Friday, January 30th | Daily Devotion
- Jan 30
- 4 min read
In you, O Lord, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame! In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me, and save me! Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.-Psalm 71: 1-5 and 20-22
TRANSCRIPTION:
Great morning, how's everyone doing on this incredible Friday? I pray all is well. Grace and peace be unto all of you, my father's children. We are at the conclusion of our morning monthly devotional during the book of Psalms. Throughout the month of January, we've been couched in Psalms and the key of life. And as we ease into the dawn of a new month, I pray that this has been helpful and impactful for you. Over the course of the next couple of months.
This has been the stage to set for how we will continue our devotional throughout the course of this year. Now, while you won't be seeing me come in person, you will have a list of scriptures along with some questions for each day of the week that you and your family should reflect on to try and give you some marching orders moved forward by faith and by grace.
But let's conclude with the 71st Division of Psalm, a familiar one, one that I think speaks to the nature of a lot that's happening around us today.
I'm going to read a little bit at the beginning and a little bit at the middle, but I want you to read its entirety because it gives us a refreshing response to how God moves and how God operates. Listen to David's lament.
“In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. In your righteousness, deliver me and rescue me. Incline your ear to me and save me, be to me a rock of refuge to which I may continually come. You have been given the command to save me. For you are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, O God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man. For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, for my youth.”
Now, I'm gonna move over to verse number 20:
“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities, will revive me again from the depths of the earth. You will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the heart for your faithfulness, oh my God. I will sing praises to you with the liar, oh holy one of Israel.”
71st Psalm brings for us a theological nuance that speaks to how we view the surrounding extremities of the world as it relates to evil.
It opens up with saying that, that you, you know, when are you going to grasp me out of the, the grasp of the unjust and cruel man? And when we look at some of the things that have been played out on our screens and our lifestyles and in our society, it's easy for us to come to the notion that there are some evil times that we live in and there's some evil actors at play and that there is some definite, definite trauma that takes place and played out on the screens of our lives.
But the theological twist that David places on this is when you get to verse number 20, he says, um you who made me see many troubles and calamities. So at this point, the Psalmist is not divorcing the idea, the troubles that he has from the God who's in control of everything.
In other words, he's saying, these troubles that I'm dealing with, this situation that I'm seeing. This heartache that I'm feeling I know that you allowed it. As a matter of fact, in some ways, in some shapes, in some forms, you have already designated an area of trouble for me to go through to develop me. And because I know that you're in control of it, I also know that you can stop it.
So when I'm looking to the hills for you to be my rock, my refuge, the reason why is I'm not asking you to fight against, uh outside entities, I'm asking you to bring relief over the situation that you allowed me to be in. And I know that the reason why you allowed me to be in it is for my development. And while I can't see it or trace exactly how I'm going to be developed by this situation, I know that the only person that I could seek in this is you.
David has a full moment of surrender. Have you been there? Have you recognized when you looked over the course of all that was going on with the faithful eye to make the statement, God, if you brought me in it, you could bring me through it. That's what David does. That's how David speaks. And in a month that's been full of ups and downs, highs and lows.
I encourage us all to keep that same notion in context of faith in God to know that there's no situation beyond his grasp and that all that we're going through, it is in fact Christ who will bring us through it. That's where we lean our hope. That's how we govern our day. Knowing that no matter what comes at us, God has already answered it, figured it out, seen our way through. It's just about us trusting.
I pray this is empowering, and want you to have an incredible weekend.
Don't forget, we open up on first Sunday. First Sunday, we're in the sanctuary, 10 o'clock, nine o'clock Sunday school, 10 o'clock of course service. I can't wait to see you in the building.
It's extremely cold today. I pray that you all stay warm wherever you're at and wherever this message may find you, but be blessed.
And I'm looking forward to seeing some testimonies as to how devotion has been going for you as we go into our personal and individual attempts during this next coming weeks and throughout the year.
God bless you, have an incredible day.