From “Day-by-Day By Grace” Bob Hoekstra

David Confessing God as His Strength

The LORD is the strength of my life . . . The LORD is . . . my strength, in whom I will trust. (Psa_27:1 and Psa_18:2)

Living by grace involves depending upon God to work in our lives. For the greater part of his life, David was an outstanding Old Testament example of such living. This was certainly evident in the way David frequently confessed the Lord as his strength.

For each adult who lives in this fallen world, strength is demanded just to deal with every day responsibilities and challenges. When you add the calling and desire that believers have to please and honor God, much strength is needed day by day. David confessed the Lord as his strength for living. “The LORD is the strength of my life.” How wonderful to know that the Lord is with us to impart His strength in us for every aspect of our lives, whether home, or work, or ministry, or whatever.

In our earthly pilgrimage, we need strength to stay on course. The world, the flesh, and the devil want to prevent us from progressing down the Lord’s perfect path. David found in the Lord the strength for this need as well. “It is God who arms me with strength, and makes my way perfect” (Psa_18:32). At times, when walking along our designated path of life, we get trapped in circumstantial nets, laid by the enemy of our souls. When David experienced these traps, he cried out to God for the necessary strength. “Pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me, For You are my strength” (Psa_31:4). At other times along our path, the problem is not a trap, but an all-out battle. Once again, David found the strength he needed in His Lord. “For You have armed me with strength for the battle; You have subdued under me those who rose up against me” (Psa_18:39).

Sometimes, the need for strength pertains to what is going on within (or flowing forth from within). The thoughts we are thinking, and the words we are expressing might need to be anchored again in the will of the Lord. David also knew how to turn to God for this essential strength as well. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer” (Psa_19:14). When he weakened within and stumbled in failure, David still knew where to turn for the only help that will ever prove sufficient. “My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psa_73:26). Whatever the need for strength, David learned to rely upon the Lord. “The LORD is . . . my strength, in whom I will trust.”

O Lord, my strength, I need Your strength for daily responsibilities, strength for staying on track with You, strength for periodic battles, strength for weaknesses within, strength to please You. You are my strength; I trust in You!

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From “Morning and Evening” by C. H. Spurgeon

“The sweet psalmist of Israel.”
– 2Sa_23:1

Among all the saints whose lives are recorded in Holy Writ, David possesses an experience of the most striking, varied, and instructive character. In his history we meet with trials and temptations not to be discovered, as a whole, in other saints of ancient times, and hence he is all the more suggestive a type of our Lord. David knew the trials of all ranks and conditions of men. Kings have their troubles, and David wore a crown: the peasant has his cares, and David handled a shepherd’s crook: the wanderer has many hardships, and David abode in the caves of Engedi: the captain has his difficulties, and David found the sons of Zeruiah too hard for him. The psalmist was also tried in his friends, his counsellor Ahithophel forsook him, “He that eateth bread with me, hath lifted up his heel against me.” His worst foes were they of his own household: his children were his greatest affliction. The temptations of poverty and wealth, of honour and reproach, of health and weakness, all tried their power upon him. He had temptations from without to disturb his peace, and from within to mar his joy. David no sooner escaped from one trial than he fell into another; no sooner emerged from one season of despondency and alarm, than he was again brought into the lowest depths, and all God’s waves and billows rolled over him. It is probably from this cause that David’s psalms are so universally the delight of experienced Christians. Whatever our frame of mind, whether ecstasy or depression, David has exactly described our emotions. He was an able master of the human heart, because he had been tutored in the best of all schools-the school of heart-felt, personal experience. As we are instructed in the same school, as we grow matured in grace and in years, we increasingly appreciate David’s psalms, and find them to be “green pastures.” My soul, let David’s experience cheer and counsel thee this day.

 

From “The Word For You Today” by Bruce Christian

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FOCUS?

