A Prayer of repentance of my wicked tongue speaking in pride, in public. Jesus, please forgive me and deliver me!

What do I do when I know I made a mistake that was the fruit of my pride? I am heckled. I defend myself. I look like a pompous self-aggrandizing fool.

I pray to the Lord who sees the root of my pompous grandiose expressions. Lord, You see me. You could have struck me down to the dust at that very moment of my wicked tongue’s expression. Lord I confess and cast my soul upon You. Uphold me with Your free spirit. Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me! I need You in the depths of my soul. I thank You that Jesus paid the price for even my wicked tongue’s public expressions of self pride. I trust that it is not my wins or losses that are accounted in Your eyes. I trust that in that day my hands will be clinging to the righteousness of Christ and not my own wins or losses or defense of myself.

My head should have bowed in humility at a heckling in my glorious moments. King David, from his heart, said bid Shimeai to curse me. {paraphrase} I deserve it when I see the deepest part of my character. Maybe God will repay me good for my not defending myself in the public eye. The slave background that we come from has taught us to bow and that is the inheritance of humility that we are to embrace in God’s exaltation. Else, perhaps the root of the matter is not in us. We are not Israel. We are the ends of the earth that God has rescued us far from. Our forefathers taught us to bow in obeisance to the Greatest Power, Creator and Judge of the Earth. We deliver our speeches under His divine eye. It is only His grace that can keep us from being consumed in our own sin of self exaltation.

Acts 12 Reference God grant repentance to my soul. Don't let me stumble my soul into Hell defending my reason to be here. That is not what You meant for me in lifting me to this place. Give me grace to humble myself in my speech. Help me to see that I am undone and should have taken the opportunity to exalt You rather than myself! Help me not to despise the humble background that You have raised me from. You intended to use the lesson of humility to be expressed in our country to draw us to You. Give Grace, Dear and Forgiving Lord and Savior. Draw me back to You, Lord! In Jesus' Name, Amen.

thoughts on Psalm 22

Psalm 22

a reference to a great sermon on the subject.

The thought that Jesus meditated on the Scripture in His deepest agony on our behalf, is simply an awesome thought. I know that He is the Word made flesh. I know that He is the enfleshment of the Godhead bodily, and the infinite price of His salvation on my behalf has an awesome impression on my soul’s meditation. Still, it seems new to me that He would walk through, as it were, Psalm 22 and the other passion narratives in the Old Testament during His most crushing blow. I see that there is no eating of the beauty of Psalm 23, God’s Shepherding care without the payment of Psalm 22 on our behalf.

Often and too often, I say, I eat of the comforts of Psalm 23 without first, considering the awful cost to the perfect Savior in Psalm 22.

Jesus breathed these words out in His infinite anticipation of His Grief in Glory past. In actuality, He breathed the words out from the cross and walked through them for the sins of individuals as well as the nations.

Your heart will not die here in the darkest point of human history, Jesus spoke in anticipation of the resurrection, to God. No other season of history compares to the heinousness of that act of deviance against God that humanity shakes the fist at the creator and the loving Savior. We do it and did it to show that we are fallen. Jesus focuses on the “ends of the earth” coming to know Him. He knew that His people needed a Savior and He was there for them, but He walked out the course of redemption for all of the people groups from the furthest reaches. What a great knowledge that we were in the “His own” when He loved them to the end referred to in John 13:1. Jesus said to everyone who heard Him on the cross, the forsaking of God and His son has an eternal purpose. Our salvation is that eternal purpose. Our redemption and sanctification is that eternal purpose. Jesus could see that.

From the ends of the earth we have come to give Him the glory and to fulfill the reality of His uttering in anguish, Why, have you forsaken me? He has plucked us from those ends of the earth and we glorify Him in our differences and similarities. He, has bid us to glorify Him and we do. He has called to the islands of the sea to compose praise and worship and they do. He has plucked up the rocks from the sides of the roads and the worms from the ground around the crucifixion and they praise and compose worship songs for His glory. He saw us there. He cared about our darkness and came to give us true life.

Sometimes praise is glorious in the quiet!

The worship of the silent beauty of the sunrise and the stars twinkling are illustrative of the glory of silent praise. If my mouth would speak sour words, they should certainly find words of the grandeur of God.

So many people have penned words of glory and honor to the Lord, and then they probably never said those words out loud. The words are beautiful in the silence of reading them {silent praise} and they are glorifying to God in their delivery as well. David said let everything that has breath, ie. islands of the sea, Praise the Lord. How can islands praise God?

Some islands are in praise to God by their just being there. Some are inhabited by people who praise God, in their language and their cultural expressions of Worship to the true and living God.

I imagine the people group scale of language that glorified and exalted the Lord and the things that detracted from worship. Sometimes we look at individual's language {"Lang" Guage}and not the whole tenor of our language attitude.

Psalm 50 To him who orders his conversation aright, will I show the salvation of the Lord

It seems an enigma, but not really. Are we using words that respect others in our regular usage or do we allow detiorating language to invade our spoken culture?

ie. Usted for the use of a respected person.

