Accepted

DEVOTION

PSALMS

ACCEPTED

Ps 6

O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. 3 My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long?

4 Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. 5 No one remembers you when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave?

6 I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. 7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail because of all my foes.

8 Away from me, all you who do evil, for the LORD has heard my weeping. 9 The LORD has heard my cry for mercy; the LORD accepts my prayer. 10 All my enemies will be ashamed and dismayed; they will turn back in sudden disgrace.

NIV

We cannot break this one up, it requires the whole to see the truth in our relationship with our Lord. Surely we do not have such agony in our bones it appears David did. Our soul may not be in as much anguish either, but the point is this life does has its ups and downs. We have those days or moments in our life which seem difficult and there may be times we simply what to give up. Why brother to go on, we need the Lord to deliver us from those times. We need relief from the stress of life at times. The Lord is always there, but at times he seems so far away, we have to always remember he is there and his unfailing love is completely surrounding us. Each morning we begin with a praise because one more day we have his unfailing love, his mercies which are new each day. The world might try to beat us down. Satan tries with all he has to break our spirit, to tempt us to give up on God and put our trust in ourselves. Satan shows us what appear to be the good things of life. The typical main three he brings into the lives of men are money, power and sex. It seems in our modern culture, many women are falling prey to the same temptations. He offers these in all sorts of different ways, not being obvious with them, but in a deceptive underhanded way, so we may not notice. It seems even as strong as David was, the man who killed Goliath and became one of Israel’s greatest kings, the man God testified was a man after his own heart, had those times in life he wanted to give up because of the enemy of his soul. He used the phrase all his foes, or you who do evil.  If such a man as David had such feelings, do we think we are immune from those feelings? Although there may be men, people who are foes, or enemies, the truth is Satan is their driving force. He is the true enemy who desires our defeat. But it is those words, “get thee behind me Satan” which puts life back into our bones, which brings everything into perspective. They Lord is near, he hears our hearts cry and accepts our prayers. He smashes the enemy, he turns him back, and he keeps him from our hearts door. The enemy can do nothing without the Lord’s permission, so we are safe in the arms of our Lord. It is sure we cannot praise our Lord from the grave. That may not mean the actually grave, but from a dead life, a life without joy, without love, without peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness and faithfulness. Jesus said that apart from him we can do nothing, we need to remain in him. He is the vine, we are the branches and in order to have live, to have fruit we must be in the vine, if no fruit, we might as well be in the grave as we are living in dead men’s bones. But alas, we are alive, we are filled with the Spirit and we are bearing much fruit and our mouth praises our Lord with each new day, for God hears our voice and he answers our prayers, they are accepted.