WHEN TEMPTATIONS AND THEIR POWER INCREASE...

I perceive that as the temptations and the power of those temptations increase, my only hope is to increase my time with the Lord in His Word, meditation, and prayer.

This may seem obvious to many, but when we’ve filled our time with so much other than the Lord, the obvious is always the first thing overlooked and dispensed with.

Taking this time, increasing this time, is the only sure way that is always open to me in every time of temptation and trial. God grant it to me and all! Amen.

LOOK ON MY AFFLICTION AND DELIVER ME ...

Look on my affliction and deliver me,
For I do not forget Your law. Psalm 119:153

Yea, how I need the Lord to look upon my affliction.
Even more do I need His look to be continuous, for such are my afflictions, such is my need for His deliverance to be continuous.
Whatever the afflictions that are without me, they are but a messengers of the greater afflictions that are within me.
All such afflictions that come to me by the hand of those who lie, deceive, betray, or reject me, they are but messengers of the lying, deceiving, betraying and rejecting that takes place continuously within my own sinful heart.
These afflictions are too much, too continuous, I want them to end that I might have peace, that I might not struggle, that I might look at the Law of the Lord and be at peace with it.
Surely my afflictions within and without, like their mother that bore them - my own sinfulness, do not stop.
Even as my own heart accuses me, it does so from the remains of God’s Law that is still written there.
I cannot forget the Law of God, and no matter how good, how true, how right I believe this Law to be, it still increases the weight of my guilt that afflicts me to the point of death.
For as constant as are the afflictions without, and my own sin within, so constant as to be eternal, is the Law of God in its curse of eternal affliction.
My sinful nature, in its bondage to try and be God, would rescue me from these afflictions, yet all its efforts born of sin, only increases my afflictions, increases the weight of the Law against me.
My afflictions would drive me to seek mercy from those who afflict me.
My afflictions would drive me to plead with my afflicters, that they might ease, that they might cease to afflict me for an hour, a moment.
Yet, they that afflict me in this world, and I myself that afflict me from within, have no grace, no love that would move them beyond their own afflictions to ease mine.
I am left to seek mercy; to plead with He who’s Law afflicts me with bondage to my sin, bondage to an affliction of eternal death for my sin.
I am left to seek mercy, to plead with the Lord, who knowing of my affliction before it began, loved me so much that He moved beyond the affliction I have done to Him, moved beyond the affliction His own Law would make on me, to enter my affliction and deliver me.
I am left to seek deliverance from Him who demonstrates His own kind of love, for while I was an enemy, afflicted and afflicting in sin, sent His Son into my afflictions to deliver me.
By His birth into my flesh – He enters into the afflictions that continuously come from without me in this world.
By His baptism – I He enters into the continuous afflictions that come from the Law of God.
By His temptations – He enters into the continuous afflictions that arise from within my own sinful heart.
By His passion on the Cross – He surrenders to all these afflictions born of my guilt, that I and my guilt would be His to constantly deal with and deliver me.
By His death on the Cross – He takes me, my sin, my afflictions and all their power into death to make them dead for, dead to me.
By His resurrection – I am reborn, I am delivered from the power of all my afflictions.
Surely in Jesus Christ, the Lord has looked upon my affliction and delivered me.
And even now, does the Lord Jesus Christ continuously intercede for me in the midst of my afflictions – that I might have the favor and peace of God, my Heavenly Father.
Many and varied are the afflictions within and without me, yet in their multitude and variety, my Lord, along with His look and deliverance - is ever constant.
In looking upon my afflictions, the only thing of my Lord that changes is the ever increasing number of His mercies provided to me.
Lord, I believe, help me in the midst of my afflictions, to turn, to believe in my Lord Jesus Christ – who daily, hourly, nay minute by minute – afflicts me with every grace and blessing.
Thank You, blessed Lord for Your looking, Your loving and Your constantly deliverance of me, a poor miserable sinner through faith in Jesus Christ. Amen.

YOUR PROMISE IS WELL TRIED ...

Your promise is well tried,

And your servant loves it. Psalm 119:140

As the purity and strength of all things is tested in the furnace of fire,

so the purity and strength of the Lord’s promise is proven in the furnace of my failures in sin.

The promises of pride, pleasure and position that I have turned to are quickly consumed in the flames of my unfaithfulness before the Law of the Lord.

