Day 40: Psalms 21:1-13
Psalm 21:1 To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. The king shall have joy in Your strength, O LORD; And in Your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice!
Your presence brings joy (Psalm 16: 11). Your presence is our strength. The good and godly kings rejoice that Your strength is their strength. King Jesus has perfect strength and is one with the strength of the Trinity. God the Father’s strength and Jesus’ strength are one (John 10: 30). King David knows of what he speaks. He is a king, a great king, who delights in Your strength, O Lord. All true leaders have joy when Your strength is their strength.
Even in our weakness, Your strength makes us whole. Your strength perfects our weakness (II Corinthians 12: 9). It is Your strength that helps us face our greatest trials and gives us peace for now and for eternity. We can rejoice in the darkest night, under the greatest trial, through the most severe stress. The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10).
Even as our Lord Jesus has won the greatest victory over sin and death and hell and caused us to rejoice, so too, King David had repeatedly seen Your deliver him from the lion and the bear, from Goliath, and even from the traitorous and fickle King Saul. David saw You save him from outside enemies, from enemies within His own nation, His own court, and his own family. King David knew Your deliverance even from the enemy of his own wicked heart. David greatly rejoiced in Your many deliverances of His soul and of His life.
Lord, I look back on my life and I see Your deliverance of my life from hurricanes and floods, from betrayers and attackers, from wicked men and women who sought to destroy me, even from my own sin and foolishness. Lord, I rejoice in Your great salvation. Even in my finest and strongest hours, the joy of the Lord is my only true and lasting strength. Lord, in You is all my true and lasting delight. I thank and praise You, O Lord, for Your wondrous deliverance from all my sin, and from the power of sin against me. You have prevailed. You have conquered. My strength and hope and joy comes from You, rests in You and returns to You with a grateful heart.
Psalm 21: 2You have given him his heart’s desire, And have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah 3For You meet him with the blessings of goodness; You set a crown of pure gold upon his head.
Ultimately, Christ is the True King of all. Christ is the true need and the ultimate treasure and desire of the nations (Haggai 2:7). God the Father has given Him the nations for His inheritance (Psalm 2: 8). Christ the King desires His redeemed children be with Him (John 17:24).
By Your grace You are my heart’s desire, Lord Jesus. All I ultimately want and need is You. But in You I also have thousands upon thousands of blessings. In Your life I have life in all its fullness. Psalm 37: 4 reminds me, if I delight myself in the Lord, I will have the desires of my heart. The apostle Paul had a desire to see and nurture the children of God (I Thess. 2: 17). He also desired to see people of Israel saved. Lord, You have given me so many of my desires. You have repeatedly answered prayers and given me good things that I never deserved. You have used me to lead many to know Christ as their Lord and Savior.
You gave King David blessing after blessing of goodness. Lord, You have repeatedly shown me Your kindness and goodness. You have given me joy, hope, and life in Jesus. You have given me a godly family, a wife that seeks and follows you, my children around me, and many blessings beside. You put David over Israel to be king. You have made me a leader among Your people, and I rejoice in Your favor. This crown of leadership on our heads belongs to You, O God, our King. Any authority or treasure or blessing we have is from You. You raise kings and lower kings. You put people in authority and remove them from authority according to Your most holy will and plan (Daniel 2:21). You raised up Pharaoh and Pontius Pilate and King Herod to do Your will though they did not even know or understand.
Your children, too, are a part of this elaborate, glorious plan that shows Your perfect wisdom and glory, but also brings blessing on all who call upon Your Name in Spirit and in truth. You work all things together for good to those who love the Lord, who are the called according to His purpose.
Just as the elders around the throne of heaven cast down their crowns before Your throne, so we cast our crowns of achievement, appointments, and blessings before You acknowledging that all the credit goes to You. All we are and have belongs to You. You have created it and ordained it in Your perfect plan, for the honor of God and the good of Your children. All praise be to Your name.
Psalm 21:4 He asked life from You, and You gave it to him — Length of days forever and ever. 5His glory is great in Your salvation; Honor and majesty You have placed upon him. 6For You have made him most blessed forever; You have made him exceedingly glad with Your presence.
Again, most holy God, the greatest fulfillment, the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy is in the Lord Jesus. He lives forever and ever. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1). God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit agreed to this plan – that Christ would come and live and die and rise again as the Savior and Lord of His people. Yet even with this most holy and perfect plan, Christ also prayed to the Father for the fulfillment of this plan (Hebrews 5:5-10). He sought the Father’s aid in the fulfillment of their plan. As God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit cooperated in creation, so they also kept perfect communication and cooperated fully in salvation.
As God promised deliverance to Israel through His prophet Jeremiah, yet it was Daniel who prayed to see it fulfilled (Daniel 9:1-3, 20-27). So also, the Lord Jesus, though His coming and His work and His resurrection were prophesied, still He prayed it through to see it done. He knew His Father’s will. He sought His Father’s will, but He still wrestled through the fulfillment of the Holy plan of the Triune God.
