The wonder of it all 
Ps 46

1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. "Selah"

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells.

5 God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.

6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts.

7 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. "Selah"

8 Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire.

10 "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. "Selah"

From our view we think that our safety in this world is secure because God is holding everything in His hand as so that He does not get Himself into a position so that He must rescue us. Because our natural view is very limited we just assume that God eliminates that danger that we do not see where there is a possibility that we might fall into the hands of evil men or be swallowed up by the corruption that is in us and in the world. This is why we grow to presume that because we have a big God who is in absolute control that we do not need to cultivate our relationship with Him. We are naturally comfortable remaining at a distance which gives us a sense of self sufficiency that perhaps God is better left alone or we would mess things up. lol 

In this Psalm we see Gods view of the world. lol The truth is that when we begin to walk the path that Christ has walked it is a path of the most resistant not a path were we avoid all the potential disasters. The bible says of Christ incarnation , and death that He descended into the abyss, which is comparing the wide gap that exist by coming from His glory to dwelling among sinners. Ive been saying this for ten years that Gods view of this world is much worse than we could ever imagine and it is much greater for us that we could ever imagine. This is why there is so much religious fanaticism in this world and not much experience of this mysterious presence of God. It is so easy for us to imagine a god of our own that we attach these dreadful responses that He has and to keep ourselves by our guilt and sorrow from experiencing the wonders of salvation. The truth is that we do not have the ability to balance Gods wrath with His grace. We cannot stand above scripture to view Gods side and our side and try to find that balance. lol 

Salvation is much grander than using the scripture and the means to find security for ourselves. Once we begin to describe Gods salvation in absolute terms thinking that we can apply the scripture so that everyone will be secure we have taken the heart and the passion out of our own lives and the lives of those we come in contact with. At some point we must begin to grow up from trusting in the word as a manual and be swallowed up in the wonder of being in union with the God Man. This is really an introduction to this Psalm but we must begin to see how God goes down to the lowest experience that can be found on this earth , that level that would crush us like a bridge falling on us, and He dwells in unapproachable light. He has revealed to us in baby talk that describes who He is in identifying with disaster in which we are drawn out into this mysterious destruction that burns up our sorrow and anger so that we feel secure in His protection. And He has promised us that if we look on the light of His glory that we will be swallowed up in the weight of the wonder that moves us beyond our understanding of the true value of all things. When we have experienced this mysterious presence of God we are fellowship with a Person. 

Gods unfailing love
Gods love is both an eternal love and a condescending love. God loves us eternally because His love is in Himself. God does not need any other love to complete His eternal love. When we are loved by God eternally we are foreseen from eternity past by God as being connected by Him in perfect dependence. Whatever separation we experience in this life is seen by God as our inability to apprehend this perfect love. When the Psalmist is praising God for His unfailing love, he is saying that God has gifted him with the laws, decrees, promises and covenants that he speaks in prayer as the basis of his appeal to God , in every situation and for everything. God erases the consequences of the Psalmist weak dependence and performs His acts according to His unfailing love which is displayed by this protective language. Gods communication of His unfailing love is the cause, means and ends in which all things are unified. God brings Himself glory by displaying His unfailing love.

God has decided to become a Man in order that He might display His eternal love to us mortals. Even tho the incarnation of Christ was a work that was perfected when He became flesh, He has always existed as the Son from before the world began. Gods condescending love has only one purpose. It is to deliver those He loves and bring them to Himself. No other created thing or people can save themselves. Salvation is in God alone.

Christ has not only come to identify with us so that He might provide us with a perfect salvation, but He has created every thing and has become the perfect reality that God has created and recreated through His spoken word. Gods word is yea and amen. His word cannot return to Him void. We live , breath, rest on His word and covenants. Christ has fulfilled all of Gods word and is seen as the only perfect work that is acceptable to God in obedience to His word. We depend upon God in this perfect defense that shields us from all opposition in possessing eternal weapons that cannot be thwarted. God describes our lives in His view of Christ perfect work on our behalf opposing all other descriptions, because He cannot fail in His covenants and promises to uphold His work that gives us a completed salvation experience. Gods love for us is unfailing in its defense of us and perfectly successful in fully delivering us.

