February 17, 2017
The Lord’s
Promises Are Pure
Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
The faithful have vanished
from the earth!
Psalm 12:1
In Psalm 12, David continues with
his lament over the moral decay in his society. David was not referring to
people outside of the covenant relationship with God, but to the people of
Israel. David’s concern for those who were set apart as the people of God is
valid for the Christian church today. More and more churches are adopting the
marketing style of the world’s culture to promote their church. More and more
churches are using the management and transformational programs of the Harvard
Business School to try and revitalize congregations. Recently, a church
conference adjourned after spending two weeks in session at a cost of millions
of dollars. Nothing of substance was accomplished. Instead of the worldwide
body of believer’s getting on their face before God to seek his will for the
church, the session was an exercise in parliamentary gamesmanship. Many people
had a passion for things to be done their way, or no way. Sadly, few people
evidenced a passion for Christ. I despair over the good that could have been
accomplished, but was not.
In Psalm 11, David wrote, “The virtuous will see his face.” He
renews that affirmation here. David models for us the life of a follower of God
who hungers and thirsts for God’s holiness. David’s heart was breaking over the
sinfulness and rebellion against God that was so prevalent in Jerusalem.
David also noted in Psalm 11 that
“the righteous LORD loves justice”
which means God hears the cry of those who long for God’s justice: “The Lord replies, “I have seen violence
done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise
up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do” (Psalm 12:5).
David called Israel, and us, to
live with an abiding trust in God’s faithfulness, or as he put it in Psalm 131:
“O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—now
and always.”
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, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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