Psalm 44:1-26

There are times when it seems that God has turned His back on us for no reason whatsoever.  It is important for us to realize that this is only the way that things seem.  The reality is that God has not truly abandoned us and that we truly have sinned against Him so that even if He did turn His back on us, He would be totally justified.  Our perspective of life is always skewed by our sin and our ability to understand God and His ways is always limited because of our fallen state of humanity.  We must strive to gain God’s perspective and we must learn to trust in Him even when we do not understand His ways.  It is not our place to question and doubt the ways of the Lord in our lives.  It is our job to honor and praise Him in all of the circumstances we face.

WE MUST PRAISE GOD WHEN WE REMEMBER HIS FAITHFULNESS: There is no lack of evidence for the faithfulness of God to Israel or to any of us for that matter.  God had set the nation free from slavery in Egypt without one drop of Israel’s blood being shed.  God had conquered entire nations when they were greatly outnumbered and over matched.  He has also set us free from the penalty and power of sin thought the victory of Christ on the cross.  We did not deserve nor fight for freedom from and forgiveness of sin, but He has been faithful grant if to us because of Jesus.  These truths should constantly fill our hearts with faith and our mouths with praise.  We must always remember His great work on our behalf.  There are times when we will be tempted to trust in our own might and will try to take credit for the work that God has done.  We must always remember that all glory and praise belong to Him.


WE MUST PRAY TO GOD WHEN WE DOUBT HIS FAITHFULNESS: There will be times when we will doubt God’s faithfulness.  Along our journey through life, we will suffer defeat.  Israel suffered many defeats and was disgraced before all the nations of the world.  Our tendency when we are defeated is to believe that God has forgotten us or that He has stopped being faithful.  This is especially true when we cannot see any justification for our defeats.  We think that our obedience to and praise of God are the motivation for His blessing so we have a hard time understanding the true meaning of grace.  God never deals with us according to what we deserve.  He deals with us according to what Christ has done.  No matter how we might feel about our own deservedness and God’s apparent forgetfulness; the proper response in these times is to cry out to God in prayer.  He is honored by our dependence upon Him.  We must always come to the point that we recognize that He is our only hope.  If we must suffer in order for us to come to that place then that is suffering that is well spent.

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