Sometimes after “giving it your all,” you can end up totally drained.  Look at Elijah.  God used him on Mt. Carmel to call down fire from heaven on the prophets of Baal.  Yet he fell apart under Jezebel’s threats.  Fleeing for his life, he “sad down under a broom tree… and said, ‘It is enough!  Now, Lord, take my life.'”  The moment his focus changed from God to the enemy, he became overwhelmed.  So God spoke to him again.  This time it wasn’t in a spectacular display.  Instead, He spoke in a “still small voice” (v. 12 NKJV), drawing him aside to rest and spend time with God.  The next time the nation saw Elijah he was spiritually on top again.  So  answer this: has your focus shifted from God to all the “stuff you have to do”?  If so, you need time out, time alone with God.  When He calls you aside to rest, do it!  Vic Pentz says, “Nothing fails so totally, as success without God.”  The twofold danger in the aftermath of any success is: (1) spending too much time listening to the accolades of others; (2) presuming you have what it takes to succeed on your own.  As a result you disconnect from God, Who is the source of your strength.  David said, “The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”  (Ps 27:1).  Fearlessness is foolishness, unless it’s based on faith in God.  And one more thought: God sent Elisha to assist Elijah, and he can send the right person to help you too.  He knows what to do to get you moving again.

David

     When I first walked into Judy’s, I didn’t know what to expect.  All I knew was that I’d heard that you could get a free coat there, and I was in need.  I’d been told it wasn’t a good idea to mess with her, and as I mentioned in an earlier post I found out why when I got there.  When I caught my first glimpse of “Andre” I understood why there was a word on the street.  Nobody would have sought trouble with him, and I certainly wasn’t going to to be the first. 

     The store was beyond crowded, filled to overflowing with clothing and knick-knacks.  The register was behind a counter next to the front door, and behind the register stood Judy.  A woman of medium height and weight with salt and pepper hair, and a face that had the detail of a road map.  One may have not known her story, but her face left no doubt as to the fact that she had one.  Affable and friendly, her face characteristically wore a smile. 

      When I came in, she greeted me, and I asked her about getting a coat.  She told me to follow her, and as I did, I noticed a boy following us.   A boy of about five or six with a cow-lick  in his bright red hair, with bright blue eyes in a face freckled and evidently intrigued by me.  When I looked down at him, he smiled up at me, a sunbeam of a smile.  One of those kind of smiles that are almost irrestible to respond to.  I turned back to Judy in response to something she said, and as she walked toward the back I continued to follow her.  It was then I felt a tug on the back of my shirt, and when I glanced down the hem of my shirt was in this boy’s hand, and once again he was looking up at me with that smile of his.

     How do I explain what seeing that kid’s hand on the hem of my shirt did to me?  How seeing him smiling up at me made me feel?  For so long, people around me had been putting their distance between themselves and me, and rightly so, and when they weren’t doing it I was.  Have you ever been to a point in your life where receiving a kind word or an affectionate touch hurt?  I know that it may not make sense, but kindness, affection, and love weren’t the kind of things I could easily afford, so I didn’t know what to think as I saw this boy looking up at me.  I stood there with this boy looking up at me with this unbelievable smile on his face, and my shirt in his hand, and I felt something stir within me.  I don’t know what it was about him, whether it was that smile, or the look in his blue eyes, but without even realizing it I reached down and tousled his hair.

     “That’s David, my boy,” Judy told me.  “Don’t mind him.”  She walked me back to the coats, David trailing behind me, and told me to select one.  After I did, she surprised me by having me pick out some new clothes.  When I told her I couldn’t afford them, she told me not to worry about it.  Then she told me if I wanted to I could earn them by helping her man unload a truck, so that’s what I did.

     The whole time Andre and I were unloading the truck, David was never more than a few feet away watching me, and after we were done, Judy invited me to stay for a meal.  At the table, David sat beside me.  A quiet boy who didn’t say a word, yet his bright blue eyes didn’t miss anything.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him repeat our conversation word for word.

     After the meal, Judy and David walked me to the door, and there I got two surprises.  The first was Judy offered me a part time job, and the second was David laid his head against my leg in a sort of semi-hug.    The first put me back on the road toward having some dignity, and the second put me on the road to having something even more important, but it took awhile for me to accept it.