40 Days of Prayer, Day 18
Day 18, Wednesday, September 7
Psalm 19:7-14 “The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple…Moreover, by them Your servant is warned; In keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
The Character of God and Our Relationship to Him
The conclusion of Psalm 19 is quite striking. Given the declaration of the glory of God as revealed in His creation in verses 1-6 and the declaration of the massive benefits to the glorious Word of God as described in verses 7-10, the psalmist concludes with this prayer: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.” When all of these beautiful truths are considered, the psalmist selected a specific address to God as He crafts a prayer. “O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.” God is our rock and our Redeemer. We can trust Him to help us and save us. Just look at what He has already done in His creation and in His Word! God is a God of relationships. In a relationship, trust functions as a critical aspect of the bond between two people. As we grow closer to others we assess the level of our trust of them. In the case of our relationship to God, we find Him to be absolutely trustworthy. He is our rock. We can rely on Him. Just as He is faithful to display His trustworthiness in the rising of the sun and through the moon and the stars, He demonstrates His faithfulness to us daily. We can rely on God’s Word to positively impact our lives. We know God is trustworthy because we see the trustworthiness of His Word. He is our rock.
God is also our Redeemer. The word “redeem” means to buy back. We use this word when we go to the grocery store and redeem a coupon. The coupon functions as an instrument in the purchase of an item. The company that issued the coupon gives a guarantee of payment to the grocery story. For instances, if you purchase a box of cereal for $4 but you have a $1 coupon issued by the cereal company, then you pay $3 and the company that issued the coupon pays the grocery store $1 plus a small administrative cost. Grocery stores trust the coupon because they trust that the company that printed in the local paper will fulfill the obligation as printed on the coupon. The redemption price of the coupon is backed by the trustworthiness of the company issuing the coupon and on the words they have written concerning the coupon. God redeems us. We can trust His purchase of us because of His character and because of what He has written concerning our relationship to Him. Consider what He says concerning His redemption of us. “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” I Peter 1:18-19 He bought us out of sin and death. He brought us into a relationship with Himself. All of this He performed through the precious life of His Son, Jesus Christ. Unlike the coupon issuing company which pays part of the bill, God paid in full the entire redemption price of our lives. He also paid an infinitely high price for our redemption. Silver and gold could never come close to the infinite price God paid to redeem us. God gave His One and Only Son as a purchase price for our eternal salvation.
God is our rock, dependable, strong, immovable, infinitely stable and unwavering. He is our redeemer. He bought us from the power of sin and death. He purchased us from the bondage of our own rebellious hearts and purchased us into a relationship with Himself.
Prayer Focus
O God, I am Yours. I trust You. You are my Rock. You have purchased me from sin and death. You are my Redeemer. Even if the whole world is unstable and my life is driven by trials, I can trust in You. You have proven Your character through Your redemptive work through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
Another instance for this is David, the man of our text. He sins and hides it; yes, and seeks to hide it from the face of God and men. Well, Nathan is sent to preach to him, and that in common, and that in special: in common, by a parable; in special, by a particular application of it to him. While Nathan only preached in common, or in general, David stood as right in his own eyes as if he had been as innocent and as harmless as any man alive. But God had a love for David; and therefore commands his servant Nathan to go, not only to David's ears, but to David's conscience. Well, David now must fall. Says Nathan, 'You are the man'; David, 'I have sinned, ' and then his heart was broken, and his spirit made contrite; as this psalm and our text doth show (2 Sam 12:1-13).