The Lord Saves Me
Psalm 94:16-19 (NIV)
“Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy."
In this
psalm the writer is crying out to God because of some sort of oppression that
is being experienced by the nation of Israel.
In the first half (verses 1-11), he calls out to God to rise up to their
defense. He lays out the condition that
exists under this oppression and the fact that the oppressors have no fear or
regard for the Lord, the God of Jacob.
The psalmist also points out the folly of not having the fear of the Lord. He does indeed see, hear and will discipline
those who do not walk in the ways of righteousness. The Lord knows the hearts of man and that his
thoughts are futile. They need
teaching. They need training. They need
discipline. In this element of
discipline, God’s punishment for man’s evil deeds will not go unpunished for
the eyes of the Lord see all (see Hebrews 4:13).
Discipline
does not just refer to the rod of discipline and chastisement, but also to the
idea of child rearing, training up. Blessed
is the man that is disciplined by the Lord, who is taught from His law. It is through discipline that one learns
wisdom, righteousness, knowledge and many virtues that are important in life. All discipline from God, regardless how it
seems at the time, is done in love and for our best interest (see Hebrews
12:11) and through it we can obtain knowledge that will save us from many
heartaches in life. We can shorten the
days of trouble that this world brings as we learn God’s ways of life which are
perfect for us. His ways are righteous
and those who walk in them, will never be rejected. He will never leave or forsake those who are
His. While we can never perfectly follow
the Law, we can rejoice that Jesus came as the representative for all mankind
and was the fulfillment of the law. Not
only that, He received the punishment part of discipline as well. All the wages of sin, the punishment for
doing wrong, was released and received in the body of our precious Lord and
Savior though he himself had no sin. “God
made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21)”.
So with the “punishment” part of discipline received
in Jesus, we can benefit from the upbringing, child rearing part of disciple by
a loving Father who is in no way and by no means angry at us. If the psalmist can say “Blessed is the man
you discipline, O Lord while under the old covenant where his sins condemned
him, how much more can we, under the new covenant say it with our sins forgiven
and removed and where we have the gift of “no condemnation (see Romans 8:1).
In the last half of the psalm, the writer celebrates
the Lord who is his deliverer. There is
no other to call upon who will save him and indeed without the Lord, he surely
would have died. When he cried out to
God, it was His love that supported him.
When anxiety was great, it was God who could comfort him and bring joy
to his soul. There is only one needed
for deliverance. Regardless of the
forces coming against him, the Lord is his fortress, the rock in whom he can
take refuge. The Lord’s mighty hand will
destroy the enemy.
I intentionally covered the second half of this
psalm briefly because I want to share how it spoke to my heart while reading today. There are times, days and seasons that we all
go through when we feel very alone. Now
of course I know that He will never
leave us or forsake us, but I’m talking about feelings. Maybe you’ve just
lost a job, or a spouse has left you; perhaps a sudden diagnosis has hit you
like Mack truck or maybe you have been sucked so deep into depression that you
can’t seem to find your way out. It is
in these times that cry out desperately for the Lord to come to our aid and
sometimes join with the psalmist in asking, “How long O Lord?”.
The Lord knew me before I was formed in my mother’s
womb and He had a plan for me (see Jeremiah 29:11). That plan included serving Him in pastoral, teaching
and leadership ministry in some form or another. I have known this for most of my life. I also believe that because of this, the
enemy has had a big bulls eye painted on my back my whole life. I believe that the attacks of the enemy are
in proportion to the plans that God has for a person, a ministry, etc. My life has been full of adversary, some by direct
attacks of the enemy using others, some by tripping me up in sin (not excusing
it or blaming it on the devil), and some by physical, mental and emotional
attacks on this clay vessel in which my spirit lives. Without going into detail about all that the
Lord has brought me through, I will tell you that as I continue to grow in
Christ day by day, I still have times that I feel like the writer of this
psalm.
One of the strongest attacks that I encounter is
that I suffer from PTSD from both sexual abuse and from being a combat veteran
who has served on the front lines of battle.
