Part one, devoted

DEVOTION

PSALMS

PART ONE, DEVOTED

Ps 86

86:1 A prayer of David.

Hear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Guard my life, for I am devoted to you. You are my God; save your servant who trusts in you. 3 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long. 4 Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call to you. 6 Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy. 7 In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.

8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord; no deeds can compare with yours. 9 All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name. 10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God.

11 Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. 12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. 13 For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.  

14 The arrogant are attacking me, O God; a band of ruthless men seeks my life — men without regard for you. 15 But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. 16 Turn to me and have mercy on me; grant your strength to your servant and save the son of your maidservant.   17 Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, O LORD, have helped me and comforted me.

NIV

This is not that long of a psalm but it is packed full of so much to deal with, we might just have to stay here awhile. We don’t think we can say that David was actually poor and needy in the material sense, so it matters not what our position in life is. The fact remains no matter how much wealth we might have amassed for ourselves, we are still poor and needy. God made sure one of the churches understood that in his revelation to John.

Rev 3:17

17 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

NIV

Because we are poor and needy we need the Lord to guard or lives as well, but not just because, no it is because we are devoted to him. That is a mouthful. To be devoted to God. The Hebrew reads for holy I which many of the translations use this devoted to God. Either way the implication is that we cannot be devoted but to one thing at a time. In this case it is God. We know that verse about not being able to serve masters.

Luke 16:13

13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." 

NIV

We can only be devoted to one not both. Can we truly say what David said about being devoted to God? Are we distracted from pure devotion? Can we ask him to save us, his servant who trusts in him? Surely we need to be devoted to our spouse. Certainly that is a command of God. But then, if we obeyed him, we're devoted to each other, then it would mean we are devoted to him. In fact, obeying all his commands would be considered being devoted to him. It would also mean we trust him completely for every aspect of our life. So then we can ask him to have mercy on us, to save us, to sustain us, to embrace us, and watch over us, to be our God as we are his people. We call on him all day long. Do we? Are there moments we forget about calling on him? Are there times we think, “We have this”, times we do not call on him because we can do it all by ourselves, with our own strength, know how, knowledge or abilities. But it is God who has led us to this point in our lives, giving us our abilities, our strength. All we are, all we have and all we do is because of the blessings of God in our life. This is the joy of our life, to know the Lord God is directing us, leading us on his path of righteousness. We will lift up our soul to him.