Deliverance

Read Psalm 34:1-10 

Deliverance describes our lifelong journey and has special meaning in relationship with Jesus. We are sick and sinful. We have trials and troubles. We have opposition and contention. We live in an earthly place, we long for our spiritual home in God. What do we do? We pray. He provides deliverance physically and spiritually not as we expect or desire, necessarily, nor in our preferred time or timing, but deliverance with His purpose and in His time. 

Psalm 34 finds David when he had just experienced pain and opposition and then found deliverance. He gratefully attributes it all to God’s plan. He praises God with his whole heart for his physical deliverance from enemies. The physical deliverance extends to encompass his spiritual relationship to God and how he comes to God on regular basis. David’s praise provides a process to begin our own prayers. Extol him, glorify him, praise him are the words used in the beginning of his prayer of worship and thanksgiving. The act of praise is the beginning of receiving God’s deliverance from fear and sin, physically and spiritually, in his life and kept David tethered to the deliverer throughout his life. Praising God brings us to the realization that our God is far above the madness that can encompass our lives and yet God walks with us in our everyday lives by the presence of the Holy Spirit and the example of his incarnational son, Jesus. We enter His courts by extolling His works and presence, bringing our minds and hearts into sync with His truth as we go forward. It is when we call out to Him then read His Word, meeting Him in the wilderness of life, that we are assured He hears us and knows our troubles. Deliverance may mean protection and blessing but, whatever the cost, by our praise and supplication, we need to be brought to hear and obey Him. The deliverance we experience in obedience returns us to glory in and glorify the Lord in our prayer. The presence of God in our prayers, in his redemption, fills us and satisfies us as only He can. Taste, fear and seek the Lord in prayer. He is good. 

FOR REFLECTION: 

• How often do you spend time with Jesus? Do you exalt God with your prayer and life? Is it a regular event to get to know Him and His presence and deliverance? Make it about His will and grace in your life.

by David Bier