Because of these, I have suffered for decades with this condition as
well as some of the demons that commonly attach themselves to it such as
substance abuse and severe depression, anxiety and anger and suicidal thoughts. Before someone “corrects my thinking”, let me
say that I KNOW that Jesus is my healer, and that the work of the cross is
finished. I know that by His stripes I
AM healed. I believe that truth, I
receive that truth and I have a confident expectation of living symptom
free. (Some in the “name it and claim it”
circles have brought much confusion to the Body by bringing condemnation to
those who still suffer. To argue those
positions is not my purpose here). By
the GRACE of God I have just come out of a season of struggle. My enemy, my attacker had come against me and
when I fall into a depression I need someone to rise up for me. I can honestly say with the psalmist, “Unless the Lord had given me help, I would
soon have dwelt in the silence of death.”
I thank God for my friends, my family and most
importantly for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who are all such a huge part of
my life. There is but one Savior who
supports me when “my feet are slipping” and when my anxiety is so great within
me that I fear that it will swallow me up, who can bring joy back into my
soul. I know this Savior well. He is the air I breathe, He is my everything
and looking to Him, I stand in the waterfall of His GRACE that brings me all I
need. Even so, for those of us who
suffer from attacks of this kind, there is a deep, dark and heavy cloud that
sometimes envelops us and tries to pull us into the deepest pit. The war that wages in the mind, heart and
emotion of someone suffering in this way can be debilitating and while we remain in the waterfall, there is a heaviness that pushes our head down so that we are unable to experience the fullness of His GRACE. I am a preacher of GRACE, no doubt about
it. Those who know me know that it is my
life’s calling to expose people to the truth of the real gospel of GRACE. A major element of experiencing the GRACE of
God is to “fix our eyes on Jesus” and His beauty and perfection.
One of the common pictures that is painted to
describe the unlimited, unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor of God is one of
standing in a huge, Niagara falls type of waterfall; arms outstretched to
receive, head up behold the love and favor that is so much we couldn’t even
stand up under it if God himself didn’t hold us up. I love that word picture, I refer to it often
in the messages I share. So what happens
when depression or symptoms of PTSD set in?
Do we dare tell someone their faith is weak or they are not speaking the
right words? I can assure you if you
would consider doing that to someone in this position you would be NO HELP AT
ALL! That can only bring shame,
condemnation and confusion. Yes the
answer is Christ. Look to Him, feed on
His Body, confess the truth that you know about who you are in Christ but there
is no one who does this perfectly every day of their life. In spite of all the truth and growth in Grace
that you mature in, and all your great intentions to live and walk in GRACE, we
ALL continue to have layers (however thin they may be) of doubt wrapped around
our hearts. These may not be recognized
and you may not even be conscious of them but they remain all the same and the
enemy of our souls will exploit these any time he is able. He knows that when our eyes are off the
Savior, we are once again vulnerable to his assaults. Those who suffer with conditions like
depression and PTSD, understand just how weak the flesh, and even the mind can
be.
The entire body is needed to function in this
world. To function both individually and
to function as a whole. This is one of
the reasons that we should not forsake the gathering together of
ourselves. There are times in my life
that I just cannot stand up to the attacks alone and while “I can do all things
through Christ who gives me the strength”, He remains with us here on earth in
the form of His Body. He is the Head and
the Church is the rest. It is often
through this Body that He operates. The
Church is Jesus with skin on and there are times that I need His arm wrapped in
skin wrapped around me holding me up and helping me hold my head up.
When we are in the deep of our darkest and most challenging situations,
we sometimes can’t even bring into remembrance the truths that we know and that
we could easily declare when all is well.
It is in these times that we need the other members of the Body to come
alongside us to remind us of what we already know. We need love, support and encouragement from
the Body of Christ in the same way that Christ would give it…if we are not
giving help that way then we are not operating as the Body. Today I may need you and tomorrow you may
need me. It is in the community of the
Body that we are the healthiest. I thank
God for my brothers and sisters in Christ who hold me up in prayer and who
support and encourage me when I am in these valleys. I thank God that I have people in my life who
I can be transparent with (I admit I am still working on this), it is because of this that they know me well enough
to know when I need them. I also thank
God for my wife and partner in ministry and in life. She knows me best of all and prays for me
always. She knows the depths to which I
am sometimes pulled into and experiences much of it herself just by being
married to and living with me. She loves
me and encourages me when I am at my worst and she is precious in my life.
The Lord Jesus is our Salvation, His love keeps me
and holds me up, He brings joy and gladness to my soul renews my strength like
that of the eagles and I praise Him with my entire being.
He
brought me out of the deep miry clay,
He
set my feet on the solid rock to stay,
He
puts a song in my happy soul today,
A
song of praise, Hallelujah!
Pastor Tony Garcia
Freedom Church, USA
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