Freedom To Love And Psalm 54
Psalm 54 reads as follows from the New King James version of the Bible:
1 Save me, O God, by your name,
and vindicate me by your strength.
2 Hear my prayer, O God;
Give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers have risen up against me,
and oppressors have sought after my life;
they have not set God before them. Selah
4 Behold, God is my helper;
The Lord is with those who uphold my life.
5 He will repay my enemies for their evil.
Cut them off in your truth.
6 I will freely sacrifice to you;
I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good.
7 For He has delivered me out of all trouble;
and my eye has seen its desire upon my enemies
With deliverance we find the psalmistUnhindered and no longer weighed down by the onslaught of troubles, whatever they had been which had now ended. For now David's troubles has ceased.
David was able to move into the relationship with the Lord in faith and in hope from the disadvantaged position of having overwhelming difficulities.
The length of the problem, the scope of the problem, can seem never ending from the point of view of someone with the problems. It is good to remember that the Lord himself has no problems and can bring you to that problem free realm.
David had arrived at a place of deliverance and a place where he would give a freewill offering to the Lord, indicating he retained his personal freedom even within his trouble. Sometimes trouble itself, becomes so looming and large, it also appears to encroach upon the freedom that you still possess. You don't give away your freedom just because of the troubles.
We can also see or envision, small events as the end of trouble as it sometines might be that one thing, really something easily accomplished that can get you to break free from trouble. This is why with troubles, it is sometimes good to see what the small step is, that can get you stepping out of the trouble.
But he still could have been ensnared by troubles, also by bitterness, or just an intention to stray from the presence of the Lord to matters elsewhere or something else even while finding the end of his troubles at hand. Troubles can bring someone into a reactionary mode and when the troubles have been continual or ongoing, there must be a way of stopping what have maybe become habitual or automatic reactions to trouble, where you can actually can freely choose other cources of action, especially when your reactive approaches to these troubles hasn't really worked for you, or have taken on such an automatice nature that you aren't coping using all avenues freely..
Just because a trouble is a certain way, doen'st mean you have to react to it a certain way.
There are different modes of reaction and care should be taken also that you aren't automically reacting in a certain way, that other modes of dealing with the troubles can freely be considered and the reactions, even good reactions can be halted or lessened depending.
The David had reached an end to some troubles; it was no guarantee that this ending even if brought about by the Lord, would bring him to the Lord or would be acknowleged by him as a act of deliverance by the Lord for him. Freewill is involved all the way through including in the interpretation of what has happened.
The proper interpretation of what had happened was that the Lord set David free, but it was a matter of freedom also to find and hold to that view.
It is also a matter of interpretation as to why David was freed and to what purpose, but his later actions does show that he was enabled to love the Lord in a way that he had hoped to get back to, if he was ever freed from these mounting troubles.
It is not automatic that anyone would come to the Lord after being delivered or would properly name the situation as being delivered by the hand of the Lord.
9 out of ten lepers did not come back to give thanks, all of which indicates that one that did come back to Jesus did come back freely. He didn't have to come back, and indeed 9 did not come back. But he took it upon himself to come back.
So even within the Lord's offerenings and gifts, it might be a matter of an individual to then take it upon himself to act a certain way.
After being is such a hopeless state, at the time leprosy was a life sentence of severe illness and also involved being avoided or shunned by the wider world due to fears of contagion, at the least joyful thanksgiving would seem to be the normal or most probable course taken by someone who was miraculously healed
It is significant not only that 9 out of 10 did not show any thanks, but that it was only 1 that did. But it is also indicative that even with the Lord's actions of deliverance, or healing which is a form of deliverance, there is a course to take, a road to follow, that would include thanksgiving. But this also goes the idea that even at the points of deliverance, there are options that must be freely chosen.
The story of the lepers also shows that maybe Jesus didn't have the highest expectations as to how people would behave even if touched in miraculous fashion.
If 9 out of 10 failed in the area of thanksgiving, maybe we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves in the ways we fail spiritually as this was a spiritual failing.
But lower expectations means that we can still strive for the better and Jesus was pointing out that the failure to give thanks was a spiritual failure and the direction or change for the better would be the spiritual success of giving thanks.
