Psalm 32 Blessings

Blessed is the one

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

² Blessed is the one

whose sin the Lord does not count against them

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

³ When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

⁴ For day and night

your hand was heavy on me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, “I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord.”

And you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

⁶ Therefore let all the faithful pray to you

while you may be found;

surely the rising of the mighty waters

will not reach them.

⁷ You are my hiding place;

you will protect me from trouble

and surround me with songs of deliverance.

⁸ I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

⁹ Do not be like the horse or the mule,

which have no understanding

but must be controlled by bit and bridle

or they will not come to you.

¹⁰ Many are the woes of the wicked,

but the Lord’s unfailing love

surrounds the one who trusts in him.

¹¹ Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous;

sing, all you who are upright in heart!”  (Psalm 32, NIV)

The first two verses speak directly to the topic of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is a two-sided coin.  We all need to forgive others for messes they’ve made, and let’s not forget, we all have the need for others to forgive messes we’ve made.  That’s because we all become offended, and we all become offenders.  On the one hand, it is a blessing to receive God’s forgiveness.  On the other hand, we often fail to receive this blessing because we fail to recognize, acknowledge, and deal with offense.   Please see my earlier articles on the blog site to see how to change from the inside out to reap the benefits of forgiveness.  

Verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 32 speak to our greatest enemy without using the word they describe.  The enemy is shame.  Shame thrives on hiddenness (silence).  Shame keeps us from forgiving and being forgiven.  Hiding and hiding behind our offenses literally causes our “bones to waste away.”  Recent research is proving the extreme damage our bitterness, resentment, and blame causes to our physical, mental, and emotional condition.  Worst of all, it kills our spirit.  To learn more about this I recommend two books by Dr. Timothy Jennings called The God-shaped Brain: How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life and The God-shaped Heart: How Correctly Understanding God’s Love Transforms Us.  

Verse 5 shows the solution.  The remedy is vulnerability.  Psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson authored a book I highly recommend called The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe about Ourselves in which he has an entire chapter on vulnerability.  For a follower of Christ, addressing shame takes the form of confession and repentance.  When we confess (speak out our acknowlegement) our sins (offenses), God is faithful to forgive.  See 1 John 1:9 for a text written hundreds of years later in the Bible confirming this truth.  When we repent (turn around) from our sin, our guilt is washed away.  We are as slaves given freedom to live in a new way as forgiven.  Again, how this happens through life with Jesus is described by Paul, another writer in the Bible hundreds of years later (see Romans 6:16-23).  

Verses 6 amd 7 describe how to live out this new found freedom.  Instead of enslavement to shame, we are shielded from shame.  In as much as we make Christ Jesus our Refuge, the chains of shame are broken.  Instead of relying on self to protect from exposure, we place our trust in Christ who has already born the guilt of shame for us.  Jesus conquored shame, and our safe place is hiding with him instead of trying to hide with shame. Whatever and whenever the source of shame in our lives, it is not too great to be overcome by the salvation of Jesus.  

Verses 8, 9, and 10 address our stubbornness and rebellion.  Vulnerability begins with self-honesty, and relates closely with teachability.  Openness to the need for inner life change (the very core of our beliefs), allows God to shine light on areas we have deceived ourselves and kept hidden from the truth.   Replacing our false beliefs with truth paves the path to freedom.   It’s not easy for us to give up our old patterns of thinking and feeling, but making choices to cooperate with Gods ways (instead of demanding our own way), literally grooves new pathways in our brain so we can function as originally designed before the human race was corrupted by sin.  For more on how this works, see the book Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health by Dr. Caroline Leaf.  

Verse 11 of Psalm 32 is the finale.  Praising God and choosing to be grateful for who God is and what he has done on our behalf, gives us true cause for joy.  Re-orienting our focus from self to God always guarantees good results.  Glorifying God is our true purpose for being.  We will always find meaning and satisfaction in turning our own hearts towards God, and helping others do the same.  

Chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews in the Bible is a summary of many ordinary people who followed God and give us great examples of how God expresses his love for the human race.  Hebrews says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1-3, NIV).   Perfecting our faith is a process of releasing more and more of our demands (including the demand to understand) so that our belief and trust in God can grow.  Note here how joy and shame are contrasted.  Shame being conquered through Jesus is cause for great joy!  

  Jesus has accomplished forgiveness.  When we forgive, we cooperate with the Refuge God has provided.  By surrendering our shame for the shield of Refuge, the Father is glorified and our fellowship is joy-filled.   

by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry

Esteeming Jesus

To esteem is to attach worth or value to something.  For  followers of Jesus reading this, I have a question, “How much of your life demonstrates the value of what Jesus did for mankind?”  This article identifies some ways to show greater esteem for the King of Kings.  

First, let’s look at the response of his very first followers when he came to the earth.  Yes, even though they had about three years hanging out with Jesus face-to-face, saw the raw miracles with their eyes, and with their own ears, heard Jesus explaining the prophetic wrtings (from the Book), they were unable to understand and value the Kingdom of God unfolding in their midst.  Near the end of Jesus’ time with them Luke records, “Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.  He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him;  they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”  The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about”” (Luke 18:31-34; NIV).  They could not accept the idea of a “suffering Messiah,” even when the Messiah himself told them plainly part of his reason for coming is to take on himself the pain of the world.  Jesus came to redeem the guilt of sin and pain of consequences (for every person who believes in him) and restore sonship with Father God.  

