Psalm71: do not abandon me, O Elohim.

 I got angry whenever a pastor says: "Are you sure of your salvation?" because it seems to imply that this assurance is what leads to salvation. 

In Psalm 71, the psalmist prays: "do not abandon me, O Elohim.", "Do not reject me when I am old or abandon me when I lose my strength.", "O Elohim, do not be so distant from me.", "O my Elohim, come quickly to help me.", "Rescue me and free me because of your righteousness.", "Turn your ear toward me, and save me.". Is the psalmist sure of his salvation? How many times I (with my theology) have prayed in a similar way? I don't remember praying like that in my whole life even though I coudln't "feel" the Lord next to me many times in my life.

By other hand, we also read in Psalm 71: "I have taken refuge in you, O Yahweh.  Never let me be put to shame. ", "You gave the order to save me! Indeed, you are my rock and my Metsuda.", "You are my hope, O Adonay Yahweh. You have been my confidence ever since I was young.", "I depended on you before I was born. You took me from my mother’s womb. My songs of praise constantly speak about you.". These statements seems more appropriate for the believer according to our nowdays theology. Even though, how many times, did I pray something similar? Perhaps one or another time. In the same psalm, the psalmist asks for salvation and praises the Lord for his salvation. Why? Because he put all bets on the Lord. If the Lord fails on him, he will be ashamed before others. Due to this bet, if the Lord exalts him, the name of the Lord will also be exalted. He praises the Lord for his salvation, but he also keeps asking the Lord to stay by his side even on old ages and when will lose his strentgh.

salvation in Psalm68

The Lord has established Israel as his nation. The Lord lives in the temple of Jerusalem. 

Kings (of other nations) will bring gifts to Him (Psalm68:29), however, those who don't submit to the Lord will be scattered (Psalm68:1). The enemies of the Lord are the enemies of Israel. These enemies want to destroy Israel.

In Psalm 68:20 (NOG) we read:

Our El is the El of victories.  Yahweh Adonay is our escape from death.

His people will be saved from the death inflicted by the enemies. In a similar way, we Christians are saved from the death. However, we understand that we were sinners and enemies of the Lord, but the gracious Lord carried (and carries) our burdens for us (Psalm68:19) so that we will be saved from the death that was demanded by the Law.

Smile to me

It is common to believe that our success or failure depends on us, but the Bible teaches differently.

In Psalm 67:1 (MSG) we read:

God, mark us with grace

    and blessing! Smile!

Lord, you are the source and cause of everything, including my life. Be kind to me and bless me because I need your favor, I need your smile.

In Psalm 67:5,6:

God! Let people thank and enjoy you.

    Let all people thank and enjoy you.

Earth, display your exuberance!

    You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.

In particular let me thank you and enjoy you. Let me see your goodness to me, oh Lord, because this is the basis of my trust in you. 

Praise the Lord (instead of seeking self esteem)

 The Lord is wonderful and deserves applause from all over the Earth as in Psalm 66:1. Despite His greatness, He hears my prayers and remains with me, loyal in His love for me (Psalm 66:20). I know the Lord hears me because I have not become accustomed to evil (Psalm 66:18). 

Psychologists seek to improve their patients' self-esteem, but the psalmist marvels at being loved by such a great God. He has no other reaction than praising the Lord.

The Lord's guest

The blameless will dwell in the presence of the Lord but the Lord is merciful and will let me dwell in his presence.

In Psalm 65 (MSG), we read:

We all arrive at your doorstep sooner    or later, loaded with guilt,

Our sins too much for us—     but you get rid of them once and for all.

Blessed are the chosen! Blessed the guest    at home in your place!

We expect our fill of good things    in your house, your heavenly manse.

The Lord will get rid of my sins so that I may dwell in his heavenly manse as his guest.

The Lord is good, that is why I may expect good things from Him in his house with all his saints.

sin and integrity applied to David in Psalm 41

In Psalm 41:4 (NIV) we read:

I said, "O LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you."

and in Psalm 41:12

In my integrity you uphold me and set me in your presence forever.

David confesses that he is a sinner and asks the Lord for mercy, but in verse 12 David says that in his integrity the Lord has set him in His presence forever.

It reminds me of a politician who said he had integrity. When he was caught stealing with a lot of evidence against him, his defense was always to criticize the judge, the opposition, but he never dealt with the evidence.

David had integrity because he repented and confessed his sins to the Lord.

sleepless at midnight

 In Psalm 63:6 (MSG) we read:

If I am sleepless at midnight, I spend the hours in grateful reflection.

Sometimes I struggle to sleep, but I can use this time to reflect on how good the Lord has been to me, my family, and those around me.
In Psalm 63:8 (NIV) we read:

I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.

David is aware that the right hand of the Lord upholds him. He knows he is blessed by the Lord. That thought at night, when he was sleepless, must have brought peace to David.

Trust and Reward

The Lord rewards everyone according to what they have done - Psalm 62:12.

This idea is scattered throughout the Bible. So, at first glance, it appears that the Lord will reward those who follow his commandments and kill those who do not. We know that David committed adultery, so he should have died according to the Law.

David became king of Israel. He had to face envious people who seeked to destroy him. He was smart enough to see through their hypocrisy. If he were a man who trusted himself, he would devise many ways to destroy his traitors. Instead, he says in Psalm62:1:

my soul finds rest in God

He delivers his problems to the Lord. 

He ends Psalm 62 by saying:

“Power belongs to you, God, and with you, Lord, is unfailing love”; and, “You reward everyone according to what they have done.”

