subject: The certainty of mercy and psalm 66 [print this page] The certainty of mercy and psalm 66 The certainty of mercy and psalm 66
Psalm 66 reads as follows from the New King James version of the Bible:
1 Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth!
2 Sing out the honor of His name;
Make His praise glorious.
3 Say to God,
"How awesome are Your works!
Through the greatness of Your power
Your enemies shall submit themselves to You.
4 All the earth shall worship You
And sing praises to You;
They shall sing praisesto Your name."Selah
5 Come and see the works of God;
He is awesomein His doing toward the sons of men.
6 He turned the sea into dryland;
They went through the river on foot.
There we will rejoice in Him.
7 He rules by His power forever;
His eyes observe the nations;
Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves.Selah
8 Oh, bless our God, you peoples!
And make the voice of His praise to be heard,
9 Who keeps our soul among the living,
And does not allow our feet to be moved.
10 For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
11 You brought us into the net;
You laid affliction on our backs.
12 You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But You brought us out to richfulfillment.
13 I will go into Your house with burnt offerings;
I will pay You my vows,
14 Which my lips have uttered
And my mouth has spoken when I was in trouble.
15 I will offer You burnt sacrifices of fat animals,
With the sweet aroma of rams;
I will offer bulls with goats.Selah
16 Comeand hear, all you who fear God,
And I will declare what He has done for my soul.
17 I cried to Him with my mouth,
And He was extolled with my tongue.
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart,
The Lord will not hear.
19 But certainly God has heardme;
He has attended to the voice of my prayer.
20 Blessedbe God,
Who has not turned away my prayer,
Nor His mercy from me!
There is that tendency to look for and want some certainty.
And sometimes the thoughts towards prayer is maybe I have the long shot hope of a getting an answer or some answers
The psalm goes in another direction than a lot of people might think and feel. The order of priority is that you can potentially get your prayers heard and just about anything and everything else is uncertain and therefore the trust goes first and foremost to the prayer relationship and what that brings to the table both now and ultimately.
If there is to be any certainly that can be found, any homeland on certainty, it will be found in the prayer relationship where you as an individual is heard as this psalm specifically refers to " my prayers" which are the prayers of the one as being heard orhearkenedto by the Lord..
This is to be the only linchpin, as well as things might go elsewhere there is still not to be the focus of trust and the hope of certainty found in the outer world where so many variables are at work that are unseen, unknown and uncontrollable.
With regards to the Lord hearing and answering or responding to a prayer and a response is an answer whether it is yes, no, or maybe later or I'll consider it, indeed any watch by the Lord over the prayer request,
Always carries with it an element of mercy and heard prayer is a point of mercy upon the individual who is praying.
The great movie Gladiator gives an ambivalent yet a beautiful view of what Rome might have looked like at the time.
Within the movie, Joachim Phoenix plays Commodus the emperor of Rome who presses strongly on his hold of power and who later in the movie is arriving at a crescendo of unfolding madness, as he looks out at the evening light perching over the center of the city in glorious Rome, and he says over and over again with an increasing frenzy to his sister Lucinda, " Am I not merciful?"
The artfulness of this scene unintentionally has an element of humor, in how it captured the depths of alternating light and darkness in his crumbling character and his loosening grip on reality as he tries to hold on to and maintain the fullness of his power base, but a moment that toes the line where you could also slightly believe that Commodus could pull away from his madness and get back to a normalcy a normally and strength of personality of though this is becoming a faint hope for him..
But this was not the truth of the situation as his descent began to spiral forward into greater sections of darkness, under the surface as well as within his motives and intentions were real, even as increasingly held inner darkness would approach upon lights of glorious Rome, also itself holding some elemental darkness even though elementally it was seemingly filled with light upon light, glory upon glory, power upon power, possibly real mercy upon mercy if that was what would be truly chosen and brought forth.
While light can and does alternate with darkness within the realities of the great earthly powers, the mercy of the Lord as sought and found in the gift of prayer is like the dawning of what can be an unending pure light of only mercy.