The fear of God
Ps 93

1 The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and is armed with strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.

2 Your throne was established long ago; you are from all eternity.

3 The seas have lifted up, O LORD, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.

4 Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea-- the LORD on high is mighty.

5 Your statutes stand firm; holiness adorns your house for endless days, O LORD. 

This Psalm is describing the the holiness of God. God has established His holiness upon the earth in the created order. The Psalmist is describing Gods way of creating and recreating. He is looking at the establishment of the earth that was planned in the counsel of God in eternity past. But the Psalmist is saying that Gods counsel is His spoken word that has put His stamp on all things. The eternal existent God who has always been complete ,needing nothing to satisfy Himself has shown His self sufficiency in creating a world that does not need any other being to help him order or sustain His creation. Everything that exist now was ordered by God in eternity past as already established. 

The Psalmist is using the the word throne not as a physical place but as a metaphor for everything that has been created and everything that is recreated is spoken into existence. God has not simply spoken all things into existence but He has spoken it in a way that it is all united to work together to bring Him glory. When God looks from heaven upon all of His creation He is saying that this is a display of My holiness/ He is actually saying that all of His creation is His house. 

We may think we are strong because we have a certain control over our own lives and over His creation. He is saying that since we have been given a certain amount of control over His creation that we cannot fundamentally change or disrupt this house. In this sense His law has been gifted to us as an establishment of order that we cannot overturn. He uses the waves as a metaphor for showing that we do not have the ability to go in a way where we are out of control. If we could throw anything out of control in the universe then God would cease to be holy. 

The Psalmist is showing that God has made a covenant in creation in which He has held Himself to show that He is who He says He is. If we were able to help God then God would cease to be holy. Since His law has been established and the earth cannot be moved it doesnt matter if we believe this or not. Our view cannot change what God has established. We must conclude that even tho we are unholy we are loved by God because His holiness, which is stable and secure cannot be changed. This is fearing God. 

Shame is the curse 

 

Psalm 69

1 Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

2 I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.

3 I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

4 Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal.

5 You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you.

6 May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the LORD Almighty; may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel.

7 For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.

8 I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons;

9 for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.

10 When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn;

11 when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me.

12 Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards.

13 But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation.

14 Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters.

15 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me.

16 Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me.

17 Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble.

18 Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes.

19 You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you.

20 Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none.

21 They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.

22 May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap.

23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever.

24 Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them.

25 May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents.

26 For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you hurt.

27 Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation.

28 May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.

29 I am in pain and distress; may your salvation, O God, protect me.

30 I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.

31 This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs.

32 The poor will see and be glad-- you who seek God, may your hearts live!

33 The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.

34 Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them,

35 for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it;

36 the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there.

Shame is the tool that men use to climb the ladder of success. And yet shame is what motivates those same men to exercise their authority. Anyone who uses shame is in bed with shame. We must understand that shame is present in the world because of corruption. Shame is actually a companion of guilt. Anytime we fail to meet Gods standard of law keeping we experience guilt. The guilt is like a sword that is driven deep in our souls. When we do not recognize the intrusion of guilt ,  the guilt becomes self hatred. When we hold onto self hatred we are locked up in shame. As you can see shame is the personal enemy of freedom. Some people have lived so long with feeling shameful that they cant logically point to the people or situations in which they were talked down into shame and connect it to their depression. 

In this Psalm David is dealing with his self hatred because of being shamed by his accusers. In the Psalms God loves us because He created us and He sees us beyond our experience in his world .A world in which all men are motivated by shame. Gods love carries the weight of opposing shame because He is able to value us as He created us outside of our experience in this shame filled world. Gods view of the world has no shame because He orders and reorders every thing to work in perfect unity. This perfect unity is Gods perfect view of the value of everything and everyone that He has created. Shame is actually devaluing the things and the people that God orders to bring perfect unity to His kingdom. He pronounces Gods view of the world as if he as won over shame vs 34,35 36

But God cannot allow us to go through shame with the promise in the future that He will judge righteously. God is not like men who fall into a trap in which they experience shame. If shame surprised God then He would not be able to exercise His will over all other wills. God must act outside of time prior to the event that we face that shames us. If God claims that He loves us then He must act towards us without any opposition. Or Gods love would be untrustworthy. We do not need a defense after we have been shamed. We need a defense before we are shamed and as a result of being shamed other wise God would be very lax in communicating love to us. 

