LOCKET VERSES         WEEK 13

When we consider all the wonderful works of God, we realize that we cannot even number them.  If we were to start writing the works of God down on a paper, we could never finish the list.  Even if each of us completed a personal list of all the works of God we were acquainted with, there would be thousands more beyond our knowledge or understanding.  Astronomers realize they will never discover every star and galaxy, there are far too many of them beyond the reach of our most powerful telescope.  Even as our space vehicles roam the universe, there are still more vistas beyond their projectories.  So it is with God’s works, they are overwhelming in number!  And yet, this astounding God of innumerable workings has each of us in His thoughts!  That is truly amazing.  Psalm 139:17 says: How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them.  Truly it should be precious to each of us as we start our day, to know that our Heavenly Father has us in His thoughts.  People of the world say that if there is a God, He could not have time to be personally concerned with each one of us.  But God’s Word states firmly and confidently that not only does God have time for us, but He is aware of every detail of our lives.  Beyond that, He lovingly and actively is involved with our lives.  He thinks about us, His thoughts are usward.  What wonderful thoughts they are: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11.  God’s expected end for you today is full of peace, purpose, and godly joy.  His expected end for you today would find you knowing and loving Him more than you did yesterday, being more mature, more confident in the Lord.  God has wonderful thoughts toward and about you.  There is an interesting thought nestled within this verse.  God is a God of works as well as of thoughts.  His dealings to usward are ones of actions as well as intent.  Sometimes we think of doing good deeds or dream of tasks to be completed, but the accomplishment is in the doing.  God is not slack concerning His promises, thoughts and works toward us who believe!  We should daily marvel at His works and delight in His thoughts!  Ask the Holy Spirit’s help to enter into a realization of God’s thoughts about you this day.  Let the mind of Christ dwell richly in you.  Let God’s wonderful thoughts be yours, by surrendering your mind to the Almighty Creator, Who alone can renew and remake our thoughts.  Lord, thank You that You are a loving God, actively concerned with me.  Thank You that You have me on Your mind and that Your thoughts toward me are wonderful.  Lord, let Your thoughts control my thoughts.  Help me to think wonderful godly thoughts towards others.  Help me to not only have the mind of Christ but to use it.  Thank You for being my God.

Prophetically this verse, along with all of Psalm 40, relates directly to Christ. He came to do God the Father’s will and it was His true delight.  Hebrews 10:5-7 directly declares Psalm 40 to be speaking of Christ’s earthly ministry.  Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith....Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.  His ministry was to do God’s will.  How completely and wonderfully He fulfilled that purpose in His life, death and resurrection!  The requirements of God’s law were met in His life and in His sacrifice on Calvary.  When we became Christians, we gained the privilege of claiming Psalm 40:8 as our own personal verse.  We should be able to say it and to apply it to our own lives.  We should be able to pray, O Lord, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.  What a convicting prayer that is!  We need to take an honest evaluation.  Do we really delight to do God’s will at all times?  That was the mark of Christ’s worthiness, and it should be the mark of our devotion.  The willful little child seems to delight in doing his own thing just to be contrary to the will and desires of others, even those who truly know what is best for him.  That willful child seems to always end up in trouble.  Yet how often are Christians like willful children.  They choose their own way instead of God’s way.  They purposefully defy their Heavenly Father as they do that which is not best for them.  Oh, how they suffer as a result.  How much better to be a mature, trusting Christian who delights to do God’s will!  It is the only way of success and joy.  Each of us should pause right now and ask God to make of us the type of Christian who delights to do God’s will!  At salvation, God wrote His law in our hearts: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jeremiah 31:33.  It was part of His enabling gift to us, to help us live for Him.  Now we must consciously decide to implement God’s law of righteousness, wisdom and love in our lives.  Psalm 37:31, says of the person who chooses to so live, The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.  I want to be a Christian who does not back slide, whose steps are firmly anchored one after the other, down God’s pathway for me.  Delighting in doing His will, following His laws, should be the most important life goal that I could ever have.  Lord, if there is any area in which I am being an ignorant or willful child, please reveal it to me.  Help me to cast that selfish will aside and replace it with Your perfect will in each area.  Help me to learn more of You so that the gift of Thy law in my heart may be more easily understood.  Help me to delight to do Thy will as an act of love and devotion to You.  I know I will find true joy as I choose Your way and will today.

