Today’s Scripture: Psalm 20
“May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from
Zion” (Vs 2).
Words of Devotion
That is wonderful—help
from the sanctuary! The sanctuary is always a picture of the place where we
meet with God. In Israel it was the temple, the place where the Israelites came
to get their thoughts straightened out, to get their thinking corrected. There
they met with God, and there they heard the Word of God, the mind and thoughts
of God.
In Psalm 73 the psalmist
is deeply troubled by the prosperity of the wicked, that perennial problem that
can still bother us: Why do the ungodly prosper while the righteous seem to be
downtrodden all the time? This had upset him—until he finally went into the
sanctuary. There he began to perceive their end. There he began to see the
whole story; he began to see the full picture, and his thoughts were corrected.
This is what the sanctuary does.
For us the sanctuary is
the Scriptures. There is where we get help. It is there that our minds are
illuminated, that we begin to see the world the way it is, not the way it
appears to be. There is not one of us who has not already learned that life is
not the way it seems to be, that what looks to be the answer and what we are
convinced at first is the way things are often turns out to be exactly the
opposite.
Life is filled with illusion, with deceit; things are not what they
appear to be. Doesn't your heart cry for somebody to tell you the truth, to
tell you the way things really are, to open your eyes to what is going on? That
is what the Bible does. And unless you are in the Scriptures, there is no
help. May you find help in the sanctuary, in the Scriptures, is the
psalmist's prayer, that your eyes might be enlightened and you might
understand.
Help from the sanctuary
and support from Zion. Zion is another name for Jerusalem, the capital of the
kingdom. In the Scriptures it stands as a symbol of the invisible kingdom of
God with which we are surrounded, made up of ministering angels sent forth to
serve those who are to be the heirs of salvation. In other words, all the
invisible help that God can give you in the day of trouble, in the hour of
pressure, is made available by prayer.
Remember that in the
Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus was praying and sweating drops of blood in the
height of His agony, an angel appeared and ministered to Him and strengthened
Him. That angel was made visible to Him in order that we might be taught a
lesson of what happens when we pray. I have gone into prayer depressed and
defeated, but while I have prayed I have felt my spirits caught up, changed,
and strengthened. I came out calm, at rest, and at peace. Why, because I had
received help from Zion.
Today: Where do you turn when your heart is
troubled and your mind is confused by all that is happening in your world?
Where is your place of quiet confidence and rest?
Pray: Lord, there are far too many places I
turn in times of trouble. Teach me to turn to your sanctuary for the help that
I need. Amen
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