It is always the true portion of light, and mercy that is given within the context of the heard prayer, the will of the Lord is love and is mercy as it unfolds and advances in response to the prayer that is heard.
When the Lord shows mercy, which is always what the case will be with regard to him hearing a prayer according to key verses found inn this psalm, it will not be anything like the alternating of presences of light and darkness found in the day itself or in the changing earthly powers that be.
The mercy and love of the Lord is within the will of the Lord which will always contrast as direct light against mounting despair, the weights of increasing despondency, the giving up of hope and the giving to depression and lack.
The mercy of the Lord will always wash in as an abundance of light against all that goes into lack, despair and losing out.
This is unlike the scenes that unfold with Commodus, where his references to mercy are checked and filtered through a mind that increasingly holds views and pockets of madness and a loose and no longer more firmly held grip on power and reality itself even with his highest position of power in the then greatest city of the known world.
However the graces and mercy of the Lord cannot be presumed upon and left to chance by not praying and not seeking in prayer. They must be sought and found in many cases but the major point is that is prayer heard always will involve the gift of mercy showering forth in some way within the hearing of prayer and that is certain.
Verse 20 says:
20 Blessedbe God,
Who has not turned away my prayer,
Nor His mercy from me!
While it is possible the Lord will turn away a prayer, if he does not turn away a prayer as this verse say, he will not turn away his personal mercy to me the one who has and will prayer as an individual in the sight and presence of the Lord.
Things like regarding iniquity in your heart potentially distance yourself from the mercy of the Lord, a drift away of your own accord as the gift of freewill is misused.
In first Timothy Chapter 6 verses 18 through 19 it says.
17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share,19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
In ancient Rome, around that time that Paul wrote this letter to Timothy, there were many rich people and the letter does not exhort people to give up their riches, just to reorder their perception of their meaning and use of the riches and understand that these provisions are a gift the flows from a living and vital source and there is no need to horde these gifts.
They could channel these riches into life giving and life affirming pursuits and gather them together in a way that bestows favor not only upon themselves but also for the enrichment and uplifting of others.
This model is a model for any given set of gifts, which can always be construed as :" uncertain riches" that have a dependency on the ongoing presence of the mercy of the Lord.
Even the shining sun, continues only because of the mercy of the Lord..
In having or trying to have these gifts gather together in such a way that is helpful to yourself and lines up with the purposes of the Lord not only towards your interests anddesiresbut also at times towards the purposes of others in the gathering of the unity of faith.
You can be monastic and separate away or put a fence around your gifts to the increasing exclusion of others or you can also Lord your gifts over others as the emperor of the self crowned emperor of the situation eve as the emperor of Rome Commodus does in these scenes in the movie Gladiator where he chants on mercy carry an increasing uncertainty about it being real mercy or or a reference to the idea of mercy now passing by into furies of judgement and unwarranted condemnations.
But with regards to particular gifts you mayuniquelyhold and possess as your own, you can give riches away but you can't always give gifts away per say.
For a given set of gifts a person can only keep them and exercise upon them or not exercise upon them.
Say someone has a great imagination for stories, they can't hand their imagination over to someone else, and they can only use the gift and exercise upon the gift by maybe composing stories and sharing them with others, thereby multiplying the gift towards others.
Then the giveaway of gifts, graces doesn't always work either, the thing to do is till the gifts through the better channels with the graces of the Holy Spirit
Just looking at the parable of talents in the gospels, the idea wasn't just to hand off the talents to someone else
And this goes back to the words in this psalm where it says, "my prayers.'
There is some level of creativity and talent in prayer that isn't handed off to others, but rather exercised towards others, in the manner of intercessions, which is called for in the Scriptures.