Such promises cannot withstand the flaming attacks of my faithful foe who would likewise consume me.

No king, no tyrant, no enemy made this furnace nor started its flames.

No, I fall bound headlong into the furnace and fire of my own making in sin.

Yet it is to me in my bondage and boundary within the furnace of sin, that my Lord and my God sends His promise.

It is in this furnace that one who is as the Son of God comes to me and preserves my life in the midst of my furnace and flame.

It is said that a pound of pure gold could be set into the center of the hottest furnace for as long as two months, and not lose a single ounce, a single gram.

How much more pure and mighty must the promise of God, the Son of God be, that when He was set into the center of hottest of all furnaces, fueled by my sin and made white hot by the wrath of God – He did not lose a single sinner, He did not lose me.

But let me be wise with this promise of Lord, for before You gave me this promise, I was first given to Your promise, Your Son Jesus Christ.

It is because You have given me to Your promise, to Your Son, that I am saved from my furnace, my fire, my sin.

And it is by Your promise, Your Son, that I am preserved through all the flames and furnaces of this world.

It is for this reason, born of Your promise, that I am Your servant and I love Your promise, Your Son Jesus Christ.

KEEP STEADY MY STEPS ACCORDING TO YOUR PROMISE ...

Keep steady my steps according to your promise,
And let no iniquity get dominion over me. Psalm 119:133


Oh that I might so keep every step, yea, every thought, every word, and every deed of my life that they would all be within the bounds of righteousness.
Yet by this plea, I confess that apart from the promise of the Lord, I have no steadiness, nay I have no steps.
So unsteady am I in my sinfulness that I surely surrender my thoughts, words and deeds according to the dominion my sinful pride, and therefore my pride’s master – Satan Himself.
Only my sinful pride could cast such a convincing illusion for me, that I might steadily order my steps apart from the Lord or His promises.
Only my sinful pride could cast a dominating illusion that I have no iniquity,
that I am not iniquitous, before I take my first step, my first thought, word or deed into all that is iniquity’s dominion.
For I am an iniquitous man, a man who is not even, not level, not right with the Lord or His will for me.
No, only under the dominion of my sinful pride’s illusions could I believe that I can step, think, speak, or do my life as if I were on even ground, level ground before the Lord.
Yet the Psalmist’s plea is that of one who has stepped under the dominion of his sinful pride and has found only unsteadiness all around him and in him.
How is it O Lord, why is it O blessed Lord, that I must ever be in the consequences of my own unsteadiness, ever be in the midst of my deep guilt before I fully see the truth of my iniquity, my infinite unevenness with You?
Surely it is in the depths of my iniquity that I see the blessedness of Your promises and I crave the dominion of Your grace.
Surely it is only in the sinking sand that I crave, that I cry out for Your keeping of me that I might stand, I might step and be steady in You.
Whatever the answer, I find that I am ever in the sinking sand, ever iniquitous in all my steps and ever in need of Your promises to steady me, yea, to save me.
So I turn to He who met me on my level – Jesus Christ.
For He is Your promise made flesh.
He is Your keeping of me as He descended to take, to keep His steps according to Your promises to me.
He is Your promise that came to step into my place, into my iniquity, into my sin, into my punishment, and into my death so that He might have dominion over me and my steps.
His resurrection reveals to me that He how great and glorious is His dominion.
His resurrection reveals that in Him, I shall be made anew and my footsteps reordered by His grace.
In Holy Baptism, He has united my every step to Himself and give me new steps of faith by His grace.
In His Blessed Meal of His Body and Blood, surely He steps into the humble sanctuary with all of heaven, that there exercises His blessed dominion of grace that I might be kept, and there for journey on, step by step in the land of the living.
Who am I that I should have such a God, such a Lord, such a Savior – that though I be unsteady in all my ways – He remains ever steady and ever steadying me in His steadfast love for me?
Blessed the Lord! Bless the Lord with me all you saints of His! Bless the Lord!
Keep, O Keep, steady my steps according to Your promise blessed Lord, that I may ever live in the dominion of Your grace, Your Christ and mine. Amen.

I AM YOUR SERVANT; GIVE ME UNDERSTANDING ...

I am your servant; give me understanding,

that I may know your testimonies! Psalm 119:125

To rightly call oneself a servant of the Lord is purely consequential.

