The power of our renewed desires

Ps 131 1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.

2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.

When we are saved we are given Gods desires. These desires are like carrying a new baby. We are purposing to be successful by protecting these desires. These desires are beyond our understanding. This is why the Psalms teach that the measurement of these desires are compared to the perfect creation of Gods kingdom in speaking everything into existence. We have a reflection of our soul that is mysteriously mirrored in the fulness of God. 1 " My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty".This phrase is interchangeable..could be my eyes are not haughty , my heart is not proud. Hes talking about how he views everything in comparison to Gods covenants, laws, decrees and promises. The result of putting these words on his lips in the form of petitions, pronouncements, curses and promises is that his desires go beyond the attraction to the things of this earth which he cannot control. "I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me" {Potential danger or Promises }

" My eyes are not haughty;" Here the Psalmist is acknowledging that everything in this life is under the direct hand of God because He is the only one who can redeem them.To redeem the things in this life there must be a death in order to create life. The Psalmist is saying that his renewed desires can only be pure when he has given up hope that there is another way to find redemption. He must kill anything that is opposed to salvation and be fully delivered.  In other words to die to self is to be consumed in Gods anger, love, and covenant promises by praying in accordance with the Psalms. Dying is being under the compulsion of Gods attributes that are mysterious. "But I have stilled and quieted my soul;" Or there is nothing that rises up in me that gives me confidence of any other relief other than God delivering me. 

In this stillness God speaks salvation. The old desires have been killed in experience and the new desires rise up from deep to deep. Ps 42 7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. Or the experience of being consumed by Gods desires is like being under the power as if we are in the ocean being tossed by the waves. It could be pleasures that rise up in us like waves crashing on the shores. Or experiencing His kingdom control pressing in on us like we have a spiritually strong back bone. He is saying here that he has experienced the death of his desires to obtain deliverance by self effort and he has killed the self confidence that opposes his renewed desires by cursing the destructive ideas that are presented by the opposition. He has come to the line of blessing and cursing as is experiencing mystery. His soul is filled with hope.

God vindicates His name

1 Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men.

When we are saved we are definitively justified. We now have the authority to approach God on the basis of Christ work on our behalf.  Ps 5 7 "But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple." This Psalm is teaching how the Psalmist will approach God throughout the Psalms. The main points of our relationship with God are taught in the first part of the Psalms. Now look at the Psalmist approach after he pleads Gods mercy. He says 8 "Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies-- make straight your way before me." The Psalmist is teaching that he is no longer his own enemy but that he is caught in between Gods kingdom advancement and Satans opposition. The phrase  "make straight your way before me." is not really teaching  about a physical pathway but a perfect description of Gods purposes in creating every circumstance by speaking reality into existence. Thats why he then says 9 "Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with destruction. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongue they speak deceit." In other words the Psalmist is saying that Gods moral purposes are not really to correct what we have done that is wrong but to overcome the description of the opposition which he calls "deceit". The kingdom of darkness that is opposed to the kingdom of light in false words that are destructive. The wicked curse the righteous. So its Gods word against all other words. 
We are sanctified in our position before God because of Christ work on our behalf. To stand in mercy is to be in a position to be opposed by Satans kingdom. The great struggle is no longer going on inside of us but with the opposition that is too strong for us...we express our dependence upon God by depending upon His vindication of us.  This is expressed in the next words  10 Declare them guilty, O God! Let their intrigues be their downfall. Banish them for their many sins, for they have rebelled against you. "Banish them" is speaking of someone who is in the nation of Israel which is Gods kingdom...or Gods perfect creation of the success of Israel in His word which is the whole counsel of God that represents the justified who are opposed by those who are speaking their own words. Banish them is to bring their words to nothing. Or to bring them to eternal judgement. It is in this context that the Psalmist view of success is God doing the work to vindicate His name. In vindicating the Psalmist purposes God is vindicating His name.

The opposition

Let me talk about the personality of this cry. In the Psalms you have two men described. The evil man and the righteous men. These men are at war with each other. The wicked man is hunting the righteous man. But we oppose the wicked man through the application in the cry. The more we understand how to argue against the character in this wicked description the more we will be able to oppose the specific causes of that evil personality.

But in the Psalms every man is unable to rise up to the level of victorious opposition. Every man does evil because he does not see as God sees. In this way every man is mistaken when he does evil. So the opposition rises above the conflict of the will of man to spiritual forces behind the conflict. If we were able to rise above our own view of the conflict then we would be able to gain victory in the conflict. And this is what the Psalms are made to do.

Every man has a desire to experience unity in the universe. I suppose that God sees the motives and that is why He is patient. Because all men do things to protect themselves. The sin really is not being able to look at the world through a much broader philosophy. Each man is a slave to his own destructive motives. Every man has a positive vision as he controls his own life but he doesnt have the divine knowledge to be able to understand how to bring that vision into reality. This is why in Gods eyes most of the evils that are accomplished are done through faulty reasoning rather than through real reality. In this sense then we understand the vision of the kingdom of God and we implement it as a vision the wicked enjoy but have no understanding of Gods kingdom principles.