God has provided us with the remedy. Now listen the only remedy for shame is the pronouncement of death. This Psalm is kind of divided into two parts. The first part is the Psalmist description and complaint of pain as a result of people shaming him. The Psalmist makes a bold statement that he has not purposely shamed anyone. In fact he says that even when people were shamed because of his sin ,he prays that God will not bring them shame. But if you look at the second part of the Psalm you will see why the psalmist distances himself from being a person who shames. Because shame is cursing someone. It is actually pronouncing death to that person. So in the second part of the Psalm he is treating shame as a fatal attack upon not only his life but his posterity. The second part he is using the laws curses on those who shamed him as if he was in hand to hand combat for his life. He is addressing his anger and expressing it in a legitimate way. He is not satisfied until the law has worked to eliminate shame from the city.then the country. etc   There is so much in this Psalm to talk about and i havent even scratch the surface. 

Being free to leave your stamp on your work. 

Ive always tried to live my life without presuppositions that other people teach. Ive spent hours trying to live with a freedom that I believed I found. Ive spent years meditating on one verse at a time trying not only to understand how it was related to other parts of the scripture but to dissect what motivated me to the fullest happiness that I could experience. I felt that it was more important to understand my own happiness than to accept other peoples definitions of happiness. If I did not speak a word in company or work really hard with my hands to obtain my goal I wanted to be happy in my own skin.

This is why my interests in meditation grew into an obsession that turned my view of myself from the inside which worked itself to the outside. My experience in my own mind was mixed with divine imagination in which I lost interest in every body else reactions to events and people as if it defined what I would experience in reacting to the same things. After about 20 years of meditation over the same verses my quest for more knowledge was swallowed up by the inward experiences I had in all those years of my meditation. I realized that I was being overcome by feelings and memories that freed me from being defined by my work or by what I accomplished. Anything that I felt that was trapping me into being defined was in my mind an opposition to the divine influences that brought me into a world that freed me to enjoy my imagination. I have tried to experience this flow of divine life through freeing myself through hours of meditation.

I believed that if I was experiencing this freedom it would infect everyone around me. I mean not in trying to explain this freedom but finding it and living in it. And this is what I enjoyed about the people in my life. I believe my wife was a pioneer in how she accomplished so much with her ministries. In my secret meditations I was cursing the danger of her being thwarted in some way. I would use the Psalms to bring myself into an original experience in which i would get pleasure in trying to imagine how I could understand what it would be like if she was free to develop and be successful in implementing her ideas.  I experienced this freedom as I watched her be successful.

  Speaking the Psalms with understanding.

Ps 141

1 O LORD, I call to you; come quickly to me. Hear my voice when I call to you.

2 May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

3 Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.

4 Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies.

5 Let a righteous man strike me--it is a kindness; let him rebuke me--it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it. Yet my prayer is ever against the deeds of evildoers;

6 their rulers will be thrown down from the cliffs, and the wicked will learn that my words were well spoken.

7 [They will say,] "As one plows and breaks up the earth, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of the grave. "

8 But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD; in you I take refuge--do not give me over to death.

9 Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, from the traps set by evildoers.

10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by in safety.

Let me address the two liners. This phrase 5 Let a righteous man strike me--it is a kindness; let him rebuke me--it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it is actually the only time the Psalmist teaches us that we should say something that hurts. It is the only time i can think of. This is why I do not get my application from jumping from one part of the bible to another and getting my application from pulling out a verse that has a context. Ive been meditating on these Psalms for 30 years and inevitably there are certain verses that people pull out of the psalms and repeat them over and over again. Another verse which is another one that stands by itself is ...If I hold iniquity in my heart that Lord will not hear me.... 

The Psalms are written in many different forms of language. But they are written for a student to memorize them and speak them as if the speaking creates the life style. And you will see this if you really took the time to use them as they were designed and not draw conclusions because you seem to have enough knowledge of the NT doctrines that you can assume this is what the Psalmist meant when you havent even used them as they were designed. 