This is also symbolic, not to take for granted that someone else is doing exactly or precisely what you are being called to do by the Lord. You may be the only one, and while that vision is somewhat haunting in that, you would hope that there would be others or many, it may be that all others have forsaken the road as in this case the road of thanksgiving but in other cases it might be that everybody else has chosen not to actively minister for this issue in prayer or through other gifts of the ministry through neglect of the call or just figuring that indeed many others are doing it. The now former lepers just traveled on, went away unseen and unheard at the point where they could have freely given thanks. We don't know what happened to them, some could have turned back and given thanks at a later point. But we know they did go on in freedom to something better and they were now freed up to obtain not only better lives, but chances for spiritual successes as well as goodness on the physical plane. They may have been so wrapped up in their illness that they were also limited spiritually. But now, they for example in later years could have ventured to hearing Paul preach in one of the provines or traveled roads where more material and more spiritual giffts were potentially available to them.,
That the others didn't come back doesn't negate their deliverance or their end to leprosy, but they did not arrive from that point to a freewill offering of thanks to Jesus.
The freewill could have been exercised in any number of directions, not necessarily towards seeking out the presence of the Lord with say thanks.
In human terms, it is much more difficult to conduct say a love affair, if you have arrows flying over you. The troubles can be so present and so hard to contend with, that you can't easily freely pursue other wanted paths.
Freedom from this, if indeed this is your intention, to have this love affair, would be helpful to this happening.
It could have been that David, freed from these troubles, had no intention of bringing a freewill offering to the Lord. But when he was enabled to do this, he states his intention clearly that he will actually do this.
The particular trouble represented say in David's case by Goliath was ended which was symbolic of an end of troubles.
Others may have actually contemplated an end to their particular troubles, in their prayerful contemplation and in their practical hopes for the near and far future. And it is a good thing in prayer, to outright discuss what is going to be the beginning of the end to a particular kind or kinds of trouble.
The position obtained was where David could freely go to the Lord, unencumbered by mounting troubles, from which he was freed.
This doesn't mean that for all time that he was free from trouble, but for now he was disentangled, he was fully in possession of his own personal freedom and could be in the presence of the Lord in ways that he could hot have been previously because of the presence of trouble..
It could have been that David freed from Goliath, could have become a Goliath himself in some other form. Intention does matter.
The freed up alligator, formerly bound up, might go right back to a prior intention to devour not to pick on alligators.
The criminal released from prison, might go right back to a string of crimes.
What can be seen in this psalm is that David faced an onslaught that was overwhelming and ultimately interfered with his ability to go to the Lord and worship him freely.
It apparently was his intention to restore closeness to the Lord if he was freed from these bonds of oppression. But it could have easily been something else, where the Lord could have brought him out of his troubles, and his real intention could have been for other things, power, wealth, and so on.
The Lord had freed David to love, which still would be a matter of freedom on the part of David.
The lepers healed by Jesus were also freed to love. They could now come to the Lord in wholeness and to others in wholeness at the banner of love.
A lot of people are in distress in some ways these days that takes on an overwhelming nature. It could be the outside forces of financial distress, internal conflicts, pressures to succeed beyond what they seem capable of bringinig forth, or any nature of problems that overwhelm and being to block the ability to love both the Lord and others.
In seeking deliverance from the Lord from these troubles, what would the intention be if this happened? Would a given individual just walk away without even the acknowledgement of thanks as all of the lepers did except for one. It might have been that all ten could have stayed with Jesus and followed his ministry. We don't really know what they did subsequent but maybe they have descendants that are prominent today. Who knows? But they were freed to a course that even though it didn't involve love at that point, it could have at later points and where they could have made the turn for love as the deliverance of Jesus enabled them to do this.
But the moral of the story is that there is still freedom of intention throughout all this, within the distress itself, within the deliverance there is still a question mark as to what an individual will do post deliverance, with the new found ability to love freely?
Will they continue on unbound towards true love, or will they get ensnared again by some other matter that opposed love?
The Lord himself is taking a risk or chance on deliverance that the person who is delivered will indeed choose righteousness and love after the deliverance.
This psalm does show that the issue of intention is important with seeking the healing, deliverance and help of the Lord, in that if you receive it, what your intention is for it.
This can be a matter of going into the request more in depth, where you bring before the Lord what your intention would be if you got the deliverance or to the other side of this problem.
The person with a badly sprained ankle would want healing of this. But the intention of what to do with this healing would differ. Someone might want the healing just to be able to stroll around; another person might intend to run a big race or a marathon if they get the healing.
Intentions do differ.
If someone, formerly in distress money wise, gets a lot of money, what they might want to do with this money could be quite different. Some might want to travel, some might want to have a big house, some might want to start a business, and so on.
But the picture presently here in this particular psalm is that the Lord is freeing David as a matter of release so that he can love and consult with the Lord in freedom.
With the deliverance, the Lord did give him a chance to do this. It will still only a chance, a chance that David didn't at first have when he was so overwhelmed by his troubles. But David did take up the offer and the chance and freely moved into the love of what was maybe a second chance or a new lease on life given to David by the Lord.