David acts according to his faith in the Lord, that is why he rests in God despite his enemies. He hopes that his trust in the Lord will lead to a reward. Even his sins were delivered to the Lord.

unjust rulers

 In Psalm 59 we read:

1 Do you rulers indeed speak justly?

    Do you judge people with equity?

2 No, in your heart you devise injustice,

    and your hands mete out violence on the earth.

Is there any correlation between morale and lust for power? I think so: the more corrupt a person is, the more he craves power. As a teacher, I saw that in general, bad students with questionable character want to represent the class, even if they don't earn money for it. It seems to me that people of good character rarely run for election.

Despite such problems, in Romans 13 we read:

13 1 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Paul exhorts Christians to submit to rulers, but Psalm 59 ends with the righteous rejoicing when avenged:

11 Then people will say, “Surely the righteous still are rewarded;  surely there is a God who judges the earth.”

Unjust rulers will get what they deserve.

How should Christians submit to unjust rulers? Was it right for early American settlers to rebel against England? How should a Christian submit to a bad boss?

I really don't know the answers. May the Lord give me wisdom to analyze and take the right actions in each circumstance.

The Lord is merciful

I'm afraid my old dad will die without Jesus in his heart because his mind isn't working right. I am praying for his salvation, that he will trust in the Lord. However, it seems that he will continue with his senile mind, being overwhelmed by the voices in his mind.

I am wondering about the classic dilemma: "How does a mighty God allow suffering?" .

In Psalm 56:8, we read David asking for mercy in prayer:

Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll -- are they not in your record?

I don't know how the Lord is hearing my prayers, but I will trust that He is merciful, understands my fear, and is watching over my father in His goodness.

Reason to pray to the Lord

 The Lord knows everything we need, so we don't communicate anything new to the Lord when we pray. Why do Christians pray? A human father wants his son to come to him for help when he is in trouble. My son is a bad student with a bad grade. Surely I could help him a lot. I lost count of how many times I insisted that he ask for my help. I asked him many times, "what don't you understand?" He always answered "everything is ok". I tried many times to sit him down and see what he understood and didn't understand. Many times I realized that he was lying to me and did not understand anything. In a mixture of fury and pity, I taught him many times what he should have understood but he didn't ask. This whole process was very painful for me and at some point I gave up. He didn't seem to care if he failed the exams, so I let him fail. Why didn't he ask me? Because he was lazy to study and identify what he didn't know, because he was proud. The Lord wants us to ask him for help as I would want my son to ask me for help. When doing so, we submit to Him. We understand that our path is subject to failures. We understand that the Lord has a better way of dealing with our own problems and in prayer, we are prone to do as He wishes.

Betrayers

 I read in Psalm 55:

12-14 This isn’t the neighborhood bully

    mocking me—I could take that.

This isn’t a foreign devil spitting

    invective—I could tune that out.

It’s you! We grew up together!

    You! My best friend!

Those long hours of leisure as we walked

    arm in arm, God a third party to our conversation.

15 Haul my betrayers off alive to hell — let them

    experience the horror, let them

    feel every desolate detail of a damned life.

David curses his betrayers, perhaps, one in particular: his former best friend who betrayed him. In Mark 14, the disciples were asking who was going to betray Jesus:

20 “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”

In contrast, Jesus said in the cross, Luke 23:24:

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

The Word of God seems to say certain things in one place and opposite things in another. In the cross, Jesus asked the Father to forgive his enemies, and Jesus said that it would be better that Judas hadn't been born implying a great condemnation to him.

The Bible has a principle that the more revelation one receives from the Lord, the more it will be required from him. So, a betrayer received very much, but he didn't correspond to what he was given.

Instead of death, joy

David committed adultery and murder. By law, he should be sentenced to death. In Psalm 51, he begins by asking for mercy:

1-3 Generous in love—God, give grace! 

    Huge in mercy—wipe out my bad record.

Scrub away my guilt,

    soak out my sins in your laundry.

I know how bad I’ve been;

    my sins are staring me down.

Maybe I'd say that David should live in a monastery, lamenting his sins all his life, but surprisingly, he asks for joy, in two verses:

8 Let me hear sounds of joy and gladness.

    Let the bones that you have broken dance.

12 Restore the joy of your salvation to me,

    and provide me with a spirit of willing obedience.

May Jesus be the reason for my joy because in him I became a friend of the Lord.

suicide

 My wife's colleague, 41 years old, committed suicide. She was single, without children. Although she had a boyfriend and talked to a lot of people, she was very lonely. In a way, she was a very successful woman. She was poor in childhood, but managed to study law. She passed a tough test to work in the public sector. Despite all her success, she wanted to find someone who would take care of her. She wanted children. She had a very difficult problem: she was bipolar. One day she was very euphoric and the next very depressed. On her euphoric days, she could yell at anyone for anything. On her depressive days, she was very quiet, self-destructing. Therefore, she was a very difficult person to get along with. It was as if she sucked all the energy out of those around her. She had a pet, a small dog. As far as I know, she treated her dog very well, but she couldn't treat herself well.

Many people attended her funeral, each trying to explain to others why she did it.

Now, it's time to replace her in the office, but everyone is afraid to take her place, because it seems as her ghost is present there.

Life is really meaningless without the Lord, but with Him life takes on another flavor. Living gets lighter, smoother because He takes care of us. The Christian sees life as a gift from Him, just like everything that sustains life. Thus, food, air, every beat of our heart, everything is provided by the Lord. I really saw this suicide as a waste of life.