Faithbase

Good morning and welcome to this edition of Praying the Bible and I'm going to read in Psalm 18 from 37 to 42 and remember this psalm was written by King David. The introduction, the heading tells us that he wrote this when he was delivered from his enemies from King Saul and that kind of gives us some context. We've referred to that as we've been praying through this in earlier editions of this program. I guess we can call it a program. But verse 37, I pursued my enemies and overtaken them, neither did I turn back again till they were destroyed. I have wounded them so that they could not rise. They have fallen under my feet for you have armed me with strength for the battle. You have subdued under me those who rose up against me. You have also given me the necks of my enemies so that I destroyed those who hated me. They cried out but there was none to save, even to the Lord, but he did not answer them. Then I beat them as fine as the dust before the wind. I cast them out like dirt in the streets. Lord God, we come before you in prayer this morning and as we've been praying through this psalm we have recognized that David, a man of war, had experiences that we probably, most of us, probably all of us, will never experience those kinds of things. And yet the daily battle of life, the battle of taking the reign of Jesus Christ, the rule of Christ in our lives, each one of us individually, we are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. That's part and parcel of what it means to be saved, that you are our Lord and Savior and without both aspects of that we aren't truly in relationship with you. You've told us Lord Jesus that we shouldn't call you Lord and we don't do what you say. And so Lord we are under your authority and we take that life of submission to you and we go out into the world and we are at odds with the world. Jesus you told us that if the world hates you, hates us, we shouldn't be concerned or shouldn't be surprised because the world hates you. The world of course is human beings organizing themselves apart from God, apart from that authority of Jesus Christ, attempting to live apart from the reigning King Jesus Christ. So we Lord come into this world, go out into this world I should say, under your authority and express that Lord God. And so certainly we will run up against those who, well they don't appreciate it to put mildly, so I have pursued my enemies and overtaken them. We pursue them in the sense that Lord we are out there expressing the truth. We press forward under the authority of Christ and take your authority into everything that we do. The way that we do our job, we look to you Lord Jesus and your word as to how that should be done. We're under your authority. We go into the voting booth and we think about what is it that the Lord God has placed on my heart from his word concerning the issues of the day and I want to be in submission to you Lord Jesus Christ. I'm under your authority. It's going to affect how I vote, my entertainment, my social interactions, my treatment of the environment and on and on and on. Everything that we do if we are under your authority Lord Jesus and we take that out into the world, we are pressing up against those who disdain the truth, who disregard the truth. And so Lord to pursue our enemies in this sense Lord I think is to be expressing that and we in a sense pursue them because they as they come in contact with us are being pressed against by this expression of Jesus Christ authority in our lives. So we overtake them and we don't turn back. We do not compromise the truth Lord God. Help us to be strong to never compromise the truth. Lord we don't want to destroy them as human beings. We want to destroy the old man so that if we are consistently expressing the authority of Jesus Christ in our life and everything that we do we don't we don't convince anyone to come to you but you use that in your mysterious ways to as the Holy Spirit works on those people to bring them into relationship with yourself Lord God. So help us to be consistent Lord that we might wound that old man with the expression that strong expression of Jesus Christ in our life so that that old man cannot rise up that the natural human tendency to turn away from the truth of Jesus Christ would not rise up but that your spirit would draw them into relationship with yourself and Lord I pray that we would be armed with your strength as we've talked about the strength to go into this battle day by day at the workplace at school even in the home as we have to deal with as housewives and have to deal with temptations and and just the way that they react to their children and so forth every one of us no matter what our circumstance in life are going to need your strength Lord God and that you will arm us with strength that you will subdue temptation beneath their feet and subdue those who would be at odds with your truth in your kingdom Lord God Lord I pray that you would in all ways just guide us and direct us strengthen us Lord God that we would be able to overcome those who would contend with us concerning the faith that we would be able to overcome the sin and temptation that would daily be thrown at us Lord God not not just by Satan but by our own thoughts Lord God that we would resist those things so strengthen us I pray Lord God this day and watch over us give us the courage to live under your authority live out loud so to speak under your authority and that you will give us a strength to deal with what comes of that so I pray your blessings Lord God and I pray this in Jesus name amen