Seeing Jesus in the Psalms

  Psalm 98 Main Point: We can celebrate like we won the lotto when we know that Jesus remembers His promise and we have put our trust in that promise. I was at a concert of a Christian ska band back in the 90s, and as a youth pastor, I was invited to pray with the band before the concert. One of the band members shared the following verse with me: “For God is not unjust.  He will not forget how hard you have worked for him  and how you have shown your love to him  by caring for other believers, as you still do.” Hebrews 6:10 NLT I was deeply moved by this verse and by the young performer who ministered grace to me by sharing it. To this day I feel like it has the power of a magic spell. I know I used a bad metaphor but really it is hard to express the power of these words. You could call it a medicine. The truth is profound, deep, reassuring, comforting and moves me to tears even now as I type this. Although Psalm 98:3 has several different translations of what it is...

  Psalm 54 The background to this Psalm is found in 1 Samuel 23:19-20 .  David’s life is filled with problems from his childhood through to his death. Can you recount the challenges that David faced in his life? David saw great triumphs, but these did not lead to the peace, prosperity, relative ease and rest that you might imagine. David had those moments in his life, but more often than not, we read of enemies attacking him: from wild animals, to brothers, to mighty warriors, to the king, to foreign armies, to his own sons and on it goes. According to the notes above Psalm 54 and 63, we read David’s prayer to God. And according to the more historical book of first and second Samuel, we read of the events leading up to the prayers and the events following the prayers. David was delivered in a fashion. He still was a fugitive, he still was not yet recognised as King, Saul and the Ziphites were still living and not conquered or destroyed. David escaped, and you could see that i...