Psalm 71

The Lord works through our weakness and displays His strength to His own glory. We can expect that He will use our suffering in ways that we may not be able to understand or explain.

In suffering we learn to take refuge in the Almighty. The Lord changes us there. Through it all we know that we have been credited with the righteousness of Christ. We will not be put to shame.

What is deliverance for you today? It may not be that everything will go the way that you want it to go, even though many sincere worshipers of God are praying for you. God's gift for you may be something else, something better that you did not even know how to ask for.

We keep coming back to Him. He is our Rock. He rescues us.

The Lord uses people to bring His message to the ends of the earth. Some do not receive the message or the messengers with joy. The King of the Jews changes and challenges all nations and powers. People that we want to serve in the Name of the Lord may be wicked, unjust, and cruel. They may be very threatened by the idea of a personal God who will be nothing less than King of kings and Lord of lords.

God can rescue us, even through suffering. We hope in Him, This inclination to hope needs to become the habit of our hearts.

Through every trial and in the face of every fear, we gather together in the Name of the Lord and bring Him our sincere praise. Broken people can worship. The Lord looks upon His beloved servants. He remembers the cries of His Son for us. Even now Jesus intercedes with the Father on our behalf. What a Friend and Helper! God will not abandon us.

We need the Lord to give victory to His message for the sake of Jesus Christ. People who need Him desperately may not yet be able to receive Him. They may be violent. We call on the Lord to stop them, but we also ask Him to forgive them, and to change them.

Yet the people of Israel asked for something different. That asked for the Lord to consume their enemies. What happened to change this message?

When Jesus was suffering for our sake at the hands of cruel adversaries, He offered up this prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” When the martyr Stephen was being stoned for telling the truth about Jesus, he fell to his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Our Lord, who suffered for us in order to bring us salvation, leads us now in suffering for others who have not yet received Him. The blood of Christ has brought forth the mission of costly mercy for the church, which is His body.

But the Lord will judge one day. That is His to do.

Our plea is that we will remain faithful despite the threats of those who do not grasp the beauty of the love of Christ. We need to remember our only hope, and to proclaim the goodness of the Lord. We need to tell the world that the Lord alone is righteous, and that in His death and resurrection there is peace for those who have rebelled against Him but will now repent and believe the Lord.

Now is the time for everyone to receive the Son of God. Therefore we proclaim the Lord's truth to a people that have not heard, and we speak to the next generation of those among us.

If we are brought very low in His service, we remember what we believe. We are united with Christ. After death there is resurrection. He will revive us again. We will praise the Lord. He has made us see troubles and calamities, but He will raise us up, even from the depths of the earth.

There is a pattern for living here that repeats itself even throughout the course of our brief lives. Death and resurrection, death and resurrection, suffering and reviving. Suffering and reviving...

And worship. Always worship. Now and forever. And may the whole world be filled with the glory of the Lord.