From 1 Timothy Chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 it says:
1 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions,and giving of thanks be made for all men,2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.3 For thisis good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
You want to exercise in better ways upon your own gifts, spoken of in this psalm as "my prayers" or paraphrases as my own gifts of prayer:
Even if the Lord approached in an usual way, something like in the scene in the movie Gladiator where Commodus says, "am I not merciful"? with the hearer of those words understanding that he is not really consistent with the idea of mercy, while the understanding with the Lord is that mercy is very definition of mercy even if the form is unfamiliar and you can rest your case on that and do take the mercy that arrives from the presence of the living God as described in Paul's letter to Timothy as always coming forth as gift..
In whatever way or form it comes, even if it is unfamiliar and strange to what you know or now have a personal understanding of, take the mercy of the Lord, and don't leave it on the table no matter what.
A good practice of prayer for the day is I'll take the mercy you give me Lord in whatever way it comes, in whatever form or format it comes.
It is important to correspondingly see and understand, that when it comes to the gift of the Holy Spirit we are takers and should be takers of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
From the epistle of Paul to the Romans, Chapter 8 verses 26 and 27 say from the NIV version of the Bible:
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
This aid, gift and presence of mind of the Holy Spirit is something we take that is from the mercy of the Lord to us as individuals.
Here in this particular verse with see that the entwinement of God's will is within prayer itself and prayer itself does contain the aid and help that can only be described as from mercy and love and the assistance of mercy and love even within the prayer itself and the hearing of the prayer.
This is a gift of the Holy Spirit that we take, we don't shy away from and the understanding that the process of prayer itself is part of the very gift of the Holy Spirit to us.
Yes, you will give the prayers, say the prayers, but you'll take the mercy and by taking the mercy, however it arrives, you are finding certainty within it
Don't be standoffish towards the mercy of the Lord, always be on the side of being a taker when it comes to that as we are also called to be takers of the great gift of the Holy Spirit.
Also, try to see things from the perspective of mercy, not only for yourself but for all.
All are in need of mercy in the fuller picture of things even if things seem to be spinning well in some areas of your life from what you think are your own good efforts, and the call of mercy comes back to the call of prayer, to the presence of the Holy Spirit to you in prayer itself and when you are heard in prayer, you are at the point of mercy or or sitting at a comfortable seat at the table of mercy for sure and with certainty.
And this is the only point of certainty you can arrive at, as anything and everything else, good or not so good is uncertain.
Even if any form of richness is deeming good, it is also deemed uncertain for the purposes of being trustworthy or worthy of you giving to it actual trust.
Anything you have or want or continue to want, is predicated on the mercy of
the Lord in supporting its existence and the all seeing and all knowing presence of the Holy Spirit described in those verses in Romans chapter 8.and paralled in verse 7 in this psalm where it says,
7 He rules by His power forever;
His eyes observe the nations;
Do not let the rebellious exalt themselves.Selah
The observing eyes go to all nations, to every individual, to every word thought word and deed under the careful watch of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The predicating andoverrulingfactor is the mercy of the Lord; every other available explanation does not suffice.
It is important to be a taker in the relationship with the Lord as from the New Testament writings we are a taken of the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the process of taking involves a trust in the certainty and fixed gaze of his mercy, to the point where yes, the Lord has his gaze fixed upon you and fixed upon you for mercy.
And yes he will hear my prayer to the depths of what I am truly saying and asking as His eyes go past the barriers I have created against my true hope and dreams that may have been sheltered away as being nearly or utterly impossible to my hopes and desires for them..
And whether you are a little offbeat in your manner of prayer or request, or the ways of the Lord seem strange or unknown to you the ruling power the Holy Spirit sees the way, it does say in the book of Isaiah chapter 55 verse 8 it says:
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are yourways Myways," says the LOR
In the scene in the movie Gladiator, when the Emperor Commodos, goes into his crescendo on mercy, it is towards his sister Lucilla played by Connie Nielson who had her own firm place or seat of power in the realms of Rome, yet even her place was now threatened by the two sided views of Commodos and his now twisted explanation of mercy filtered through his own faltering grip on reality.