This means that we must put away our own perspectives and desires in the sense that we see how useless our own anger is and how powerless our own righteousness is. We have a much greater vision than a process. We have a whole vision of the Real Man. This vision makes all men look beyond their own view so that the blindness of the wicked is subdued even tho they do not know why and our own vision of Christ kingdom prospers. But most of this is blinded by religious fanaticism rather than spiritual power.

This is why the Psalms place in our hands the ability to make the kingdom of God unite with our vision by how we speak. You see we do not really fight other men but we fight the evidence that evil is present in other men with the speech that prevents and allows. This is why we have the curses and covenants. The curses are described in such a way that we rise up to oppose the "scheme". We destroy the evil strong hold by rising up to speak words that are like fighting hand to hand combat. When we have engaged in opposing the evil scheme we experience eternal anger. This means that we have used spiritual means to oppose forces that we do not understand. But in time God will show us how we aligned mens desires so that we enjoyed all of Gods gifts.

The cry

Ps 88 13 "But I cry to you for help, O LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you". "in the morning"..possibly speaking about God recreating the days as a cycle. God shows his love in the morning...or He will speak relief in the morning. But this gives us an approach to counseling.  I do not believe that is a cycle here. Pouring out the burden and then getting relief. But the level of the sorrow in community should increase the passion of the cry. This my also be a reference to the prayer  of the righteous man that availeth much. 

The cry is compared to the pain of child birth. The sorrow is the woman in labor and it is birthed through the cry. The cry is expressed in the use of the law, covenants, promises and decrees. We use the word of God to obtain victory. So you are familiar with the sorrow not to bear the burden necessarily but to be driven to the level of Gods eternal anger on behalf of those who are suffering in order to confront the adverse spiritual power. God unifies all things by creating mystery ....a connection of human to human and overcoming the enemy  in dulling the pain of the anxiety. In other words there is a human element of convincing the person who is suffering. We do not bat an eye in being the guy in the heat of the battle that provides hope. But we need to develop this mysterious sedative to the trouble by the passion of the cry in a community sense. 


143 8" 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."You see this cry described in 143. This is really a metaphor of being saved by the Lord of Glory. In the heat of the battle the Lord comes on the chariot to obtain victory. The light shines and the enemy is destroyed.18 6 In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.

7 The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry.8 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.9 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet.10 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind.This is like the sun rising in the morning ...compared to the darkness ended by the light of the morning. Its expressing the curse and rising to the anger of God and then arguing for victory through the law , decrees, etc which is waring with words in order to obtain victory in the morning. This is Gods unfailing love ...or His decree of victory in the morning. All of this struggle is unified in the level of the cry in community.

Some times we need to be carried

 Ps 88

3" For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. 4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength. "

Here the Psalmist is complaining about the kind of sorrows that flood our souls in which we experience constant anxiety. So the question is how can the Psalmist speak of God in a positive way when he is experiencing so much turmoil? Even tho God is never angry with us yet the Psalmist is describing God as treating him like an enemy.  5" I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. 7 Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. "Selah" I think sometimes we try to forget the negative feelings we are experiencing by making an effort to oppose them with focusing on God as a good God. He speaks of this anxiety as a weight that he is caring around. "Your wrath lies heavily upon me ...im overwhelmed by you waves". "My soul is full of trouble" is the way to express troubles that overwhelm us like being weighted down so that we feel weak. When we go to do our daily routine we feel like we need extra rest because we are carrying around these anxieties in which they are like weights that affect our physical strength. The Psalmist is comparing the weight of these anxieties to people who have lost connection with the world through death. He says that in this experience he is "cut off from Gods care". "Cut off" is like being placed outside the city so that we are all alone. The city in the Psalms is not necessarily a physical place but it represents our connection to a culture in which we experience Gods kingdom of love and joy. When the city is upside down there are cries of distress in the streets, people disrespecting other peoples property, and the attack on the powerless. So we see that our connection to the creation and to people are how we experience eternal life. We are sort of like dead men walking.

We have a description here of a saint who is being transparent before God who is left in this feeling of loneliness and disconnection.   18 "You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend." He reasons that there is only one thing he feels connected to and that is darkness. What happens when we do not feel connected in relationships? We are confused because we cannot find a way out of this darkness so that we can depend upon Gods promises. When we experience this disconnection even our closest relationships are affected. 8 You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I am confined and cannot escape;9 my eyes are dim with grief. 