Won’t it be wonderful when we stand before the Lord in Glory and are able to declare this verse with others who have faithfully witnessed and served the Lord on earth.  If we have lived Psalm 40:10, then we will indeed be with that great throng who will hear the words of our God, Well done, thy good and faithful servant.  Some of the group will have witnessed in great tribulations and difficulty.  Some will have done so at the cost of their lives.  Some will have labored even though they were in physical distress.  How will each one of us fare?  There is no law in our land that would prevent or endanger us if we witness.  We are not under threat of imprisonment or death if we take a stand for the Lord.  What then is it that so often holds us back?  It is none other than our great enemy, the devil.  He knows that if we witness for the Lord, many will hear and turn to Christ, and that we, personally, will experience a great victory.  He wants to defeat us and prevent others from being saved.  Somehow, through the weapons of spiritual warfare, Satan is able to fill us with fear and hesitation, despite the fact that he is already a defeated enemy.  The sad thing is that each time we give into the fear or "embarrassment" and refuse to testify of our Lord and His great salvation, we are obeying the enemy of our souls.  Listen to what the Scripture says in regard to this battle: ...and I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.  And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto death. Revelation 12:10-11  Christ has already shed His blood and won the greatest victory on the cross.  He did it for you!  Now we are asked to do our part in the ongoing battle against the accuser of the brethren.  Our personal victory each day can be won by the word of our testimony.  It is true that a great part of our testimony is how we live our lives, but there is also that unique element of our verbal testimony given to others concerning the righteousness, faithfulness, lovingkindness and truth of our God.  What an amazing battle we are in where we have the opportunity to choose what side we will be on.  I want to be on the winning side and fight for my Captain!  Our verse for today could be thought of as a pledge that David took before the Lord to be a faithful witness.  He declared openly that he would not be a shy or secret follower of the Lord.  He would not be a concealer of the greatest truth of all time.  If we concealed a life saving medication from one who was very ill, we would be considered a criminal.  Yet sometimes we conceal that which is the only eternal life saver from the mortal illness of sin that results in eternal death.  God has done all for us, and that openly.  We need to take the witnessing pledge along with David and declare the truth of our wonderful God and His salvation for all to hear.

In the battle of life, David cries out to God and asks for the greatest comfort and help that his soul could ever need.  He is surrounded by innumerable evils (verse 12), and he cannot stand against them on his own.  David says even his heart faileth (verse 12).  He knows his only help is from the Lord: Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me (verse 13).  An important part of the battle cry of David is our verse for today.  We are in the same battle.  We may not stand on the battle field with the Philistines, or have to hide from Saul, but we are in a constant battle with the enemy of our souls, Satan.  The only way that we can win the battle is for the Lord to deliver us, to make haste and to help us.  Isn’t it wonderful to know He is always ready to do just that and His help is only a prayer away!  As our day goes by, we are constantly aware that we need the Lord’s help in all areas of our life.  One of the important areas modern man seems to have often neglected is the need for tenderness and love from the Lord.  We think that we can be pretty self sufficient, but deep within our hearts we honestly know that each one of us needs love.  There is no better love giver than God, who is the Author of love and is Himself LOVE.  Today, I need to cry out unto the Lord, in total faith and dependence, saying, "O Lord, I need Your tender mercies in my life today."  Everything will be easier to bear as I feel His tender mercies in my heart.  David wanted to be certain his heart was right before the Lord.  In Psalm 40, he had just declared his desire to live totally for the Lord, to delight to do God’s will, to abstain from that which was contrary to God’s design for his life.  Having covenanted with the Lord, David asked this from God: "Please do not withhold Your tender mercies from me."  All the world can turn against us, we can have trouble and problems, misunderstandings and physical distress, but if we are being ministered to by the Lord in our hearts with the constant application of His tender mercies, we will survive!  How often does a little child run into the house and straight to his mother, because he just needs a hug.  We need to do that with God, run to Him and feel His tender caring arms of mercy encircling us.  Are you discouraged today, even if it is just about one "little" area?  Let the Lord place His tender mercies around you, come to Him in trust and faith.  God’s tender mercies will enable us to face life with renewed strength and courage.  His mercies will do what nothing else can.  Impossible situations will become possible, difficult circumstances will gain meaning, and our hearts will be continually softened, made more loving to the Lord and to others, as God’s tender mercies work in our lives.  His mercies are always available and they are tender and kind.  How marvelous God is!  The unique combination of lovingkindness and truth is that which preserves us, keeps us, not only through the battles of life, but through eternity.  God has promised that He will preserve us unto his heavenly kingdom (I Timothy 4:18) and tells us we are kept by the power of God through faith. (I Peter 1:5)  His truth declares and promises it and His lovingkindness will deliver it, because we are His own.  Has this verse helped you today?  It has me!  Whatever the day holds, be it trials or successes, I know that I can be a better person, a more confident and loving Christian, because I have understood this verse that promises me God’s tender, loving care.

DAY 89     Psalm 41:12     And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.

