Believer, God is always with you. More importantly you are always with Him, in His care, in His loving hands. Remember nothing can snatch you out of His hands, nothing. (John 10:28). But there is more to your relationship than His great protection. His love for you is deeper and wider than that. Regardless of what you do He will not stop loving you. He couldn’t possibly love you any more.
Verses 1-2 read,
“Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you.”
The Lord preserves us, He keeps us and maintains us. It is good for us to know it to acknowledge it. It is God who not only sustains our lives, but He upholds our souls. He keeps us, but not as the same person we were when we first called on Him. He makes us new creatures. (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are reborn into a new life as new people. And the longer we walk with God and let Him preserve us, the more He makes us over to be like Him. All the good in us, is from God.
Apart from The Lord we are not capable of goodness. Good without God is futile. Before we knew Christ, we tried to do good things because it was the law. We didn’t steal because we didn’t want to go to jail. And we often broke the law regardless of our attempts not to do so. We knew it was wrong to lie, but we did. But in Christ, we are new and we have His Spirit conforming us to His image. Now in our maturation, we do good because God’s own nature is within us and we delight in His goodness. We are no longer concerned with punishment. We do good because we relish being united with God, we bear the fruit of His nature within us. We manifest His love, His good, and His salvation. Goodness is demonstrated in active use of the gifts God gave us.
God doesn’t require our service. We serve Him because we love Him and because we appreciate His amazing love and beautiful grace. The good He produces in us that manifests in goodness and service that benefits all the saints. Verse 3 reads,
“As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.”
It is the edification of the church, the maturation of His children, and the love displayed by us for one another that pleases the Lord. All the good gifts He has given us are not for us individually, but for His church, His bride, His beloved. They are for us as a body. Ephesians 4:11-13 reads,
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,”
Verses 4-6 read,
“The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;
their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out
or take their names on my lips.
5 The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
6 The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.”
People were made for a relationship with God. We were created with a need to worship. The lost don’t know what they are missing but they try to fill it with worship of idols and they are never satisfied. They seek to serve, but they serve false gods in futility. Their frustration increases and they can’t satisfy their longings. But for those in Christ, we serve The One True Living God. He is all we need. His grace is sufficient. The lost fear death because they don’t know what lies on the other side. But we have no fear of death, it has lost its sting, we know what awaits us in eternity. It is absolutely a beautiful inheritance. The lost can only hope for nothingness. We expect New Jerusalem. We experience the Kingdom of God now and we look forward to the fulfillment of it in the future.
God is with us, He never leaves us. Our future is with Him and so is our present. He doesn’t leave us alone to figure it out by ourselves. He guides us and teaches us. We ask, He answers. We wonder, He leads. The lost wander, walk in circles and have no idea they’re being led by a liar who leads them to certain death. Verses 7-8 say,
“I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.
8 I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”
We do not have to be anxious, we do not have to be uncertain. God’s Holy Spirit is in us, He counsels us by day and teaches us by night. There is never a time when we are alone. He is in us and we are in Him. United cohesively with Him. We can’t be separated from Him. So nothing can distress us. God is with us. Verses 9-10 read,
“Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
10 For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.”
‘God is with you’ is not just a saying. God is with us, not only beside us, behind us, and in front of us, but within us and fused with us. We are assured of salvation. We are safe from the ravages of death. We are fortified by our Rock, sustained by our Strong Tower, and sealed by our Comforter.
Take pleasure in the security of God with you. Take stock of what it means that He will not abandon your soul. He has chosen you, saved you and sealed you. You are His. Nothing can separate you from His love. He will never forsake you. He has given you a beautiful inheritance, amazing gifts, and a well-lit path. Praise Him. Enjoy Him. Delight in Him. And rejoice with Him. Verse 11 concludes the Psalm,
“You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”