1 Save me, O God, by your name,
and vindicate me by your strength.
2 Hear my prayer, O God;
Give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers have risen up against me,
and oppressors have sought after my life;
they have not set God before them. Selah
4 Behold, God is my helper;
The Lord is with those who uphold my life.
5 He will repay my enemies for their evil.
Cut them off in your truth.
6 I will freely sacrifice to you;
I will praise your name, O LORD, for it is good.
7 For He has delivered me out of all trouble;
and my eye has seen its desire upon my enemies
With deliverance we find the psalmistUnhindered and no longer weighed down by the onslaught of troubles, whatever they had been which had now ended. For now David's troubles has ceased.
David was able to move into the relationship with the Lord in faith and in hope from the disadvantaged position of having overwhelming difficulities.
The length of the problem, the scope of the problem, can seem never ending from the point of view of someone with the problems. It is good to remember that the Lord himself has no problems and can bring you to that problem free realm.
David had arrived at a place of deliverance and a place where he would give a freewill offering to the Lord, indicating he retained his personal freedom even within his trouble. Sometimes trouble itself, becomes so looming and large, it also appears to encroach upon the freedom that you still possess. You don't give away your freedom just because of the troubles.
We can also see or envision, small events as the end of trouble as it sometines might be that one thing, really something easily accomplished that can get you to break free from trouble. This is why with troubles, it is sometimes good to see what the small step is, that can get you stepping out of the trouble.
But he still could have been ensnared by troubles, also by bitterness, or just an intention to stray from the presence of the Lord to matters elsewhere or something else even while finding the end of his troubles at hand. Troubles can bring someone into a reactionary mode and when the troubles have been continual or ongoing, there must be a way of stopping what have maybe become habitual or automatic reactions to trouble, where you can actually can freely choose other cources of action, especially when your reactive approaches to these troubles hasn't really worked for you, or have taken on such an automatice nature that you aren't coping using all avenues freely..
Just because a trouble is a certain way, doen'st mean you have to react to it a certain way.
There are different modes of reaction and care should be taken also that you aren't automically reacting in a certain way, that other modes of dealing with the troubles can freely be considered and the reactions, even good reactions can be halted or lessened depending.
The David had reached an end to some troubles; it was no guarantee that this ending even if brought about by the Lord, would bring him to the Lord or would be acknowleged by him as a act of deliverance by the Lord for him. Freewill is involved all the way through including in the interpretation of what has happened.
The proper interpretation of what had happened was that the Lord set David free, but it was a matter of freedom also to find and hold to that view.
It is also a matter of interpretation as to why David was freed and to what purpose, but his later actions does show that he was enabled to love the Lord in a way that he had hoped to get back to, if he was ever freed from these mounting troubles.
It is not automatic that anyone would come to the Lord after being delivered or would properly name the situation as being delivered by the hand of the Lord.
9 out of ten lepers did not come back to give thanks, all of which indicates that one that did come back to Jesus did come back freely. He didn't have to come back, and indeed 9 did not come back. But he took it upon himself to come back.
So even within the Lord's offerenings and gifts, it might be a matter of an individual to then take it upon himself to act a certain way.
After being is such a hopeless state, at the time leprosy was a life sentence of severe illness and also involved being avoided or shunned by the wider world due to fears of contagion, at the least joyful thanksgiving would seem to be the normal or most probable course taken by someone who was miraculously healed
It is significant not only that 9 out of 10 did not show any thanks, but that it was only 1 that did. But it is also indicative that even with the Lord's actions of deliverance, or healing which is a form of deliverance, there is a course to take, a road to follow, that would include thanksgiving. But this also goes the idea that even at the points of deliverance, there are options that must be freely chosen.
The story of the lepers also shows that maybe Jesus didn't have the highest expectations as to how people would behave even if touched in miraculous fashion.
If 9 out of 10 failed in the area of thanksgiving, maybe we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves in the ways we fail spiritually as this was a spiritual failing.
But lower expectations means that we can still strive for the better and Jesus was pointing out that the failure to give thanks was a spiritual failure and the direction or change for the better would be the spiritual success of giving thanks.
