Thursday

“I have set the Lord always before me.  Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”   – Psalm 16:8

First, consider this: praise and flattery met Jesus upon His entry into the Holy City. 

“Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” they cried and most likely meant what they said. Is it possible that some of those who praised Him on Sunday cursed Him on Thursday evening when He was arrested and brought to trial?

Could it be that some who praised Him were seeking to manipulate Him for their own ends and to triumph with their tongues, even to co-opt Him for their own causes?

Is it even possible that some that welcomed Him with their lips retained no sense of responsibility for their words beyond themselves?

We see ourselves as masters of our words whenever we refuse to submit ourselves, body, soul, and spirit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Jesus went to the upper room and took the role of a servant.

With His words and deeds, He offered His body and blood for the redemption of lost men and women. He emptied Himself and held nothing back. His words are truth and love. Let us bring ourselves and our words to Him in that same spirit.

Friday

“Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure …” – Psalm 16:9 

God saw the oppression of the weak and heard the groaning of the needy, bound in the chains of sin and wickedness. Thus, He came to us as a man among men. He arose and took upon Himself of a lowly servant, He emptied Himself and became obedient unto the death of the cross. (Philippians 2)

He identified with us completely, yet without sin and became our protector and deliverer from sin.

God has always been the champion of the weak and needy.

The Christ-event and the passion of the cross make it clear that every man, woman, and child is in need of a savior. We are all oppressed – even if we are oppressors. We each writhe in agony for someone to intervene in our darkness and bring us into the light.

The cross, was, is, and always will be for you.

Saturday

“… because you will not abandon my to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.”  - Psalm 16:10

Oh precious words, flawless, pure, beautiful in their refined glory. God’s words stir the soul, comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable, and pierce the heart with divine truth and brilliant light.

On that dark Saturday between the cross and the resurrection, the disciples had only the remembrance of His words.

What would they have meant to you in such an hour? What have they meant to you in your darkest hours. After the resurrection, Jesus would meet men on the road to Emmaus and remind them of His words and those that the Father had spoken over the centuries through the scriptures.

He would bring them new meaning and their hearts would burn within them. Let Jesus apply all of God’s words to your heart in the darkness of death from the place of resurrection.

We can never fully visit the despair of that bleak Saturday, but we can enter into our own darkness with the flawless Word of God to comfort our souls.

Sunday

“… you have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”   – Psalm 16:11

What a pointless prayer this would be divorced from resurrection truth! Without the resurrection we are exposed, vulnerable, and unprotected. If Christ were not raised we would be as Paul said, “still in our sins (I Cor. 15).” 

We could not expect help in the onslaughts of wicked and violent people or non-human forces from a dead and powerless God. Prayers would be futile attempts to feel better about our miserable circumstances.

Compliance with ethics would be fruitless acts of legalistic compulsion if not overwhelmed by a dynamic conviction that God can raise the dead and thus, protect, deliver, and save.

God raised Jesus from the dead and pronounced the death sentence on death. He is alive and brings to life all who trust in Him. Celebrate! The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!

"Start by doing what's necessary, then do what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible." – Saint Francis of Assisi