Only by the Lord calling me His servant, may I dare to call myself such.

Apart from the calling of the Lord, I am bound as a servant and slave of sin and self.

If I would be a servant of the Lord, I have need of understanding.

For I have had knowledge prior to the call of the Lord, and with that knowledge I lived as Lord.

For any knowledge, apart from the Lord’s understanding, would only puff me up beyond my place as a servant.

As surely as I could never be the Lord’s servant apart from His calling, so surely I would never know the testimonies of the Lord apart from the understanding He alone provides.

Surely this understanding is nothing other the work of the Holy Spirit through faith.

The Pharisees and the Scribes had knowledge, had the divine knowledge of God’s word, and yet with all that knowledge they could not, and did not, know God’s Living Testimony before them in Jesus Christ.

Apart from the understanding that God given faith provides, one can only know the testimonies of God from above them.

Surely if I would rightly be a servant of the Lord,

if I would rightly know the testimonies of God,

and thus rightly know Jesus Christ,

then I must learn them from the place of faith beneath those testimonies, beneath the Cross.

For where I will not learn beneath the Sacred testimonies of God,

I will never really know anything,

I will never really be a servant of the Lord,

And I will never really know the living Testimony of God of who took my flesh and became my Servant and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I shall never understand that this Living Testimony of God came to save me from my ignorance and failure as a servant of the Most High God.

Thus I pray, give me understanding O Lord, that I may know, that I may believe in your crucified and risen Testimony, Jesus Christ.

In Him, let my prayer be understood and acceptable in Your sight. Amen.

I HOLD MY LIFE IN MY HAND CONTINUALLY ...

I hold my life in my hand continually,

but I do not forget your law. Psalm 119:109

St. Jerome would teach me that to hold my life in my hand continually is a Hebraism that confesses a state of extreme peril.

Surely David was in peril at the hand of Saul.

How much more surely is my life in peril in the hand of myself, my sin, my sinfulness?

Do I even rightly grasp the extremeness of my peril in sin, my sin, my sinfulness?

Within my hands, surely my life is exposed, it is available to those who, greater than I would snatch it out of my hand.

Within my hand, surely my life is exposed to me a poor miserable sinner.

Within my hand, my life is at the mercy of what my sinful heart, via my hand. might give it up to.

Within my hand, surely I give my life up to the very thing I hate.

Within my hand, surely I seldom, if ever, give my life up to the good, the right things for me.

Within my hand, surely my life lies within the grasp of my sinful pride that would deceive me to be other than what my God has created me to be, the commandment of my God permits me to be.

Could there be anything more feeble, more perilous for my life to be in, than my own hand, for my hand is sinful and it continually fails.

Holding my life in my feeble hands, in the midst of such great peril, I am driven too often to forget You, forget Your law, O Lord.

Surely through the consequences of my life being in my hand, does your Law convict me of the truth that my hope lies not in my hand.

Surely I need a hand that is continuously greater than mine.

Surely I need a hand that can never and will never lose its grip, its hold of me.

Surely I need a hand to so grip me, so hold my life that I shall not be snatched away from that hand.

Grant that no matter the depth of my peril or the feebleness of my hand, I may ever remember Your Law, O Lord.

Grant that no matter what my hand has given my life up to, I may ever remember Your Law, O Lord.

For where I have Your Law continuously confronting me with my feebleness, and basis of my peril in sin,

than am I rightly driven to the Hand greater than mine,

only then do I rightly hear the offer of Your hand of grace that has so securely taken hold of my life, so as to have it engraved on Your hand.

Yea, even as my life was in peril, You put my life into the hand of Your only begotten Son.

Yea, even as I have forgotten Your law in the midst of my feebleness, Your right hand held me, held my life secure before the peril of Your Law and Your righteous wrath against me.

Yea, even as Your Right hand had secured my life to Himself on the Cross, so also did He secure me in You gracious Father, as He commended His spirit and mine into Your hands.

Amen to those who have said, and I shall also continuously say:

“The right hand of the Lord does valiantly, the right hand of the Lord exalts, the right hand of the Lord does valiantly!” I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.” Psalms 118:15-17

My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and constantly rescue me from my hand. Psalms 31:15

Keep me O Lord, in Your baptismal grip that I may have life by Your hand continuously here and in eternity, through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen