Keep me safe, O God - Psalm 16
Psalm 16:1 - Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.
Never separate the two parts of this prayer or you will diffuse
its power. The first part is a request made in faith. The second is a
declaration of faith upon which every request is made and in which our
confidence resides. Safety, in and of itself, is of limited value. We are safe
from what and for what? The end and the
means are the same here. We are made safe by abiding that we might safely abide
in Christ. If God is our refuge, that is enough to say. It is an end in itself.
To be in Christ is the end that brings every new beginning. Where is your
principal residence in this life? Every anxiety and discomfort is addressed by
the answer of faith. If you reside in God and take refuge in Him, then rest in
Him and abandon all concern for safety from that which you cannot control. God
is in charge.
Psalm 16:2 - I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I
have no good thing.”
This is so very important! First,
we must recognize that to say “Lord” is not just to utter a religious word or
to speak with respect toward our chosen deity. In the naming of God as Lord is
a relinquishment of every other value, treasure, and prize. It is to
acknowledge Him as Supreme Master and to render everything else in our lives as
valueless apart from Him. It is in acknowledging Him as the source of every
good gift that those gifts have worth. It is in knowing Him that every other
vision fades in importance and takes its place in His court as subservient to His
will.
Psalm 16:3 - As for the saints who are in the land, they are the
glorious ones in whom is all my delight.
One of the great privileges of the new birth is that we
are born into a family of saint with whom we can associate and in whose
fellowship we can delight. To be a saint is to be separate, holy, and dedicated
to a particular function. That function, for the Christian, is the praise and
glory of God. In one sense, it is not a mysterious or otherworldly thing to be
a saint. In another sense, it is to profoundly embrace a mystery that we can
never fully understand and be apprehended by a world far beyond our reach in
these mortal bodies. If one is a saint indeed, one loves other saints because,
in them, we see God’s face as clearly as possible in this life –even among
those who dwell in the land.
Psalm 16:4 - The sorrows of those will increase who run after other
gods. I will not pour out their
libations of blood or take up their names on my lips.
Today, we join the eternal chorus of welcome as the Lord Jesus
Christ enters into our consciousness as the King who comes in the Name of the
Lord. He is the Prince of Peace and righteousness. His Kingdom comes with glory
and praise, but also with a cross of pain and disgrace. Yet, He willing enters
into the sphere of time, space, and judgment to face whatever stands between
Him and His mission to bring all who welcome Him into eternal fellowship with
the Father. Let us lift our voices in worship as we worship Him.
Psalm 16:5 - Lord, you have
assigned my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.
God is righteous. That means that
everything about Him is fully integrated into His holy character – He is 100%
pure truth, love, goodness, and holiness. There are no contradictions in God –
except those that we contrive in our own misunderstanding of Him. He loves
justice. His heart delights in seeing things set aright. He loves consistency
in our lives. He takes joy when His truth is integrated into the loose
dimensions of our lives and we come into right relationship with Him. There is
a promise in this verse, that the upright will see His face. What a glorious
affirmation! The more we seek Him, the more our hearts are changed by His power
within us and the clearer our vision of Who He is becomes. We can see God. His
grace in Jesus Christ removes the scales from our eyes so that we may have a
glimpse in this life and the hope of full disclosure in the life to come. Let
that truth sink into the pores of your being today and celebrate it as you walk
through the maze of confusing messages and distorted truth. You can see God.
Psalm 16:6 - The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
Do you feel alone in your spiritual journey? Do you imagine that
you are the only person in your school, workplace, or neighborhood that desires
the things of God or seeks after His will? Do you wonder if there is even one
other person who will stand with you for truth and righteousness? Are you
overwhelmed by the loneliness of solitary seeking? Do you even wonder if the
psalmist was somehow transported out of his time to speak of ours? Things have
not changed that much have they? We all look back on better times when we were
sure that there were more righteous and earnest people living among us and
compare those times with our “todays.” We conclude that we are alone and that
no one else is godly or faithful. While that is not true in every sense, it is
in one. “There is none that is righteous, no not one.” We are indicted by that statement
and must include ourselves among the number of the “no more” who have “vanished
from the earth.” From God’s perspective and standard of perfect holiness, no
one measures up. Then Jesus Christ enters the picture and He alone stands for
truth. Our only hope is in Him and in Him we are not alone. Consciously align
yourself with Him today and allow God to flush away that sense of “aloneness.”
Psalm 16:7 - I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my
heart instructs me.
If you can’t trust a compliment, what can you trust? The
psalmist has had it with flattery. He is discouraged over the tendency of his
neighbors to use speech only to manipulate and deceive. We ought to develop
that same level of disgust with untruth because all lying and falsehood are at
odds with a God who is truth. Pretty lies are no better than ugly lies. Lies
are lies and they are dark and dismal. Ask God to fill your heart with truth
today and with a love for that truth so that whenever you would tell yourself a
lie, you would immediately appeal to the God of truth and be rescued. Whatever
urge you may have to be hard on your neighbors, start first with yourself and
let God’s grace fill you and change you.
Psalm 16:8 - I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be
shaken.
First, consider this on Maundy Thursday – praise and flattery
met Jesus upon His entry into the
Psalm 16:9 – Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body
also will rest secure,
God saw the oppression of the weak and heard the groaning of the
needy, bound in the chains of sin and wickedness. Thus, He came to us as a man
among men. He arose and took upon Himself of a lowly servant, He emptied
Himself and became obedient unto the death of the cross. (Philippians 2) He
identified with us completely, yet without sin and became our protector
and deliverer from sin. God has always
been the champion of the weak and needy. The Christ-event and the passion of
the cross make it clear that every man, woman, and child is in need of a
savior. We are all oppressed – even if we are oppressors. We each writhe in
agony for someone to intervene in our darkness and bring us into the light.
Friend, the cross, was, is, and always will be for you. Spend some time today
meditating on it. Seek out other believers with whom you can worship in wake of
Psalm 16:10 - because you will not abandon my to the grave, nor will
you let your Holy One see decay.
Oh, precious words, flawless, pure, beautiful in their refined
glory. God’s words stir the soul, comfort the afflicted, afflict the
comfortable, and pierce the heart with divine truth and brilliant light. On
that dark Saturday between the cross and the resurrection, the disciples had
only the remembrance of His words. What would they have meant to you in such an
hour? What have they meant to you in your darkest hours. After the
resurrection, Jesus would meet men on the road to Emmaus and remind them of His
words and those that the Father had spoken over the centuries through the
scriptures. He would bring them new meaning and their hearts would burn within
them. Let Jesus apply all of God’s words to your heart in the darkness of death
from the place of resurrection. We can never fully visit the despair of that
bleak Saturday, but we can enter into our own darkness with the flawless Word
of God to comfort our souls.
Psalm 16:11 - you have made known to me the path of life; you will fill
me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
What a pointless prayer this would be divorced from resurrection
truth! Without the resurrection we are exposed, vulnerable, and unprotected. If
Christ were not raised, we would be as Paul said, “still in our sins (I Cor.
15).” We could not expect help in the
onslaughts of wicked and violent people or non-human forces from a dead and
powerless God. Prayers would be futile attempts to feel better about our
miserable circumstances. Compliance with ethics would be fruitless acts of
legalistic compulsion if not overwhelmed by a dynamic conviction that God can raise
the dead and thus, protect, deliver, and save. God raised Jesus from the dead
and pronounced the death sentence on death. He is alive and brings to life all
who trust in Him. Celebrate! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!
"Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, and
suddenly you are doing the impossible."
-- Saint Francis of Assisi
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