Its like taking a picture of a small boat floating around in the Atlantic and concluding that there was no need to examine the vast waters that the boat was floating on because the boat supports your position. But unless you jump in the vast waters and swim around then you wont have the perspective of the smallness of the boat. This is exactly how God describes grace to be. Its a vast ocean that over shadows the boat. And so we must speak these two verses as they are given in a passing way. In these two verses its as if the Psalmist is passing over them as if he has stumbled on something that is part of his argument that proves how powerful grace is. These two verses actually prove the opposite of how two liners teach them...in the original spoken form. 

When the Psalmist says the Lord will not hear his prayers if he has regard for iniquity in his heart ...first if you look at the verse its written with the other side. "But God has surely heard my prayer." Ive argued that the First John teaching on confessing of sin is teaching that our confessing sin is not seen as a work by God. I get my interpretation from these two concepts that are like a boat on the big ocean. In other words the focus is on Gods free acceptance of us as His children and not upon the confession as a count for forgiveness. And this is what the Psalmist is alluding to. That we are like the unsaved because we have iniquity in our hearts but its impossible for it to count against us because we are on the other side of grace. It showing the value of Gods acceptance here and not the counting of the confession to the forgiveness. Its really pointing to the ocean of grace that surrounds this verse. 

You see on this other verse that gets a lot of fan fare that the Psalmist that his words ...the curses, covenants, laws, decrees, statutes and promises are spoken as a warning to the nations. Its in this context that the Psalmist words will come true when he obtains victory in war so that it will be seen when another nation comes along and excavates the site where the Psalmist had victory so that the graves are not even respected. lol their bones are sort of dug up in disrespect. Its alluding to how nations come and go based upon the edicts of the Governor from heaven who has revealed His success in the Davidic rule. lol 

This is why I believe the Psalmist is alluding to a fellow soldier who saves the life of his companion...like being in the same bunker and preventing that other soldier from confronting the ravages of the enemy. And if this would not strike at the heart of the soldier who was saved i dont know what would be. But its a passing statement of "but my prayer is ever against the deeds of evil doers."

The curse that we must overcome

Ps. 22

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel.

4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.

5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

Salvation is God establishing a relationship with us by delivering us from every evil scheme.  In this Messianic Psalm Christ faced the rejection of His Father so that we can curse unbelief. This portion of the 22 is describing Christ boundaries that He has set for His sons. These words  8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him." are describing the curse of the wicked. Ps. 10 7 His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue. The Psalms describe Gods curses of the law as the tool to respond to the curses of the wicked. The heart of the wicked is described with this overall character. 8 "He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him." I believe this voice is at the heart of unbelief. And you see here that these words were spoken at the lowest point of Christ suffering. These words are compared to being thrust through with a sword in war.

God has given us all things in Christ. He has given us the gift of salvation. This salvation was obtained by Jesus in this Psalm which is describing His death on the cross. At the end of this Psalm it is describing a new earth with perfect family relationships that are centered on Christ. In the future we will enjoy unhindered fellowship with Christ and each other but now we must obtain our identity by spiritual violence. How does Christ protect us from the curse of the wicked? He judges them by the whole law which speaks death or the curses. When we face this kind of accusation that we only trust in Christ we have a defense. Christ shows the value of the grace that we possess by opposing the opposition of grace with a declaration of death. 

We are fully identified with Christ. The Psalms describe our salvation as a perfect communication of all that we need that is met in Christ. When we learn how to push away the violent communication that speaks this curse in this verse then we protect ourselves from experiencing unbelief. The Psalms describe the perfect image of Christ in a language that we can govern ourselves. We can create a kingdom in ourselves by using the gifts of salvation in our prayers , petitions, meditations, and pronouncements. The Psalms are Gods gifts to us of His way of creating the original creation but we receive them like He is talking to a baby. He has simplified the way that He creates so we have a sure foundation of protecting our salvation. We can oppose the schemes that we face in the culture of this world that speak this curse. We can tear down and destroy anything that sets itself against the knowledge of God.