FBC Daily Devotional – October 22, 2021

Good Friday morning to you.

Here we are end of the week already and looking forward to the weekend.

I hope you are looking forward to the Lord's Day and gathering together With with God's people

we worship and serve him on Sunday.

And of course, we're meeting at 930 for adult Bible study looking at

one of the last chapters or lessons that we'll be doing on the whole series when studying on

holiness and And that's in the Sunday school hour in the morning service who are in the book of Judges and

And then Sunday evening evening service at 6 o 'clock in the gospel of Mark.

So all these going on in person on Sunday and also we live stream these

different services.

So one way or the other I hope you can join in on the Lord's Day.

But today I want to focus on a few verses in the hundred and nineteen Psalms.

A wonderful psalm Psalm 119 is it's a song.

It's a psalm about the Word about God's Word and Over and over again every section of the

psalm 119 there's some there's some

Discussion about God's Word and its benefits and its power and so on and so forth but what I wanted to zero

in on is In today's reading we have three different references to the word

affliction and you know, I I've never enjoyed affliction.

Duh, right who who does who enjoys it?

But one of the marks of spiritual maturity, I believe is Coming to the place where

we can Appreciate it again.

I didn't say enjoy it.

I didn't say like it.

I'm not talking about some kind of.

You know.

Masochistic desire for pain or anger or anything like that.

But we can appreciate it and here's here's what I'm talking about.

David makes three points about affliction.

For if we look at the end of it, but three main ideas that he expresses regarding affliction.

One of them is He sees the value of affliction in Teaching him

teaching us to stay on the right path.

So for example in verse 67, he says before I was afflicted I went astray.

But now I keep your word.

What's the point that the affliction?

Before the affliction I had gone astray but then you brought affliction in my life to bring me back on the right

path and One of the values of affliction is that it teaches me to stay

on the right path when I err when I go off that path.

It's never fun.

You know sin hurts transgressions painful and It is a form of affliction

so what affliction does is it teaches me stay on that right path and And you can avoid a

lot of affliction not all of it.

Not all of it.

But you can avoid the affliction that comes as a result of straying of erring from the right path another

point of affliction benefit of affliction.

Verse 71 He says it is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may

learn your statutes so here he's.

He's making the point that affliction Directs us to the Lord to the Lord and directs us to

his word to God's Word To learn what delights the Lord.

Okay, so How how should I handle affliction?

How would you have me handle affliction?

So this past Sunday in our adult Sunday school class We talked about that very thing

and there's a chapter in the book.

We've been using for adult Sunday school the book is entitled a radical and comprehensive call

to holiness and It's one particular chapter Talks about the whole

chapters on handling affliction as Christ would have us handle it in a

Christlike way and We have to go to the word To figure that out to

find out how should I handle affliction as a believer a follower of Christ?

How should I handle it?

What would be a response to affliction that would please my Heavenly Father that would

glorify my Savior.

Affliction sends me to the word to find out how I ought to respond and

then another thing to realize that a mature believer will realize is

That you know, God is sovereign over all of life so if I am

Enduring affliction Then I'm enduring that affliction Because God

has seen fit to send it and the psalmist puts it this way in verse 75 He says I

know O Lord that your judgments are right and that in faithfulness

You have afflicted me.

What's he getting at here?

He's acknowledging he's realizing and Admitting that God is a sovereign God.

He is a just God.

He always does what is right and He is faithful to his word.

He's faithful to his promises.

He's faithful to his covenant.

So if the sovereign God who loves me cares for me has entered into

covenant with me has made promises to me If that sovereign

God has brought me into a place of affliction Then it is for my own

good and for his own glory.

In other words, I Realize that this affliction comes from

the hand of my righteous and faithful God He always

does what is right and he always does what is best.

This is a statement of faith.

That a.

Measure of spiritual maturity and growth brings us to even in a time of

affliction and Then the last thing I want to bring out is in the next verse verse 76.

And that's the point that in my affliction. I am comforted by the steadfast love of

the Lord is Faithfulness to his covenant.

It's verse 76 says let I pray your merciful kindness.

That is God's loving kindness.

His hesed is the Hebrew word.

It's a word that means his Covenant loyalty.

He says let I pray your covenant loyalty be for my comfort according to your word

to your servant.

So he's he's acknowledging in this time of affliction that where I'm going to find comfort is in

counting upon the steadfast love of the Lord the covenant loyalty of my

God.

The word of promises the words of promise that he has made to his servant to me.

So I trust that if you're going through a time of affliction right now and you are God's child that

you will ponder over these thoughts here in Psalm 119 and come to that place

of rest in the affliction trust in the affliction trusting in

The sovereign hand of your good God who is faithful to his covenant.

So father I pray that you would help us to have this kind of an attitude and Understanding and

response to afflictions as they come our way.

It is not always easy and we certainly would fail.

But I pray in the follow -up and then looking back over our times of affliction.

We would learn from them and we would grow through them to respond in a way that is more Christlike

More glorifying to you and this we pray in Jesus name.

Amen.

All right, we'll have a good rest of your Friday and I hope you have a wonderful weekend god bless you in it.