You perhaps like "Thou" O Lord. None is as exalted as God, does our language and the lack of the term Thou for any but Him, assume His awesomeness. There are countless other examples that I see in the languages that I am aware of. Where does God show His salvation in the ordering of our conversation aright, is my today meditation.

I know that God sees the sparrow...

Am I too big for God to see me? Are my sins too big for Him to see?

Sometimes, when I sense the hugeness of my life concerns and of my family and of the people that I am praying for, I wonder if the God who cares about the little things cares about my huge family ties. I find comfort that God is not a respecter of persons. Every care, big and small belongs to Him.I look at Job 41 I see God give Job a comfort that in his huge and complete distress, God is working on his problem and doing all of the other huge things in the world at the same time. Nothing is too big or too small for Him to care for. What a Wonderful Savior! I am not too big because I am not a sparrow. I am not too small because I am a sparrow. God has complete care for every size. Halleluia, What a Savior!

Psalm 50 is my this week's meditation. "How can I ever order my conversation aright?"

The tongue: is it really our measure? I ask God this, everytime I stumble over verses like Psalm 50's whole thought. Really it all boils down to what you let your tongue say, seems to be His answer in scripture, among other things this is your dipstick. "I can't get my tongue to talk right!" That is just me and that is where I am praying. Help me talk right, Lord! In Jesus' Name. I see promises attached to Your subdual of my tongue. God is good.

In the Praise, of enjoying the beauty that God has lent to us! All things, richly to enjoy.

Crown Him, Crown Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer! Help us, Lord not to take the glory from YOU!

How do we crown Him? How is our faith different from the demons, who believe and tremble?

Crown Him with many crowns, The Lamb upon His throne; Hark! how the heav'nly anthem drowns All music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing Of Him who died for thee, And hail Him as thy matchless King Thro' all eternity.

Crown Him the Son of God Before the worlds began: And ye, who tread where He hath trod, Crown Him the Son of man; Who ev'ry grief hath known That wrings the human breast, And takes and bears them for His own, That all in Him may rest.

Crown Him the Lord of love! Behold His hands and side, Rich wounds, yet visible above, In beauty glorified: No angel in the sky Can fully bear that sight, But downward bends his wond'ring eye At mysteries so bright.

Crown Him the Lord of life, Who triumphed o'er the grave, And rose victorious in the strife For those He came to save; His glories now we sing Who died, and rose on high, Who died, eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die.

Crown Him the Lord of years, The Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres Ineffably sublime! All hail, Redeemer, hail! For Thou hast died for me: Thy praise shall never, never fail Thro'out eternity.

Praise Him! praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer! Sing, O earth, His wonderful love proclaim!

Hail Him! hail Him! highest archangels in glory; Strength and honor give to His holy name! Like a shepherd Jesus will guard His children, In His arms He carries them all day long:

Refrain: Praise Him! praise Him! tell of His excellent greatness; Praise Him! praise Him! ever in joyful song!

Praise Him! praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer! For our sins He suffered, and bled and died; He, our Rock, our hope of eternal salvation, Hail Him! hail Him! Jesus the Crucified! Sound His praises! Jesus who bore our sorrows; Love unbounded, wonderful, deep and strong;

Refrain: Praise Him! praise Him! tell of His excellent greatness; Praise Him! praise Him! ever in joyful song!

Praise Him! praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer! Heav'nly portals loud with hosannas ring! Jesus, Saviour, reigneth forever and ever; Crown Him! crown Him! Prophet and Priest and King! Christ is coming! over the world victorious, Pow'r and glory unto the Lord belong:

Refrain: Praise Him! praise Him! tell of His excellent greatness; Praise Him! praise Him! ever in joyful song!

Should we try to storm Heaven? Can we try to force God's hand on our behalf? Jesus paid it all.

Obadiah 1:6 How are the things of Esau searched out! How are his hidden things sought up!

We are Esau. We were not God's first choice. He has made provision for our salvation and we still act in animosity against the dearness of others to God in a carnal way. We either act in violence to steal, if we could Heaven from God's hands or we act in duplicity, to conn God to believe that we are worthy in some way. God has ways of dealing with the likes of us. But, it is always for the purpose of our ultimate salvation.

God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

If that is our desire we are in Sync with God's purposes. If not, we are the target of Obadiah's lament. God will search our ultimate purposes up from the depths of the reality from whence they are come. We can't bring anything to God, but the Hell inside our hearts. We must come in repentance and faith. We must see our real devices and submit them to God. We must return to Him daily, "Our Father" confessing our ineptitude to have right thinking and motives. God will search them{our motives} out and teach us His ways. We can't wrestle Heaven from God, or challenge Him to a battle of wits. All of these are from Esau and Edom. I will either win it my way or give up trying. God has given us His son, our part is submission to God and bringing our wicked deployments of wits under the submission to God's Holy Word. That is crowning Him in that part of our lives that we are attempting to walk circumspectly. I cannot walk circumspectly, if I am not looking.