Psalm 7

¹ O LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
² or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
³ O LORD my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands-
⁴ if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me or without cause have robbed my foe–
⁵ then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust. Selah
⁶ Arise, O LORD, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God, decree justice.
⁷ Let the assembled peoplesgather around you. Rule over them from on high;
⁸ let the LORD judge the peoples. Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High.
⁹ O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.
¹⁰ My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart.
¹¹ God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day.
¹² If he does not relent, he will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow.
¹³ He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows.
¹⁴ He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment.
¹⁵ He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made.
¹⁶ The trouble he causes recoils on himself; his violence comes down on his own head.
¹⁷ I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.

A shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning Cush, a Benjamite.

Verse nine is the theme of this psalm “O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.” It contains our acknowledgment of who God is and what should be the theme of our daily prayer. I Corinthians 2:11 states “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him?” should be your guiding light when dealing with others. Stop and think how many times in course of your daily routine that you are quick to pass judgment on a person’s actions. Stop and think how many times in course of your daily routine that you hear others around you who are quick to pass judgment on a person’s actions. But in reality, do we really know what they are thinking? No, we can try to perceive their thoughts but only they know what they are really thinking. But God does know the thoughts and intents on the mind and the heart of all individuals. So, our prayers should be: God bring to an end the violence of the wick and make the righteous secure. I Corinthians 2:11, 12, 16 tells us how to have the mind of Christ; “In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” As you walk daily with Christ and study his word daily you should see a transformation in your own life of the striping away of the old self and the putting on the new man. God’s judgments are based on the thoughts and the intents of a man and not the actions of man as portrait in this psalm. I Corinthians 2:16 bring out an important reason to study God’s word “That we may understand what God has freely given us”. Surely goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I pray that this is the peace that you have with Christ tonight.

The Way of Our Walk

“And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?” – Genesis 50:19

As you go about your journey on this earth, do you have to be in control of the events in your life? Genesis 50 gives us a picture of how Joseph followed his father’s last wishes on his burial in the land on Canaan. Joseph took control and followed his father’s wishes and made everything happen the way Jacob wanted it to happen. However, after the funeral his brothers sent a message to him referring to Jacob’s request for the brothers to carry out concerning their past sin to Joseph. They were living in his presence however; since, they still had not confessed their sin and asked for his forgiveness, they probably did not have the close brotherly relationship with him as they should. Now with Jacob’s death they feared that Joseph would now carry out his our justice and give them the judgment that their sin desired. They were now at the mercy of Joseph who had the power to carry out judgment with his own hands.

Joseph’s reply was simple: “Fear not: for am I in the place of God?” Joseph knew the time, the place, and who was going to judge all men. The time is in God’s hand and he and he only knows it. The place is before him. And finally, it will be God who judges us. However, as you go about your journey on this earth you can partake of an attribute of God just as Joseph did. This attribute is our ability to forgive others. As Christ preached in Matthew 6:12 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” and then as Christ expanses on this in verse 14 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you”. This was probably the thought that Joseph had then he replies to his brothers “I cannot judge you for your evil, however I can forgive you” and this is also the way in which we must walk.