January 4, 2025
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in selections from Psalms and Proverbs? Here’s today’s reading:
Psalm 38 (NIV)
A psalm of David. A petition.
1 Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
2 Your arrows have pierced me,
and your hand has come down on me.……Continue Reading
Such raw pain David expresses in this Psalm. The agony caused from his sin and the guilt and shame that left him broken before God. Our sin brings with it all these emotions but what relief to know that even in our darkest hour, like David is sharing here, there is still hope. God has done the work to restore and redeem us. Sad that for many of us it takes getting to this place where we are just so broken to finally accept our need for a savior. Like children, we love to learn lessons the hard way and we seem to need to see for ourselves just what a mess we can make before we come to God and, like David does at the end of this Psalm, finally just cry out for His help.
Psalm 38
Titus 2:11-12
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say No to ungodliness and worldly passions, and live self controlled, upright and Godly lives in this present age. Just so Black and white with no Grey areas in God’s words
Psalm 38
Psalm 38
This made me think of Psalm 51:
“16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.”
What a difficult thing repentance is. To be able to acknowledge your faults and start changing your behavior. David’s depictions of this in multiple chapters of Psalms shows his genuine reflection and how painful it is. May we humble ourselves before our God in such a way when He reveals to us things we’ve done wrong. And praise be to God who’s mercy spares us from the punishment we deserve and who’s grace blesses us far more than anything we deserve if we have faith in Him.
Psalm 38
How desperately we need God in every facet of our lives, including and even more so, when it comes to our sinfulness. How important it is for us to be troubled by our sin (v. 18) and confess it. But then turn away from it and recognize the necessity of God’s discipline when we don’t do that well or quickly enough. I hope we can all speak to the gladness that comes with obedience and close fellowship with God as well as the heartache, anguish, and pain that comes from God’s discipline and being distant from Him. I see David saying in verse 1, I see the necessity of your discipline, just don’t do it in your anger and wrath. And that is certainly our confidence when God needs to discipline us for our sin..it is because He loves us and thereby seeks to correct us to help us walk right. And realize, God only disciplines us because we do not discipline ourselves, constraining our wills and making right choices. Those choices lie in what we take in (the Word, worship, godly people), what power we function in (the Holy Spirit, the new nature, our position in Christ, embracing the new creation we are), and then what we think, say and do (guarding our minds, taming our tongues, overcoming sin, finding the way of escape that God gives us in temptation, etc). When we discipline ourselves in doing these things, then God will not need to discipline us. But how glad we can be that He does when we need it showing He is vested in our growth and maturity…and those should lead to greater righteousness and fruit born in the lives of others..from what we foster there.