THURSDAY 29th
Psalm 63
NIV (v1) – ‘You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.’
ESV (v1) – ‘O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.’
I always think back in the psalms to Psalm 42 and verse 1 when I read this psalm, ‘As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God’ and then forward to Matthew 5 verse 6 where Jesus is giving what we call the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ and says, ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’ Is the answer to both psalms found here in this statement of Jesus? I am inclined to say yes, that is that we will never truly be satisfied, we will never know our spiritual thirst being quenched and our spiritual hunger being met unless we earnestly seek after righteousness. This I believe is expressed first in hungering for salvation, where the righteousness of Jesus is imputed to us and then to continue to hunger for righteousness by seeking to live lives that are truly set apart to God, this will require a genuine determination on our part to live separate from the ways of the world. We cannot drink from the cisterns of this world and expect at the same time to draw water from the well of salvation.
In Psalm 63 David continues to say, ‘So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life my lips will praise you.’ (vv2-3) I like the way that v3 is in the NASB ‘Because your favour is better than life, my lips will praise you’ That is that David had known God’s favour (which is another way of expressing God’s grace) and as a result it was far better than life, and he will praise the Lord, that is he will continually offer the sacrifice of praise from his lips.
In Psalm 34:8 we read, ‘Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!’ David had tasted and he wanted more, therefore all that the world had to offer him was of no value; have you tasted of the Lord, have you come to know the goodness of God in your life, his salvation, his lovingkindness, the many spiritual blessings that he bestows on them that love him, then if your, and my answer is yes, then we should never be seeking to get any satisfaction from the world and the things of the world, we should be wanting to keep coming to receive from God’s bountiful supply. We should earnestly be seeking after righteousness, for it is only then that we will be filled. The obverse of this is that if we hanker after unrighteousness or all the vanity that the world has to offer, we will be empty, void of true satisfaction and joy. The things that the world has to offer may seem to satisfy for a moment, and it is but a fleeting moment, and in the end, it is here today and gone tomorrow, but the satisfaction that comes from hungering and thirsting after righteousness meets us both now and lasts into eternity.
May we all have a genuine thirst and hunger after righteousness for it will benefit us not only as individuals, but it will benefit us as a company of God’s people who come together, for the more we are filled and satisfied, the more we will be able to give out to bless others as we fellowship and worship together.
Maybe you are reading this and up to now you have never come to the place of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, you have never yet surrendered your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, you are still drinking from the polluted waters of this world, then come to Jesus, allow him to come and to fill your life with his life, with the pure rivers of living water. Maybe someone may be reading this who although at one point may have committed your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and yet for some reason you keep dipping back into the polluted waters of the world, please consider the spiritual damage this may be doing to your soul and with your relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, come back to the living water, stoop and drink again, come and draw water again from the wells of salvation. Hunger and thirst after righteousness and you will be filled.