Jesus is referring to messages foretold hundreds of years prior like this one in Isaiah,

“Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

4 Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.”  (Isaiah 53:1-6)

The phrase in verse 3 “and we held him in low esteem” is worth taking a closer look.  Obviously the people who were bent on killing Jesus held him in low esteem, but the 12 disciples he was talking to in the Luke verses above, also failed to esteem Jesus.  Luke says, “they did not know what he was talking about” (Luke 18:34).  They were not able to fully comprehend the message Jesus was sharing with them at least in part because of the earthly mindset (belief system) of how things should turn out.  They thought, for example, the Messiah (whomever that was) would be the one to deliver them from the oppression of the Roman government.  The Romans were the ruling power over the Jews, and all the first believers in Jesus were of Jewish origin.  For a Messiah to redeem the Jewish people, they were looking for a literal overthrow of the regime.  But that was not in God’s plan.  God’s plan was laid out in the verses of Isaiah above.  Even after these verses were fulfilled and the grusome trauma of the crucifixion of Jesus took place, the disciples still didn’t understand.  In the days following his resurrection, the Bible records a number of times that Jesus appeared to his disciples to encourage them and give them the Holy Spirit and their great commission before he ascended to the Father (see Luke 24:36-49).  

When Jesus appeared to 2 of them on the road to Emmaus, for example (Luke 24:36-49), they were clearly not in a state to bring esteem to what Jesus had endured on their behalf.  They were downcast, depressed, and likely a bit taumatized.  They were likely guilt-ridden for not being able to protect Jesus from the cruel and unjust treatment he received.  One of their members betrayed Jesus.  In betraying Jesus, Judas also betrayed each of the disciples as team members.  They were all scattered, alone, fearing for their own lives, with their leader dead (or so they thought), and no purpose to continue what had consumed the last three years of their lives.   Their pain was too great to bear, and Jesus had to appear to them to bring them back from their strayed condition.  

Like the first disciples who had suffered great loss and needed to be reminded that Jesus came to bear their grief and pain, we too have a similar opportunity to show that we value what Jesus did on the cross to bear our sin and pain.   Jesus didn’t only die to wash away the guilt of our sin, but also was tortured to bear the pain of the consequences of sin.  The pain may be from an accident with no one at fault (ie. a natural disaster, financial,  illness, or physical problem).  It may be inflicted on you by someone else intentionally or unintentionally (ie. prejudgment, misjudgment, mistreatment, slander, rejection, betrayal, abuse,  injustice, etc.).  Or, pain may be self-imposed (ie. shame, self-condemnation, self-rejection,  bitterness, resentment, etc.).  

Whatever the source of emotional pain may be, we (like the very first disciples onward) fail to esteem Jesus when we fail to give Jesus our pain.  You may ask, “What does it mean to give Jesus our pain?”  Inner hurts and wounds from past and present are common.  Acknowleging hurt and offense is the first step to allowing Jesus to bear it for you.  After that, it is  responding  to his invitation to come’   “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30).  It seems too simple to be true.  Yoking up with Jesus makes all the difference.  The “yoke” as mentioned here is a term for the instrument that controls a team of work horses enabling them to work together to accomplish a task.  Relief from the pain of an unrested soul, comes through surrender of control.  No matter how good we think we are at controlling things, God always does better.

This surrender continues the rest of our lives, so that greater and greater degrees of control are yielded to God.  As we “draw near” to God (see Hebrews 10:19-31), his power changes us in a way that goes beyond our natural abilities to change ourselves.  We esteem Jesus by surrendering to this on going change process.  Instead of “going astray” and “turning to our own way” (as described in Isaiah 53:6 above), we allow God to satisfy our deepest longings and needs.  Instead of depending on “self” to determine our fate, we cooperate with God’s plan and ways of doing things.  Or, instead of turning to a counterfeit like alcohol, drugs, porn, work-o-holism, etc,. we permit our hearts to be contented in gratitude for what Jesus has done to accomplish our rescue.  

How much of your struggles, disappointments, failed expectations, disagreements, concerns, criticisms, conflicts, etc.do you quickly take to Jesus for him to bear?  The more you take to him and the quicker you respond demonstrates the degree to which you truly value (esteem) Jesus.  And if you feel like you struggle to value Jesus, no condemnation.  Another problem will come your way before you know it, and you’ll have another chance!   Do not listen to the enemy of your soul who tells you things like “you’re all alone,” “no one cares,” or “you’re beyond hope.”   Perhaps you need some help from a counselor to sort out the effects of some very difficult events in your life.  

Sometimes I find it a challenge to practice this myself.  Over the years I have found that music helps me refocus sometimes in a way that points me to God.  One such song that goes way back is called  “Lay Your Burden Down” by Chuck Girard.  Here is a link to hear the song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrI9mFDbmXY 

May you be found faithful in esteemng Jesus.  May God grant you the rest your soul craves.  May you be freed to help others find their freedom in Christ Jesus.   And may God be glorified and greatly esteemed!  

by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry