Psalm 54

I need to be rescued. Not just once, but many, many times.

I need a God who can see me in my latest need, today. I need a God who can hear a song that is my cry for help. I need a God with a heart that would care about me, despite my confusing life. I need someone who has the power to reach me and to rescue me.

The Lord is this God. His Name represents the sum total of who He is, a being that is beyond our understanding. When God became Man, the Name that He chose for Himself had the Hebrew word for salvation in it. That is how committed the God of the Jews is to saving His people. I need Him.

I have enemies, seen and unseen. In large part, those enemies have come because of my devotion to the God of my salvation. They set themselves against me in their hearts because I will not follow the spiritual way that is in the air of this age\. These enemies seen and unseen bring reviling accusations against me and against others who are my brothers and sisters around the world. They have come to believe that people like me who proclaim the Name of the Lord as the only saving God are a great danger to goodness and order.

The God of salvation has defined goodness and order. People don't agree with Him and with those who have aligned themselves with Him. I am among those who have aligned themselves with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I need to be vindicated. My enemies insist on one way and I insist on another. We cannot both be right. Vindicate me, O Lord!

I need God to hear my prayer when I speak and when I sing. I need Him to give ear to the words of my mouth. If I am left all alone without the One strong and loving God, I will have no hope.

What was the cross like for Jesus? Could He actually have been abandoned by the Father in order to be a Propitiation for me? That is what Isaiah 53 seems to say. This is part of what I cannot understand. This is the cross, the love of the cross, and the justice of the cross. This is also my salvation.

Strangers have risen against me. Some of them I can see because they are human beings. But could it be that fallen angels are also against me? Have they been at work seeking to destroy my life, my family, the Lord's church? Have they been seeking to lead me into error and immorality, and away from the God of my salvation?

I need to resist the devil and any who would be in league with Him. Save me, O my God! Teach me to resist an enemy I cannot see. Be in my soul with such power that I can feel even the rebel sigh and run to Your Word. Keep me around those who know Your presence, and who walk with You.

So many are ruthless. They do not set the God of Jacob before themselves. They want His Word and His people gone from the face of the earth. They seek my life. They sought the life of Jesus, and thought that they had Him. Yet in His death, they were publicly exposed, and in His resurrection, He was vindicated.

But God, the Lord, is my helper. Jesus lives, and so shall I. The Judge is my Redeemer. He will return evil to those who seek to destroy His beloved children. He is a Father to all who call upon His Name through the Name of His Son.

Jesus is the upholder of my life. Even to write these words in the darkness of this early morning is more for my own survival than it is for anyone else. I feel Him in the hearing of His Word. I know He loves me and all who call upon Him in truth. I know He will come again. Soon and very soon...

The defeat of my enemies will be a good thing. Vengeance belongs to the Lord. I am called to love all kinds of people, even my enemies. This is the way that has been set before me as a way of life by the Lord of my salvation. God will help me on this way today. But one day He will put an end to all this enmity. One day the world will be covered with His peace.

With that sure hope, I offer Him today a sacrifice of praise. I give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good. You have delivered me from every trouble, and because of the certainty of Your promises, my eye has already looked in triumph on my enemies.