S - PSALM 143:1-12 (NIV): "O LORD, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in darkness like those long dead. So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Rescue me from my enemies, O LORD, for I hide myself in you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. For your name's sake, O LORD, preserve my life; in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant."O - Relief does not, DOES NOT, come to us because of our faithfulness or righteous activities. It's not that we shouldn't engage our best to be faithful or to do the right thing, but these expressions are NOT what gains our hearing before God nor those which garner his favor. He's glad when we so engage but these actions are not the basis for his help. The reason(s) we make our appeal is our desperate need and the reasons he answers are his mercy, righteousness, faithfulness and unfailing love. He loves us because he loves us. He helps us, engages us, provides for us and protects us for the same reason. This truth is awesome in reality and hard in the unreality of our religious selves. We want to think that we're earning help or proving trustworthy to receive it; and the problem with this is that not only can we never qualify but this same deception becomes our "reasons" to judge others (e.g. Job's companions). While we do live in a world which produces some consequence to our actions … our actions are not the basis for the Lord's steadfast love and the help he brings to those who ask. He is the basis for his is love and help. We are not loved because we perform. We are loved because we belong. Any other conclusion denies him and deceives us.
A - Fear based, failure based, living isn't living at all. It's performing and ultimately self-centered because it becomes all about self-protection and self-promotion. The Scriptures tell me that when fear and judgment are present in me I am not receiving the full measure of the love he is permanently giving. Why? Because these are very realities which love drives out and repels (1 John 4). Today my primary assignment is to love and to live in the love God has for me, unqualified and unquantified.
P - Lord who is love,
Thank you for confronting my religious self, even my well-intended religious self and for insisting that it be put to death with the rest of my fallen self. I admit that I can be thinking logically but not rightly. I am asking for relief, for help, for reprieve, for rescue according to your mercy, faithfulness, righteousness and unfailing love. I welcome the full measure of your love and pray for power to apprehend it. I love you back and want to love others out loud according to your love.
Yielding to you,
Steve
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