COV LIFE BLOG

Psalm 5 – The Holiness and Goodness of Our Prayer-Hearing God

What is it that keeps a man safe when he thus has around him the walls of some citadel? Is it himself, is it the act by which he took refuge, or is it the battlements behind which he crouches? So in faith it is the running of the man, when he knows himself to be in danger, into the very arms of God. It is not the running that makes him safe, but it is the arms to which he runs.

If we would only lay to heart that the very essence of religion lies in this ‘flight of the lonely soul to the only God,’ we should understand better than we do what He asks from us in order that He may defend us, and how blessed and certain His defence is. So let us clear our minds from the thought that anything is worth calling trust which is not thus taking refuge in God Himself.

Now, I need not remind you, I suppose, that all this is just as true about us as it was about David, and that [what] he expresses in these words of my text is neither more nor less than the Christian act of faith. There is no difference except a difference of development; there is no difference between the road to God marked out in the Psalms, and the road to God laid down in the Gospels. The Psalmist who said, ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever,’ and the Apostle who said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ were preaching identically the same doctrine. One of them could speak more fully than the other could of the Person on whom trust was to be rested, but the trust itself was the same, and the Person on whom it rested was the same, though His Name of old was Jehovah, and His Name to-day is ‘Immanuel, God with us.’

Nor need I do more than point out how the context of the words that I have ventured to detach from their surroundings is instructive: ‘Let all those that put their trust in Thee rejoice because Thou defendest them.’ Thus, when a man runs to God for His refuge, God ‘covers his defenceless head with the shadow of His wings.’

And the joy of trust is, first, that it brings round me the whole omnipotence of God for my defence, and the whole tenderness of God for my consolation, and next, that in the very exercise of trust in such defence, so fortified and vindicated by experience, there is great reward. All who thus flee into the refuge shall find refuge whither they flee, and shall be glad.
 
Alexander MacLaren

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SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY
Read Psalm 5 and notice all the ways that God demonstrates his holiness and character. The focus of the psalm is not on our actions, but on our worthy and exalted God. So how can this psalm encourage you in a more Christ-centered worship and lifestyle?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
Holy, Holy, Holy by Reginald Heber