
Surely you will hear their
cries and comfort them.
You will bring justice to the
orphans and the oppressed,
so mere people can no longer
terrify them.
Psalm 10:16-18
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. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by
subscription.
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus
Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.
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