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Day 1 Psalm 103 Devotional

By September 26, 2016October 6th, 2016Daily Devotional

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Pray:

Ask God to orient or reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.

Read:

Psalm 103:1-5

“A Psalm of David. Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

Understand:

This Psalm is specifically a psalm of praise to God. It comes out of David’s deepest emotions of gratitude for the forgiveness he finds in God.

David is known as a “man after God’s own heart,” but he is also known as a man who sinned in some terrible ways: he committed adultery, had a man murdered, and then tried to cover it up. He was a man who never forgot his guilt before the Lord. But, despite his sin, he always loved God and sought to repent of those sins. His life is a picture of success and failure. David’s life was far from perfect; he suffered for his rebellion, his sin, and he paid a heavy price. David felt at many times the weight of his guilt before the Lord.

Our guilt before the Lord can cause us to do one of two things: it can drive us to want to “hide and slide” away from God, or it can lead us to confess our failures to God and draw close to him. The latter is what we find David doing in these first five verses. David’s response to forgiveness leads him to express his love and desire to follow God. Instead of being overwhelmed by his sin and guilt, David is amazed and overcome by the majesty of God.

David reminds himself of the following: the need to remember what God has done, to be thankful for forgiveness, that the Lord heals, that God redeems and delivers us from the pit, that He crowns you with love (“Hesed”-His unfailing kindness and devotion; a love that is based on a prior relationship),
and that God renews our strength.

Apply:

Read verses 1-5 again, reflect on your life and about the times you’ve fallen. Think about how God has restored you, how He has never left you alone nor forsaken you.

How has He taken away your guilt?

How has He healed you?

What pit has He pulled you out of?

What has His “Hesed” love (His faithfulness, kindness, and grace) meant to you?

Read the following hymn…

How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

Read John 3:16-17 and personalize it, reading it in first person…

“16 For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”

Spend the next few minutes praising God.

Live:

(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.) Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today. KEEP PRAYING THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY.

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