Stop!  Read our verse again.  Did you notice the surprise word?  It is the word mine.  The first several times I read this verse in my devotions, I read it as: "thou upholdest me in thine integrity."  But God is very careful to use the word "mine."  Knowing that, we can really try to understand this verse and why it will prove so important in our lives today and for years to come.  In fact, I looked up every verse of Scripture using the word integrity and found that they always refer to a person’s own integrity.  Isn’t that interesting.  We know that all our righteousness is as filthy rags and that we can only stand righteous in the Lord’s righteousness, but then God consistently urges us to live in our integrity.  In fact, one of the strongest promise verses for a Christian parent is concerning this very point: The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him. Proverbs 20:7  If we want our children to be blessed of the Lord, we must walk in our integrity.  The dictionary defines integrity as: "unimpaired moral principles; honesty; soundness; the quality of being whole or undivided."  Proverbs 11:13 defines integrity as having a faithful spirit.  God demands of His children for them to be holy, even as God Himself is holy.  What an overwhelming task that would be, even totally impossible, if we had to perform it on our own, but we do not have to.  God has given us the Holy Spirit living within that will supply to us all the ability we need to live holy, morally perfect lives.  Too often we use excuses: no man can possibly meet that standard, we certainly know that we are all imperfect and that we can never be without sin until we get to Heaven.  All too often we end with the thought, "So why try anyway."  Of course, we are still sinners.  Of course, we are all going to fall short of the glory of God.  But God says that we must try, we must strive to obtain the goal, we must all continually grow in grace and in the perfecting of holiness in our own lives.  To make it more practical, more down to earth and obtainable, God tells us to start this walk of holiness by living in our own integrity.  Each person must be responsible to make the daily choices that determine integrity success.  We must be honest, completely honest - no white lies, no covering up sin, no justifiable deceptions.  Total honesty is the only rule for integrity.  Our moral principles must be unimpaired.  That is an interesting thought.  Our principles must be solely based upon God’s principles laid down in His Word.  They must not be affected in any way by the ways of the world, changing times, peer or family pressure or selfish interests.  Situation ethics will always spell failure for our integrity.  I have often been surprised at how easily we can fall for the pitfalls of those things that would impair our integrity.  If we have any areas from the past that would cause us to have handicapped or impaired moral principles, we must confess them as sin, recognize them as the weights that hold us back from godly purity, and totally renounce them.  Is it a habit from the past that is not pleasing to God?  Is it a thought life that needs to be renewed?  Is it ways of the past that you lived in for so long that you think they are part of who you are, but you know that they are not part of who God wants you to be?  Give them up.  There is nothing that is more important in this respect than living in your integrity.  God will hold you responsible for your own integrity.  His integrity is spotless and undefiled, there is not a question about it.  He wants the integrity of each of His children to be such that we will be judged worthy of being upheld by our Heavenly Father before all to see.  It is like a legal case where the attorney is able to present ample evidence to prove our honesty.  In our definition of integrity there was the quality of being whole or undivided.  This goes hand in hand with having a faithful spirit.  Today is your heart undivided before the Lord?  Are your loyalties clearly undivided in all areas?  If they are, integrity will not be hard to have.  Lord, help me to have a faithful spirit toward You.  Let my gratefulness for all You have done so overwhelm me that I will have undivided loyalty to You and Your principles.  Help me to live in integrity and choose the paths of honesty and moral purity.  Thank You for the promise at the end of this verse that You will set me before Your own face forever.  I know that is an unconditional promise to the believer.  You have promised us what was forbidden to all men on earth, to look full in Your face.  As I think on Your presence and Your holiness, help me to be holy.  Today, let me turn from all the temptation to lie and sin so that You will be able to judge my integrity.

