Summer in the Psalms - Week Seven Gathering Place, PART TWO

Hi girls, and welcome back! I hope you enjoyed the change of pace this week as you all gathered together to write the posting yesterday, you did a fabulous job - I was blessed by both your depth of insight and your willingness and eagerness to share. Some of you seemed to like the challenge of the change - I love to hear that!

Yesterday, Debbie and Angie each had a question - Debbie was wondering about the placement of the word 'even' in v. 9 - you will notice in your Bible that this word is in italics (the word itself being slanted), this was done by the translators to show that this word is not found in the original writings of Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic, but it is implied and so added to give even better clarity. Take out the italicized word, and you will see the sentence as it was written originally. Debbie, personally, there are times that I think they should have just left it, but in this instance, I really like the added emphasis, I mean the Psalmist is basically saying, "Look, you have made the LORD - Who, by the way, is my refuge - your dwelling place, and I'm just needing you to know, that He is not only the LORD, but He is THE MOST HIGH!... you just can't be getting any higher than THE MOST HIGH!"

Now, Angie was wondering if she had interpreted v.15-16 correctly by assessing that 'honour' was meaning salvation. The short answer Angie is, yes! Think about it this way, we learned from our study in John this past year (John 5:23) that the word 'honour' basically means 'to give place to'. So, on this side of the cross, God honours us by giving us 'spiritual place'; that through salvation in Christ we are now seated in heavenly places in Christ (Colossians 3:1-3). During the time of the Psalmist, God gave 'physical place' to His people that pointed to the spiritual yet to come. If you would like we can discuss this more when we meet in the Comment Cafe!

OK, so, I was thinking that I would perhaps talk a little about the promises that we see in Psalm 91; the conditions of those promises; how we are to interpret and apply those promises Biblically; and then perhaps touching on the subject of 'knowing His Name'. Maybe not in that exact order, but let's see how far we can get!

Before we get into the promises though, let's do a quick overview - did you know, that in all probability, this particular Psalm was written by Moses just at the very beginning of the wilderness wandering of God's chosen people? If not, then take a look at the superscription of Psalm 90 - go ahead, look ... I'll wait for you!

Can you just imagine, as you read the first verse of Psalm 91, Moses standing before the people and proclaiming to them, with great authority and with the weighing of each word, "He who abides in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty." I mean, there is no mistaking his point here - if you are dwelling then you are abiding! And don't even get me started on that, just go ahead and read John 15!

After the psalmist makes this proclamation, he then makes clear where he personally stands in all this, "I will say to the LORD, 'My refuge and my fortress, My God, in Whom I trust!'" I consider this declaration to be absolutely magnificent, right up there with the confession of Thomas in John 20:28; and by the way, due to my fondness for emphasis, the use of the exclamation mark just endears this psalmist to me more than I can express!!! He then goes on, throughout v.3-13 to declare the results of abiding and trusting in God, and then in v.15-16 we see the confirmation of God Himself over His Word through the psalmist.

One of the reasons that this Psalm is so well-worn is that it is full of God's promises, some of these being more obvious than others. As I initially read through, the promises that I noted first were those that were directly linked to God Himself - for instance, in v. 4 "He will cover you..." or v. 11 "He will give His angels charge concerning you..."; then I noted all of the many other promises, such as v.5 "you will not be afraid..." or v.10 "no evil will befall you..." . It is so important not to miss that the reality of these promises in a person's life, all hinge on three things found in v.14-15 ... that the (he) loves Me; that (he) knows my Name; that (he) prays.

How about if we look at these three things a little closer?

The best way that I know how to describe loving God is what we saw in John 21, it is AGAPEO love... loving God in His best interest. This is the love that Jesus had for God, Jesus Who only and always did those things that were pleasing to the Father. In John 21, Peter definitely loved Jesus, but it was a PHILEO love, a 'brotherly' love. Jesus knew that for Peter to be able to endure all that lay ahead of him, he would need an AGAPEO love for Jesus, and in 1 Peter 1:6-9 we see that Peter surely did grow from loving Jesus like a brother to loving Jesus in Jesus' best interest, and this AGAPEO love in Peter led him to glorify God right up until the moment of his death.

This kind of love flows out of the heart that KNOWS the Name of God. Knowing God's Name will only deepen our love for Him - this 'knowing' of His Name is crucial. To keep this as simple as I know how, John 1:1,14 tells us that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us... " Jesus is God and Jesus is the Word. In Revelation 19:13 we see Jesus returning and we are told, "He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His Name is called The Word of God.

I can honestly tell you that the knowledge of this has governed my whole entire Christian life and praise God, I have never veered from it. Girls, if you want to know God's Name, you must be in His Word! Look back now at Psalm 91:14-15. God says, "because he has loved ME; because he has known MY NAME; he will call upon ME..." We need to be knowing God as He Himself is revealing Himself, not the way that we ourselves want to think of Him as being. That only leads to idolatry, the creating of a god of our own making and design. I cannot tell you how often, through years of leading studies, that women have said to me that they do not read the Old Testament because the God of the Old Testament is a demanding and wrathful God and that they prefer Jesus of the New Testament; Jesus 'meek and mild'. This drives me to absolute distraction! In John 14, Philip asked Jesus to show him the Father and Jesus answered saying, "Have I been so long with you, and yet YOU HAVE NOT COME TO KNOW ME Philip? He Who has seem Me has seen the Father..." To know God as He would have us know Him, to call on Him in prayer as He would have us call on Him in prayer, to love Him as He would have us love Him, is to KNOW Him as He really is, and not pick and choose those attributes that are only pleasing to us and deny or close our eyes to others. If we do that we will never know that fullness of the NAME of God.

You may think that I have said to much regarding this, but if the whole of the promises of the Psalm are hinged on this, and they are, then it is vital for us to know. Having said that however, it is important to understand that we cannot 'force feed' ourselves to know the fullness of His Name. The knowing of His Name daily unfolds throughout our life - Abraham came to know God's Name as Provider when the ram was caught in the thicket; Hagar came to know God's Name as The God Who Sees when she and her son lay in a barren desert dying of thirst. It is the experiencing of the reality of His Name that we come to truly KNOW His Name.

OK, so how do we Biblically interpret and apply the promises that we have read throughout Psalm 19? We already know from our lesson a few days ago that everything that was true physically of Israel as God's chosen people is true spiritually of God's chosen people on this side of the cross today. For instance, the believer in Christ is spiritually safe, just as Israel was physically safe when the first born of Egypt were killed (Exodus 12:23). There is a physical 'deadly pestilence' and there is a spiritual 'deadly pestilence'; believer's are safe from the spiritual deadly pestilence and plague of sin and the death that are it's ultimate wages. Can God save a believer from the physical ravages of cancer by healing him, of course! Does God always? No, not always. But spiritually, the believer is safe from the death grip of sin and we need not fear.

There is so much more that this Psalm contains, but I will leave it there for now.

Personally, Psalm 91 is well worn and marked in my Bible, God has used it to minister to my soul time and time again over these past 20 years. I have committed to memory "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and fortress, My God in Whom I trust!" He has caused my heart to be tender before Him and to know that my soul has found it's rest in Him. And because my dwelling is now in the shelter of the Most High God Himself, I am hidden in Christ... it is any wonder that no plague of this world can touch my 'tent'... after all He is my 'Tent', my Dwelling Place. I praise you Lord!

OK girls, once again you know my disclaimer... don't have time to proof so let me know if there is anything that is spiritually downright dangerous otherwise, just grace me!

Love,