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A good Thursday morning to you. I hope your week is going well. As we're looking forward to Christmas here, it's coming very quickly, isn't it?
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I trust your plans and preparations are a joy to you and a great blessing as well.
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Today, I want to turn to Psalm 141. I was reminded as I read this of the third stanza of Newton's hymn
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Amazing Grace. Remember that stanza? Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
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I have already come. His grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
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Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come.
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But then the stanza continues indicating that there are more yet to experience, dangers, toils, and snares.
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How do we anticipate those things? How do we deal with those things? Well, in Psalm 141, the psalmist gives us some insight in his prayer.
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He says, I cry out to you, Lord, in the first verse.
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Make haste to me. Give ear to my voice when I cry out to you. Let my prayer be set before you as incense.
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You get the sense that there's an intensity in what the psalmist is doing here and offering his prayer to the
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Lord. But what's he praying about? What's he praying for? Well, there are several things, but notice particularly in verses three and four, and then verse eight and verse nine.
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In verse three, he says, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips.
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Why is he praying that? Because one of the dangers that we need the
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Lord to lead us through by his grace is the danger that is our own mouth.
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How quickly our tongue can get us into trouble, how terribly we can hurt other people with our tongue.
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Our tongue can be a fire, a world of iniquity. It is very appropriate for us on a daily basis to pray,
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Lord, set a guard over my lips. One of the things I pray every day, I have a little prayer of offering myself.
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We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice, and you kind of think through the different elements of your body.
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I yield my heart, I offer my heart to you that you might be in the control center of my life.
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I offer my hands to you that I would do what you would have me to do. I offer my feet to you that I would go where you would have me to go.
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I offer my eyes to you that I would put a guard over my eyes.
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My eyes would be fixed on Jesus alone. I offer my lips to you. I offer my lips to you.
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Why? So that what I say would be an expression of love. I offer my lips to you,
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O Lord, so that with my lips I don't cause others to stumble,
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I don't hurt other people, that I might speak the truth and speak it in love.
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Well, the psalmist is praying this, set a guard over my lips. And then in verse 4, he says, do not incline my heart to any evil thing to practice wicked works with men who work iniquity.
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So praying against a heart inclination toward evil is a strategy for the overcoming of the wicked one and to enduring through dangers, toils and snares.
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Again, I think of that prayer that I offer to the Lord, here's my heart, come rule and reign on my heart's throne.
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Be the one who controls the control center of my being, my heart.
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And then in verse 8, he says, but my eyes are upon you, O God, the
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Lord. In you I take refuge. My eyes are upon you. Where do we fix our eyes?
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Where do we fix our gaze? Our eyes need to be fixed on our Lord. That doesn't mean we, it doesn't mean we look toward heaven or something like that, like we're in some kind of a daze all day long.
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That is neither desirable nor intended by the
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Scriptures, nor is it even holy. It's a distortion. No, what this means is that we keep our attention focused on who
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God is, what God likes, what God's will is, and think accordingly.
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Keep my eyes fixed on you and I'll not allow my eyes to be taken and distracted, taken away from you and distracted by the allurements of this world that will lead me into iniquity, of this world that will lead me into iniquity, into sin.
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And then lastly, in verse 9, through many dangers, toils, and snares
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I have already come. Verse 9 says, keep me from the snares that they have laid for me, and from the traps of the workers of iniquity.
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They're everywhere, aren't they? You can't go through a day without the traps and the snares of the workers of iniquity, those who would trap you in their ways of evil.
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These are some good prayer requests that we would ask that the Lord, in his grace, would continue to keep us safe all the way home, leading us through the dangers, the toils, and snares.
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These are some good prayer requests. Set a guard over my mouth, don't incline my heart to any evil thing, keep my eyes upon you, and deliver me from the snares that they've laid for me.
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Oh Father, may these prayer requests be on our lips each and every day in some form or another, that we might successfully, by your grace, navigate the dangers, the toils, and snares that are so much a part of our everyday life.
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We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your