To repeat a verse three times in the Scripture passage should surely gain our attention.  All three verse are identical except for a few changes in the last line.  Verses 42:11 and 43:5 end with this change: For I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.  These verses have been very special in my life.  In 1979, when I had my first major surgery, I claimed verse eleven the night before the surgery.  It contained two promises to me.  First, I felt that the verse had spoken loudly to my heart that I would yet praise the Lord, that I would live through the surgery.  That was God’s promise to me.  The second promise was from me to God, that when the operation was over I would never forget to give the Lord praise for His workings in my life.  I had been very ill for several years at the time of the operation.  I had gone from a very healthy, 30 year old Brazil bound missionary, to a critically ill 32 year old missionary no longer destined for foreign service.  I had gone blind and deaf and suffered much pain.  Even though I had trained myself not to question why, but just to trust the Lord, the night before the surgery held many questions.  I had three small children and a loving husband and my desire was to be with them for many years.  In the quiet of my room, I realized that the questions were coming, and that I was fertile field for the master of fear to plant many doubts.  I picked up my Bible and started to read in the book of Psalms, where I had been for several days (a practice I have since made a part of every hospital stay).  When I got to Psalm 42:11, I knew I had found the verse God wanted me to have in my heart and mind as I want into the long surgery the next morning.  It was like the Lord was teaching me in my spirit to talk to my own soul, and so, claiming the verse as my own, I did.  I was able to say to my own soul, "why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God."  Oh, the doctors and the nurses might have been really sympathetic and told me I had every right to be afraid, even to be filled with fear, but my spirit could whisper within, "All is peace."  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (II Timothy 1:7)  I was not just any patient, I was a born again child of God, who had the Prince of Peace living within my heart!  My life was already hid in Christ.  As I would undergo the surgery, the Holy Spirit Himself would pray for me.  My destiny was already known to my Creator.  Louder I whispered to my soul: "Hope thou in God!"  Amen...and then off the printed page came the promises and I knew that all would be well.  "For I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God."  What had verse 5 said?  It had declared that God was the help of my countenance.  He was not only my helper, the One who would help my physical being, but in some wonderful, mighty way, He was the actual health of my countenance!  The doctors would work their skilled procedures, the nurses would watch over my care, but it was God who living within me was my health.  He would send the life giving flow of His Spirit through my weak body and restore me to health if it was His will.  He was my God!  And my God whispered over and over again, "Hope thou in God...Peace be still...I am in control, my child, hope thou in God."  I did not need any sleeping pill or any tranquilizers, I had peace within my soul...no disquieting there.  Before I went to surgery, I copied the verse on a piece of paper along with a letter to my husband and children.  I knew that they too would have need of it.  I shared it with them that day years ago, and today I share the verse with you.  Whatever your fear, whatever your worry or concern, whatever is causing or will cause your heart to be cast down and disquieted within, dear friend, hope thou in God.

David must have been in terrible distress when he wrote Psalm 42.  His tears had been his meat day and night, people had sought to discourage him, and there even seems to have been some sort of physical problem, maybe even weather problems (verse 7).  But out of all this David says the first word of our verse, Yet.  All may be against us, trouble may be closing in, yet our God is still the same God we serve in success and joyful times.  Do you really believe that this morning?  Does God seem somewhat different to you in the happiness of prayers positively answered than He does when you have to wait on Him or accept a "no" answer?  Jesus Christ IS the same yesterday, today and forever.  In tears and in laughter we are to reckon our relationship to Him as unwavering, unchanging.  We need to affirm, "Lord, I will trust You equally whether the rain fails or the drought comes, in sickness and in health, in richer or in poorer, from life even to death."  Our commitment to Him must be sacred and controlling.  We are part of the Bride of Christ, our vows should be binding!  David knew that God’s commitment to Him was absolute.  There is no wavering with God, He is never a covenant breaking God.  He is our espoused Husband, faithful and true, regardless of our state, regardless even of our total faithfulness to Him.  Doesn’t that make you love Him more!  Listen to our verse again.  Picture yourself in your life situations.  Perhaps you were discouraged yesterday, perhaps you even sinned this morning, maybe you got too busy to visit with the Lover of your soul, maybe you even cried out to Him in the anguish of questioning....Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me...  Day time or night time, whether in the literal day or night, or the symbolical days and nights of our situations and emotions, He is our loving God.  Times of joy seem like a sunlit Spring morning to our souls and yet, even on a real Spring day, sorrow can turn our daytime to darkest night.  The devil loves to operate during the night.  I have a dear friend who had a heavy family burden.  Even though she was deeply concerned and prayerful, during the daytime, activities and responsibilities helped fill the hours.  But at night, when she fell asleep, Satan would attack her dreams and fill her sleeplessness with worry.  We banded together in prayer to claim God’s victory, knowing that God was the God of the night also.  When we are awake and most of life’s activities happen, He is the God who sends lovingkindness our way.  In the night hours when fear can so easily come, when we need rest and sleep, He is the sweet singer of songs of comfort.  In the light of success and adventure God is there.  In the night of trouble and grief, He is there.  Because of that fact, David knew where he would always turn, no matter what the circumstance.  He declared: and my prayer [shall be] unto the God of my life.  What a beautiful and meaningful name for our God: the God of my life.  Have you named Him that today?  Whatever this day or this night will hold for you, confirm in your heart that you will have the same relationship to Him, the same devotion, the same trust and love.  Reckon the Lord as the God of your life, your entire life today, tomorrow and forever.  This verse holds such marvelous assurance to us of God’s consistency and faithfulness.  It should also be a challenge to us to be consistent and faithful to Him.  Let us be trusting servants of the God of our lives today.