Placing My Confidence in God

"But thou O Lord art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head" Psalm 3:3

I always remember a song composed from this passage of scripture. The very first time I heard that song was in 2002. It was at a time I was preparing for one of the toughest exams in Medical School back then. The words of the song captured my heart as I went through such a momentous period in my life.

Permit me to shed more light on the terms David used to describe God in this verse:

Shield: the original word means more than a shield used by a soldier. It's like the scaly skin of a crocodile. It's an all-round protection-in front, behind, above, beneath. What a shield our God is for His people.

Glory: more accurately the source of my glory, the one I can boast in. 

Lifter up of mine head: the one who raises me up from despondency, the one who makes me rise up again in a difficult situation, the one who picks me up from the ashes of gloom and causes me to smile again.

In all, this verse is an expression of confidence. God should be our confidence. Not anything or anyone else. As human beings living in this world, we are very often tempted to place our confidence in other things. Perhaps things we can see, feel, touch or physically experience in some way.

Most times we are drawn to have confidence in our perceived strengths or we feel confident in areas in which we feel we have an advantage over others. Some women have confidence in their beauty, some men in their physical strength. It could be intelligence, or for some people education. For others, it's their "connections" while for others perhaps wealth or even parentage or ethnic origin.

Sometimes we start off in an endeavor placing our confidence in God and we experience some measure of success. We then subtly replace our confidence in God with confidence in our own ability. It is a thread that runs through the fabric of all areas of our lives. For instance as a preacher and teacher of the Word, an ever present temptation for me is that I may begin to trust in my own personal ability to teach or speak rather than trusting in God’s ability to touch people’s hearts by His own ability. 

Muse with me on this Psalm for a moment and learn to place your confidence in God. There is no better shield, no greater succour, support and shade than Him. There is no better boast: "...let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches..." "Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord". Jeremiah 9:23, 1 Corinthians 1:31.

This week face all your tasks with this confidence. Fill your heart and mind with trust in God's ability to come through in any and every aspect of your life. Look away from your perceived strengths or weaknesses. Say with David "Thou O Lord art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head".

  Thou art a shield by Byron Cage

Preserving His Message of Grace

Hello everyone. We bless God for the start of a new week. We have another opportunity to spread the fragrance of God all around us.

In my post today as we continue our considerations on the subject of God’s grace, we’ll move to chapter 2 of Galatians. We will consider the first 5 verses:

“Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also…and meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” Galatians 2:1-5 New International Version.

Paul was accompanied by Barnabas and Titus to Jerusalem where he had gone for some private discussions with the apostles about the nature and content of his message to the Gentiles. Some Jewish people were still insisting on physical circumcision and some other aspects of the Law of Moses as prerequisites for God's acceptance. They just did not believe that the grace of God was adequate for salvation. 

Paul along with the other apostles however, understood that God’s grace was enough for salvation. If they had believed that God’s grace was not enough then Paul’s visit was a good opportunity for a firm and loud statement to be made- Titus was a Greek and they could have compelled him to be circumcised.

Verse 5 portrays their steady adherence to God’s principle of grace. They did not even for a moment give in to them or yield in submission and walk in compromise. They did that to preserve the truth of God. I consider that action one of the most important actions ever taken in the history of the church for the preservation of truth. We may not have been where we are now if Paul and the other apostles had given in. 

The reality is that those “false believers” have never been completely absent around us. All through the years, they have remained around the church in every generation attempting to distort the grace of God. Over the years many people have had to stand in the position Paul and the apostles stood back then. Many of those people actually lost their lives in the process of safe-guarding the truth, all for the purpose of ensuring that the precious deposit of the message of God’s grace reached all the way down to us.

Today, God’s gospel of grace is still under attack as many of us will very clearly see all around us. My point to us in this post is a call to responsibility. I see it as a sacred trust and so should you. God has deposited His truth with us and we have a responsibility to pass it on in that pure form to the next generation. It may only be your family or just friends and people around you, allow God to use you as a channel of transmitting His message of grace. We cannot afford to be the broken link. We must preserve His message of grace.

Have a very lovely week everyone.

"When God's Grace Steps In..." 2

Hello people. As we begin a new week, I’ll be emphasizing again the power of the grace of God as we continue drawing from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

“Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judaea which were in Christ: But they had heard only, that he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.  And they glorified God in me.” Galatians 1:21-24.

Paul had been a notorious personality. The whole church knew he was the one who leading the assault on believers although in fact many of them had never met him before. He had the reputation and it had spread widely around. 

Despite all the information they may have had about Paul beforehand, when the Christians in the churches in Judea heard that he had become a believer, they “glorified God”. They were thankful for the wonderful grace bestowed upon a man who was once a persecutor but had then become a preacher. It would have been a surprising change, but they celebrated the grace of God at work in Paul’s life.

Let’s take a mental trip back and just assume you and I lived at those times. Would you have acted like the Judean believers? Would you have been happy to hear that the man who was the witness at the stoning of “faithful deacon Stephen”¹ had become a minister of the gospel? I’m certain that many people in our day would have locked the doors of their churches against Paul or probably would have regarded him with much suspicion and caution. The Judean churches were not like that. They understood that God has the ability to turn people’s lives around.

On many occasions I’ve heard believers exclaim “it’s not possible!!” when they hear of any “notorious” person’s salvation. It almost seems sometimes that we don’t really trust in the ability of the grace of God to effect a change in the lives of others. But there isn’t a vile and sensual man that God’s grace could not make pure. There isn’t a dishonest man that His grace could not make honest. There is no lost and abandoned sinner that God cannot receive to Himself. 

There is no depth of sin and depravity that is out of the reach of the grace of God. This is how powerful and efficacious God’s grace is! Think about this fact dear friends and let it affect your consideration and behavior towards other people. Last week the emphasis was for us to celebrate God’s grace in our own lives. Today I say celebrate God’s grace not only in your own life but also learn to celebrate the work of grace in other people. Remember even where sin abounded, grace has superabounded²

 

Have a great week ahead.

Notes

1. Acts 7:57 - 8:1

2. Romans 5:20