As Jesus Christ and King David glory in Your great salvation, so I thank You and glory in Your great salvation. You alone save us. You alone give hope and help from all our enemies. O Lord, help us to glory in Your great salvation. Our glory is that we know Your glory. Your presence is our greatest treasure, and Your salvation brings Your name even greater glory.
Christ has honor and majesty in and of Himself, but He has further majesty because He is the only true Lord and Savior of His children’s souls and lives. You alone can save us from sin inside us, sin pressing us about from all sides. Lord, there is no other Savior. We honor You as the true High King of all. King David had great human honors. He was one of Israel’s greatest human kings. His honor dimly reflected Your honor.
Yet Your honors have increased among us, O Lord. As a hero in battle who has overcome all His enemies, so Your name is more highly exalted. Not only are You the eternal Son of God and worthy of our praise, but You are also the agent of all creation. Not only are You the sustainer, the mysterious visitor with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but You are also the incarnate Christ who lived among us without sin. You endured the hostility of sinners against Yourself. You withstood the attacks of the Pharisees, the foolishness of Your own disciples, the traitorous betrayal of Judas and the cowardly retreat of Your own disciples. You endured death even death on the cross. You resisted all of Satan’s temptations, even the temptation to come down from the cross. You who were the highest of all, in purity, holiness, wisdom, love and truth, took on Yourself all the guilt, evil, foolishness, hate and lies of Your people to save us from our sin. No one else has ever stooped so low to save anyone from their sin. Jesus Christ did what no one else could do or would do to save His people from their sin, to honor the name of God the Father, to bring about the joyous results of a nation saved by the sacrifice of His own life. Nor did His accomplishments cease there. Christ’s further honor and glory come because He rose from the dead. He ascended to the Father. He prays for us by name from heaven. He has sent His Holy Spirit as an advocate, a comforter, a director, and guide to help us apply His sacrifice to our lives so that we might follow Him and come safely to our heavenly home.
Psalm 21: 7 For the king trusts in the LORD, And through the mercy of the Most High he shall not be moved. 8Your hand will find all Your enemies; Your right hand will find those who hate You. 9You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of Your anger; The LORD shall swallow them up in His wrath, And the fire shall devour them. 10Their offspring You shall destroy from the earth, And their descendants from among the sons of men. 11For they intended evil against You; They devised a plot which they are not able to perform. 12Therefore You will make them turn their back; You will make ready Your arrows on Your string toward their faces.
Lord God, it is You that have overcome all our enemies. Because Jesus wins, we can win also by trusting Him to see us through life. We are now a nation of kings and priests to our God and like King David and ultimately like our Lord and Savior, King Jesus, we trust in the Lord who has made us and given us life. Our faith is often fickle and weak. I often think Jesus would have said to us, O ye of little faith like He said to the apostles so long ago (Matthew 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8).
Lord, again and again You have come to our aid. Help us now. Save us now from our own sins. Through Your mercy, help us not to be moved. The Lord Jesus Christ was never overcome with sin (Hebrews 4:15). King David stumbled into sin with Bathsheba, in numbering God’s people, and perhaps in cutting King Saul’s cape in the cave, yet in Your mercy You forgave him and delivered him anyway. You established him as king and did not let his sins remove him.
Establish me in Your mercy. O Lord, establish us. In Your mercy let each of Your children stand.
You, O Lord, will find all Your enemies. You will clear them out from within our hearts, from around us and from far away. You will find and deal with all the High King’s enemies and all our enemies.
You will find those who hate You and You will either convert them or eventually, You will condemn them to hell. You will make them as a fiery oven. This is both a prophecy of what would happen to the guards who through Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego into the fiery furnace, but it is also a reminder of Sodom and Gomorrah. Many times in Biblical accounts God speaks of His flaming wrath. Even the Lord Jesus spoke of the place of eternal torment as a place of everlasting fire (Matthew 13: 49-50). You shall swallow them up. The worm does not die. The fire is not quenched but continues to burn.
There will be an end to their evil and the evil of their generations who will not repent of their sin and turn to the living God and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Psalm 109:8-9 speaks prophetically of wicked Judas who would be cut off from God’s blessing.
There are those who seek to do evil against the Lord and His anointed. There are those who attack and seek to destroy God’s people. Lord, You see. You are not ignorant of their devices, nor are You surprised by their evil. Help us be prepared for their evil. Do not let their conspiracies work or overcome us. Thwart their plots and schemes. Let their evil efforts fall on their own heads.
As you thwarted the effort to kill Paul and helped Him escape, so thwart the plots against us (Acts 23: 12 – 21). Again and again, You have turned their plots back on themselves. Lord, deal with their sinful scheming who have stood against You and against Your people.
Psalm 21: 13 Be exalted, O LORD, in Your own strength! We will sing and praise Your power.
Lord, You have prevailed in Jesus. We have evidence of Your prevailing grace working in and through the lives of Your people. Now, O Lord, cause us to rejoice. We rejoice in Your victory and in Your great salvation. We praise Your great and mighty power that has won the day.
Growing in Prayer 