You see the Psalmist is not trying to overcome this situation by attempting to cover his feelings with Gods promises. Instead he focuses on the pain and he leaves it with some questions. 9 my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, O LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to you.10 Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? "Selah"11 Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction ?12 Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?This question" Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?" This is a description of very mature saint who has enjoyed a life of meditation so that hes had high experiences with many victories. He is speaking as if he was two men..completely divided. These high experiences are in the past in which he has lost connection with those pleasures. Like he has died and has moved on. But in the Psalms eternal life is timeless. All of the past meditations revisit us in the present being mixed with more pleasure. But here his complaint is that he has even lost connection to these high experiences. " My eyes are dimmed" he is really saying that his eyes have been turned inward and he cannot see the beauty of the creation or experience a connection in relationships. He has this far away look in his eyes...like he is under the burden of negative thoughts that keep him from looking outward. 

The Psalmist is in the position where he has lost all hope in Gods goodness. He is describing his inward experience as if he has been judged by God and is receiving Gods destructive pronouncement. But in the christian experience we know that if we are familiar with the struggle that we are not in this position to feel condemned. So this Psalm is teaching us that we can describe an experience as if we are the unsaved person who is experiencing Gods wrath as a way to unburden our feelings of disconnection. There is a place in the christian experience where describing the pain and rejection is part of our growth. 

God has created us like Himself. This Psalm is teaching us that when we are faced with this kind of disconnection and our inward experience is turned upside down that we can get help by being transparent and expressing our sorrows in the most honest way. We may not get relief from one prayer of transparency but God will lower Himself to our level so that over time He will recreate our future and respond with some kind of relief. Some times the only remedy is to go before God and be transparent. Sometimes we have no strength and we need to be carried. 

We have the fulness of God dwelling in us

God gives us a gift when we are saved like winning the lottery. The gift is only as authoritative and powerful in its creative power as we understand Gods word. The success of the gift is according to our understanding of how to use the power of eternal life. This gift cannot be thwarted or destroyed. The gift in itself is the perfect government of God planned from eternity past in His view from our perspective as He works through our individual gifts to overcome all opposition and thus to bring glory to Himself. God has given us redeemed desires.

This is what is so hard for us to understand in this pragmatic age. We think that what we do adds up to all that God has planned. But God has given us something that is complete from the beginning of time to the end. The gift that is in us is Gods experience and wisdom as He has viewed everything from the beginning of time. This gift is the description of everything that God has created and sustained in His eternal counsel. He has made us complete in Christ so that everything that Christ has obtained and overcome is ours.

God has designed everything to be unified in His view that brings Him glory. Nothing is out of order or able to thwart Gods will. Gods eternal view of all of time is in us. We have the fulness of God dwelling in us. And yet just as we have our individual desires in which the scripture says are like a deep well so our redeemed desires are mysterious. This is the way the Psalmist reasons..."You know my desires" which the Psalmist is using to oppose any enemy from within or without. This reasoning is as if we have already been translated to heaven where there is no more sin , sorrow or sickness. Its like the Psalmist is resting in this perfect kingdom in his appeal through his redeemed desire.

I think the desire is more than just a mystery. It is the total understanding of Gods view in creating all things. Its the total explanation in God reasoning through His covenants, laws, decrees, and promises.This approach by God is aligned with His attributes. So Gods explanation that He has gifted to us in redeemed desires is both mysterious and understandable. God has given us His way of speaking in the Psalms. He has provided us with the language of Christ. We have a kings language. It is according to our experience in using this language as to the level of our understanding when we appeal to God on the basis of our redeemed desires.    

Gods amazing grace

Ps 62 7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. When we are saved we receive grace. Grace is simply God gifting us with everything that we need. He fulfills our needs in Himself so that our lives are defined by what He gives and not what we do. You see this same kind of thinking when the Psalmist talks about sin and forgiveness. 1 O LORD, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief.2 Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. Gods faithfulness and righteousness follow us all the days of our lives. So the Psalmist is saying come from before me and behind me and bring me relief. This is why our honor depends upon God. If in fact God is sovereign and He does whatever pleases Him, then it goes to reason that He is behind us and before us working all things for our good. 
But now look what the Psalmist reasons here about grace and sin. He says that if God were to bring him into judgment then God would need to judge all men. The apostle says that if God were to deal with men according to their sins then everyone would be condemned. So grace gives us certain rites in Gods kingdom. It prevents us from being judged since every sinner who does not have grace enjoys Gods leniency. If those sinners are not burdened by the a legitimate threat then why should we who have received grace be overly concerned for our sins? You will see the Psalmist reasoning like this in Ps 38 9 where the Psalmist complains about the physical ailments that are plaguing him and he feels like God is treating him according to his sin. Then the Psalmist makes this statement.10" All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes. " The Psalmist is stating the reason why he is frustrated with this plague. Because the Psalmist has redeemed longings which place him in the position of vindicating himself so that he will be successful in bringing the curse of the law to bear upon the rebellious nations. vs15 But what kind of concern should we have is the question? here the Psalmist makes a statement about this in the middle of his complaint about the evil treatment from his enemies.  18" I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin." This is sort of like saying look God you know that i have redeemed longings which provides me with a natural understanding that I am a sinner but the bigger problem is how I am being treated. And this shows us just how amazing grace really is.