Theme: The Triumph of Faith
In this week’s lessons we learn from the psalmist what it is to truly desire God.
Scripture: Psalm 63:1-11
The last three verses of the psalm look to the future and express David’s confidence that in time his enemies will be destroyed, the mouths of those who have slandered him will be silenced, and he will again be openly praising God with others who also love and seek him. Pedantic commentators feel that these last verses are an unworthy blemish upon what was otherwise a particularly beautiful psalm, and some have suggested that they were tacked on later by a somewhat insensitive editor. But this is not the case at all. They simply bring us back to where we started, in the desert with David, and they remind us that this is a real world after all and that, if we are to be genuinely satisfied with God’s love, it must not be in some never-never land, but right here in the midst of this world’s disappointments, frustrations and dangers. In other words, it is at the very time when his son had betrayed him and was seeking to kill him that David found the Lord’s love to be richly satisfying.
Given these circumstances, the psalm is an amazing triumph of faith. But, as G. Campbell Morgan writes, “Two things are necessary for such triumph as this. These are indicated in the opening words of the psalm. First, there must be the consciousness of a personal relationship, ‘O God, Thou art my God’; and secondly, there must be earnest seeking after God, ‘Early will I seek Thee.’”1 Because that is true, a wise man or woman desires it exactly.
1G. Campbell Morgan, Notes on the Psalms (Westwood, NJ: Revell, 1947), p. 112.
Study Questions:
What is the focus of the last three verses?
What was happening in David’s life when he wrote this psalm?
What two things are necessary for triumph of faith?
Reflection: When have you gone through difficult times which made you love God more than life?
Application: What hardships are you going through currently? In the midst of this, how will you look for satisfaction in God?
Prayer: Spend time today earnestly seeking after God, and ask him to bring you to the place of looking for satisfaction only in him.
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