While you or others may be in the place of position and power and the exchange with the Lord might seem uncertain because of the ways of the Lord being unfamiliar, the Lord will not skew his gift of mercy as Commodus was doing with his sister Lucilla and you will not lose your comfortable seat at the table of his mercy
Psalm 23 verse 5 from the New King James version of the Bible says:
. .5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
The idea of a table indicates a seat of comfort and even power and position at this table of prayer.
The cup of David as the psalmist is filled with the mercy of the Lord in overflowing fashion and this is for present days as you only have enemies in this lifetime.
In the stillness and presence of the Holy Spirit, David has a comfortable and certain seat of power, predicated on a mercy and love that will not fail him, unlike the mercy referred to by Commodus towards his sister Lucinda, who also had her big important seat at the table, but an uncertain seat as the movie unfolded to a conclusion.
Being in the inner circle of the emperor of Rome, and the comfort that that brings and the relaxed exchange that this might bring, might not hold, just as being rich as Paul states in his letter to Timothy is not something to be wholly trusted and it may or may not hold but while it is holding deal with it in a good way and enjoy it in a good way and in a way that also benefits others
But this is one actual place of mercy and one place of certainty amidst just about all that is uncertain which is just about everything.
When a given prayer is heard, you are certain that the response to this prayer entails mercy upon the Lord to you, where you are always getting above and beyond what you either deserve or have earned in any possible way including spiritually.
It is that place where mercy abounds and it refers to this in the 9th verse of this psalm where it says,
9 Who keeps our soul among the living,
And does not allow our feet to be moved
This is that place of certainty where the Lord through his mercy is the Brother's keeper.
Rome had its special situations and special glory in the ancient world, and some had special comforts within that that might have been suddenly rocked with uncertainty.
But when the dust clears, if your prayers are being answered and responded to, you are in that place of certainty and that place of mercy and you can stay composed and stand fixed in this clear, definitive and true mercy.
It says in verse 18, 18 If I regard iniquity in my heart,
The Lord will not hear
This harboring of iniquity is the subject of examination as per each person, but it would be a case of keeping the inequity around and harboring it rather then sending it out to pasture.
A simple example might be the idea of robbing a bank. This would take maybe careful and precise planning to do it properly and someone doing this might ask the Lord for help in finding the best gateway car and route for this, and thelikelihoodthis prayer would be rebuffed as per it harboringiniquity.
This is a prayer that apparently involves harboring iniquity although from the perspective of say the followers of Robin Hood it might not
Recently the art museum in Paris was robbed of five specific paintings valued as woth more than 100 million dollars.
This would take planning and conniving get around aninfrastructureof safeguards such as alarms and guards and there is an ongoing investigation as to what happened where this valued and timeless treasures where taken right in the heart of a major modernmetropolis. .
But harboring iniquity can block or hinder prayers according to this psalm and thereby remove the individual from the hearing and response to prayer.
The question might be, does harboring iniquity block some prayer that relates to the inquity itself or does the harboring also bring a hindrance to all other prayers that an individual may bring forth thereby ruining the totality of a person's prayer life?
People do harbor iniquities that might come close to addictions and losing control to addictions and within these troubles they should not be aggravating the problems byabrogatingprayer altogether but always keep the prayer discussion open and ongoing even with real trouble with sin.
So the person who is in trouble with sin shouldn't excuse themselves from seeking the recourse of prayer because of this.
So doing that gets them away from that only possible place of certainty that can be found, which is the place of getting prayers heard and responded to.
Within the day and the days ahead, everything carries uncertainty, whether it is good or bad, and the only place of certainty is that place of prayer and being heard in prayer and thereby receiving a response that in whatever way it comes about or evolves is always being draped in mercy, meaning that it will never be quid pro quo but it will be an exchange where the Lord is giving above and beyond what we could ever deserve out of the gift of his abounding mercy for us as individuals and that and only that is the standard and places of certainty that can ever be found.
