Everlasting arms

DEVOTION

PSALMS

EVERLASTING ARMS

Ps 34:11-22

11 Come, my children, listen to me; will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12 Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, 13 keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. 14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; 16 the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.

17 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. 18 The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

19 A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; 20 he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.

21 Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. 22 The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.

NIV

Simply by reading all of the word of God we will no doubt learn to fear, to reverence, to respect the Lord. There is also in some sense real fear, trembling fear of the Lord. He can, if he so desired, to wipe us off the face of the earth by one word from his mouth. We may not even grasp how awesome his power is, yet when we combine all of his word which he gave us to reveal himself to us, we should not need to tremble in fear for he loves us. However, there are some aspects of life which we need to acquire if we desire to have a long life filled with good days. We are to keep from speaking about evil things, and refrain from telling even the littlest lie. It might seem harmless to tell what is referred to as, a little white lie, but it is still not the truth. The Hebrew word translated lie, means deceit. Any non-truth would be considered an attempt to deceive someone. We are to turn away from all that which is evil, including the speaking lies, and live in a good manner, a truthful manner, a righteous manner, living as if Christ is within us, oops, he is. We are to seek, to find what is peace, which again is Christ, he is our peace, and pursue it, or him. Jesus said he gives us peace, not as the world gives peace, but his peace he leaves us with.

John 14:27

27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

NIV

God is attentive to those of us who love him, and live according to his ways. He watches over us, he hears our cry when we have a need, when we are facing trouble, or a difficult situation in life. It is certain that from time to time we will face some sort of trouble or hardship. Life is not always a bed of roses, even for those of us who believe. We get sick, we feel pain in our body, and we experience painful emotions. Life even brings us the loss of a loved one. It is inevitable we all will face the death of a parent, or a spouse, if we haven’t already, that is life. But God is there, he is always there and he is there to hear our cry, to comfort us, to be our Rock, our Fortress, and our help in trouble. He hears us, he is attentive to us, he loves us and is there for us, but we must come to him, we must allow him to comfort us, to be our shelter, our Rock. When we face those situations, we do not need to face them alone, he is there with us, and we can lean on him, on his everlasting arms. The wicked have no such promise, in fact even the memory of them will be gone. They will perish and will never be remembered by anyone, even God. He remembers us, but not them. That is harsh, but the truth. We will be saved, we have the Lord, he delivers us from all our troubles, he protects all our bones, not one will be broken, of course that speaks of Jesus on the cross, but the idea is God will watch over us as he did with Jesus on the cross, he did not turn his face from him nor does he turn his face from us, even when we fail him, when we sin. We can always trust him, we can always lean on his everlasting arms

What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning in the everlasting arms;                                                                      

What a blessedness, what a peace is my, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the everlasting arms;

Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms, leaning on the everlasting arms.

What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms;

I have blessed peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms;

Leaning on the everlasting arms.