Today’s passage: Psalm 144

Helpful thoughts:

• This is a song to be sung by the king with blessings for the whole nation.
• Ultimately, Jesus is the only king who will see these blessings in full for the people of God.
  • Compare verse 2 with 1 Corinthians 15:20-28.
• Verses 12-15 convey the goal of victory for any king, the blessing and benefit of the people he leads.  Leadership is service.

Questions to consider:

1. In what way does David attribute all success to God in the first few verses, even military success that may come through his weapons or technique on the battle field?  Why does God deserve all the glory?
2. What is the contrast between verses 3-4 and verses 5-8?  How do we get the courage and boldness to ask a transcendent and holy God to “come down” and intervene in our lives?  Where could that courage come in a wrong way?  Where could that courage come in a right way?
3. Why does leadership require dying to self?  Who was to benefit from David’s leadership?  Who was to get the credit for the blessing?

Today’s passage: Psalm 143

Helpful thoughts:

• In today’s psalm, David laments the reality that in the midst of hardship, he himself needs mercy for his sinful responses.
• When difficulty comes, when people sin against us, it feels harder not to sin in retaliation.  Yet, David rightly asks God, “Teach me to do your will for you are my God!”
• When our greatest goal is to be pleasing to God, we will want to do what is right even in the midst of many wrongs.

Questions to consider:

1. If having a singular focus of pleasing God and being submitted to the Spirit can be called “level ground,” (Verse 10), then what could times of hardship and being led by our emotions and reactions be called?
2. What does David (And us) need to give up and believe in order to release his desire to get revenge (Verses 11-12)?
3. How does the end of verse 12 change our thinking when faced with offenses from others?  If we think we can pour out our wrath against them, whose servant do we think THEY are?  But, in truth, whose servant are WE?  Why can we trust our Master to do what is right?

Today’s passage: Psalm 142

Helpful thoughts:

• It is good for us to take our laments to the Lord in prayer!
• This Psalm we written while David was hiding in the cave from King Saul (As was Psalm 57).
• David could not depend on or rest in people.  God is the one in whom we can always depend.

Questions to consider:

1. In times of rejoicing and in times of lament, what does God already know?  Why is it important to go to Him in both seasons of life?
2. What was David’s expectation from the Lord?  What was his expectation concerning his response to his rescue?
3. If there was no one taking notice of David in a helpful way, but there would be “the righteous” to rejoice with after God acted, what would have to happen?  What would God’s faithfulness and David’s willingness to testify to it do in the hearts of other people?

Today’s passage: Psalm 141

Helpful thoughts:

• This Psalm of David asks the Lord for grace to persevere in righteousness in the midst of an evil world.
• David acknowledges the temptation to be lured away by the “delicacies” of the wicked (Verse 4).  We are called to be in the world but not of it…and it is hard to not let the current of the mainstream carry us off into evil.
• Knowing that we cannot follow hard after God on our own, David opens himself up to rebuke from other people pursuing righteousness (Verse 5).

Questions to consider:

1. With all the movement of the world around and the temporal pleasures it offers, where did David have to keep his eyes focused (Verse 8)?  What are some ways that we can seek to have our hearts inclined toward God (Both alone and together with our brothers and sisters in Christ)?
2. When is rebuke a “kindness?”  What must be the motive to give and then to hear any rebuke? (Ephesians 4:15-16)
3. How would verse 4 read if written positively for the life of a Christian?  What do we want our hearts inclined toward?  What would we desire to busy ourselves with? Etc.

Today’s passage: Psalm 140

Helpful thoughts:

• Often the evil men who were the attackers in David’s psalms were Israelites.  This psalm is understood differently when we consider that the enemies mentioned are “inside the camp.”
• Under such great duress, David turns to the Lord as his deliverer, preserver, and guardian.
• David understood that these enemies who were against him were first against the Lord.  His appeal to God was for God’s glory as well as for his own safety (Verse 8).

Questions to consider:

1. Face with this opposition, what do you think David would have been tempted to do?  How might he have desired to settle matters as the king of Israel?  What did he do instead?
2. What did David declare in verse 6?  Who is the God of David to you?  How can the reality of who God is and the fact that you have a personal relationship with Him give you encouragement and hope in the midst of difficulty?
3. What do verses 12-13 mean?  When will full and final justice be served?  Why do these statements of trust require faith?

Today’s passage: Psalm 139

Helpful thoughts:

• God is omniscient.  He knows all things.
  • Not just the “who,” “what,” “when” and “where,” but also every “why” and “how.”
• It is so good to remember that God knows things that we do not and could not.
• If God was evil, these truths would be a terror to us.  But God is good!  God is love!  God is gracious and merciful!
  • He is also holy and worthy of our whole-hearted obedience.  God’s knowledge can stir in us both a reverence and thanksgiving.

Questions to consider:

1. How do verses 13-16 inform us concerning the beginning of life for every individual person?  How do these same verses teach us whose we are?  How does this help us think rightly about how we treat others and how we view “our own” lives?
2. What is the source of David’s anger in verses 19-22?  Who have the wicked sinned against first?  Why does David count them his enemies?  When would they cease to be enemies (Ephesians 2:1-10)?
3. What is David’s request in verses 23-24?  What did he hope would be accomplished if God were to reveal any blind spot in his life?  Why is it hard to hear about our blind spots?  How would a firm rooting in the Gospel help us be humble to hear the truth spoken in love?

Today’s passage: Psalm 138

Helpful thoughts:

• This is a psalm of thanksgiving.
• The “gods” of verse one could be translated from the Hebrew as angels, kings, or false gods.
• David prayed to the God of Israel, but God is not just the God of Israel.  All the kings of the world should be giving thanks to the one true God.
• After reading of the kings of the world, we are reminded that humility is an essential component of our relationship with the Lord (Verse 6).  The greater our pride, the less we think we need God (James 4:8).

Questions to consider:

1. What does it mean to thank God with our whole heart?  How do you thank Him whole-heartedly?
2. In what ways had God preserved and cared for you as you walked through the midst of trouble?  What can you thank Him for today?
3. What do we know about the request at the end of verse 8?  If the first two lines of the verse are true, then what would have can we be utterly confident of concerning the request?

Today’s passage: Psalm 137

Helpful thoughts:

• The psalmist expresses the pain of being required to sing songs about Jerusalem to the Babylonians after it had been destroyed.
• He would rather forget how to play his instrument and lose his ability to speak or sing than forget about Jerusalem (And all the promises of God concerning the city).
• It is known that the Babylonians committed great atrocities against the kingdoms they conquered.  The final verse of this psalm is asking for the old law of “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.”  However, God has commanded us to leave vengeance to Him (Deuteronomy 32:35, Romans 12:19)

Questions to consider:

1. Why would it be right for the psalmist to continue trusting in the promises of God for Jerusalem?  Did the Babylonians defeat God like they may have thought they had? (Jeremiah 29:14, Revelation 21:2)
2. How does the justice of God give us freedom from exacting revenge on anyone we might consider to be an “enemy?”
3. How could we desire to see God’s justice poured out for their sin (As it was for ours)?  (1 John 2:2)