This is also symbolic, not to take for granted that someone else is doing exactly or precisely what you are being called to do by the Lord. You may be the only one, and while that vision is somewhat haunting in that, you would hope that there would be others or many, it may be that all others have forsaken the road as in this case the road of thanksgiving but in other cases it might be that everybody else has chosen not to actively minister for this issue in prayer or through other gifts of the ministry through neglect of the call or just figuring that indeed many others are doing it. The now former lepers just traveled on, went away unseen and unheard at the point where they could have freely given thanks. We don't know what happened to them, some could have turned back and given thanks at a later point. But we know they did go on in freedom to something better and they were now freed up to obtain not only better lives, but chances for spiritual successes as well as goodness on the physical plane. They may have been so wrapped up in their illness that they were also limited spiritually. But now, they for example in later years could have ventured to hearing Paul preach in one of the provines or traveled roads where more material and more spiritual giffts were potentially available to them.,
That the others didn't come back doesn't negate their deliverance or their end to leprosy, but they did not arrive from that point to a freewill offering of thanks to Jesus.
The freewill could have been exercised in any number of directions, not necessarily towards seeking out the presence of the Lord with say thanks.
In human terms, it is much more difficult to conduct say a love affair, if you have arrows flying over you. The troubles can be so present and so hard to contend with, that you can't easily freely pursue other wanted paths.
Freedom from this, if indeed this is your intention, to have this love affair, would be helpful to this happening.
It could have been that David, freed from these troubles, had no intention of bringing a freewill offering to the Lord. But when he was enabled to do this, he states his intention clearly that he will actually do this.
The particular trouble represented say in David's case by Goliath was ended which was symbolic of an end of troubles.
Others may have actually contemplated an end to their particular troubles, in their prayerful contemplation and in their practical hopes for the near and far future. And it is a good thing in prayer, to outright discuss what is going to be the beginning of the end to a particular kind or kinds of trouble.
The position obtained was where David could freely go to the Lord, unencumbered by mounting troubles, from which he was freed.
This doesn't mean that for all time that he was free from trouble, but for now he was disentangled, he was fully in possession of his own personal freedom and could be in the presence of the Lord in ways that he could hot have been previously because of the presence of trouble..
It could have been that David freed from Goliath, could have become a Goliath himself in some other form. Intention does matter.
The freed up alligator, formerly bound up, might go right back to a prior intention to devour not to pick on alligators.
The criminal released from prison, might go right back to a string of crimes.
What can be seen in this psalm is that David faced an onslaught that was overwhelming and ultimately interfered with his ability to go to the Lord and worship him freely.
It apparently was his intention to restore closeness to the Lord if he was freed from these bonds of oppression. But it could have easily been something else, where the Lord could have brought him out of his troubles, and his real intention could have been for other things, power, wealth, and so on.
The Lord had freed David to love, which still would be a matter of freedom on the part of David.
The lepers healed by Jesus were also freed to love. They could now come to the Lord in wholeness and to others in wholeness at the banner of love.
A lot of people are in distress in some ways these days that takes on an overwhelming nature. It could be the outside forces of financial distress, internal conflicts, pressures to succeed beyond what they seem capable of bringinig forth, or any nature of problems that overwhelm and being to block the ability to love both the Lord and others.
In seeking deliverance from the Lord from these troubles, what would the intention be if this happened? Would a given individual just walk away without even the acknowledgement of thanks as all of the lepers did except for one. It might have been that all ten could have stayed with Jesus and followed his ministry. We don't really know what they did subsequent but maybe they have descendants that are prominent today. Who knows? But they were freed to a course that even though it didn't involve love at that point, it could have at later points and where they could have made the turn for love as the deliverance of Jesus enabled them to do this.
But the moral of the story is that there is still freedom of intention throughout all this, within the distress itself, within the deliverance there is still a question mark as to what an individual will do post deliverance, with the new found ability to love freely?
Will they continue on unbound towards true love, or will they get ensnared again by some other matter that opposed love?
The Lord himself is taking a risk or chance on deliverance that the person who is delivered will indeed choose righteousness and love after the deliverance.
This psalm does show that the issue of intention is important with seeking the healing, deliverance and help of the Lord, in that if you receive it, what your intention is for it.
This can be a matter of going into the request more in depth, where you bring before the Lord what your intention would be if you got the deliverance or to the other side of this problem.
The person with a badly sprained ankle would want healing of this. But the intention of what to do with this healing would differ. Someone might want the healing just to be able to stroll around; another person might intend to run a big race or a marathon if they get the healing.
Intentions do differ.
If someone, formerly in distress money wise, gets a lot of money, what they might want to do with this money could be quite different. Some might want to travel, some might want to have a big house, some might want to start a business, and so on.
But the picture presently here in this particular psalm is that the Lord is freeing David as a matter of release so that he can love and consult with the Lord in freedom.
With the deliverance, the Lord did give him a chance to do this. It will still only a chance, a chance that David didn't at first have when he was so overwhelmed by his troubles. But David did take up the offer and the chance and freely moved into the love of what was maybe a second chance or a new lease on life given to David by the Lord.