2 Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
3 Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.
Key Verse:
3 Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.
Key Observation:
Matthew Henry: “It is probable enough that (as most interpreters suggest) David made this protestation in answer to the calumnies of Saul and his courtiers, who represented David as an ambitious aspiring man, who, under pretence of a divine appointment, sought the kingdom, in the pride of his heart.”
Memory Verse:
1Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
Devotion:
“Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.” McGee suggests quite rightly that I should go to my knees in prayer and humility before God. I have been trying to do that at least once a day for the last year, but there are many days where I let schedules crowd out the really important things.
I admire David for his attitude. I was reading in Kings this morning for my devotion, and read of one king who killed all of his brethren. David was the opposite. I watched a video this week asking people if they would kill Hitler if they had a chance. Most of the answers (from people who even knew who Hitler was) were in the affirmative. They would have killed him without hesitation. How opposite to David that was! His attitude was that God sovereignly put the king in power, and that it ought to be God who sovereignly removes him. Twice he refused to harm Saul, even when God delivered Saul to David. He was a humble man of God.
Philippians is the key scripture for humility. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. . . . Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on the cross!”
What a model my Lord gives me! I do find it is easier to leave my own desires at the foot of the cross when I consider what He did for me. In Ephesians He tells me that “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies—and again—just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, so that ought to be my love for my wife. What a challenge! As Christ loved the church, so I must love my wife. As I love and care for my own body, so I must love my wife. What a lifetime calling!
I cannot help but comment on the last verse: “3Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.” Is not the theme of the Psalms consistent? Over and over they remind us that the Lord has not forsaken Israel, but that His plans for Israel are but delayed. “From henceforth and for ever” is a very long time. I do not understand how men can read the Bible and not believe it—I mean here those who attest to having Christ as their savior. God says it plainly—why can we not receive it plainly? He purposes, and we are but clay in His hands. Oh that I might find voice to proclaim His majesty to a lost world!
Make Me a Channel of Blessing
1. Is your life a channel of blessing?
Is the love of God flowing through you?
Are you telling the lost of the Savior?
Are you ready His service to do?
2. Is your life a channel of blessing?
Are you burdened for those that are lost?
Have you urged upon those who are straying,
The Savior Who died on the cross?
3. Is your life a channel of blessing?
Is it a daily telling for Him?
Have you spoken the Word of salvation
To those who are dying in sin?
4. We cannot be channels of blessing
If our lives are not free from known sin;
We will barriers be and a hindrance
To those we are trying to win.
Chorus:
Make me a channel of blessing today,
Make me a channel of blessing, I pray;
My life possessing, my service blessing,
Make me a channel of blessing today.
Lyrics: Harper Garcia Smyth
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