The Lord My God

J.J. Stark

May 22, 2016

Field Time: Browning, MT

IGNITE Class 10

Inductive Bible Study

The Lord My God

“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

– Psalm 18:2 (NKJV)

The God I serve is an awesome and wondrous God.  He is the One who created power itself, the One whom is feared in my very being, yet also the One who created my being and possesses an unfathomable love and compassion for me.  Thinking about this brings me to a state of reverent awe, because His sheer magnificence is so beyond my greatest comprehensions.  It is times like this that I also repetitively shocked at myself, at how easily (and often) I forget God’s character.  I constantly ask in my wondering, “How did I forget, and why do I act in my own stupid nature?”  How is it that I am not saying, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold,”?? (Psalm 18:2)

It is only through Christ’s cleansing redemptive blood that I am able to put to death myself and return to the remembrance in living communion with Him.  This brings to mind Lamentations 3:22-26, “²²Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassion fails not.  ²³They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.  ²⁴ ‘“The Lord is my portion,”’ says my soul, ‘“Therefore I hope in Him!”’  ²⁵The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.  ²⁶It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

Reading that passage makes me think of three men in the Old Testament who sought God in the stormy times of as their rock, fortress, and deliverer.   The first is Noah.  To me Psalm 18:7 gives a picture of what it could have been like: “⁷Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of the hills quaked and were shaken, because He was angry.”  The Lord was not only spiritually each of these elements for Noah during that time, but physically too.  The rock (mountains) was the first thing the ark touched as the waters receded, with the ark representing God’s protective fortress and deliverance to Noah.  The second man is Moses.  Psalm 18:13 says, “¹³The Lord thundered from Heaven, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire.”  Moses was a witness to the terrible wrath of God against those who did not believe, but he also found his comfort and peace in the same God.  The Lord provided the rock that he struck for water, and He used the water of the Red Sea as the delivering fortress against the Egyptians.  Those are just a few examples out of the many that Moses encountered in his walk with the Lord.  The last of the three is David, the author.  Psalm 18:35-36 sum up David’s relationship with the Lord: “³⁵You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great.  ³⁶You enlarged my path under me, so my feet did not slip.”  Numerous occasions can be seen throughout David’s life of God being each of these for him: the rock used against the giant, the caves of deliverance from King Saul, and fortified cities later in his reign.

God forged each man into what they became because each one humbly came to Him and said in their hearts, “¹I will love You, O Lord, my strength.  ²The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.  ³I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.”  Each of their testimonies is the recorded, Living Word of God from which I am learning to make the Lord my complete hiding place, assurance, comfort, and rest.

Application:  This evening I will take time to write in my journal the mercies of the Lord in my life, to reinforce Him being my rock, my fortress and my deliverer.