Has your soul heard from God?

My Psalm reading this morning was the wonderful prayer-Psalm of David the king – Psalm 35.  The first three verses seemed to me to put the heart of the Psalm into a nutshell – David’s pleas for God’s help, defence and deliverance from his wrongful enemies striving against him, rejoicing at his adversity and seeking his downfall.

I was particularly struck however by a particular plea of David to God stated simply in these words recorded at Psalm 35:3b:

‘ Say to my soul
“I am your salvation”’

Reflecting on the words of this prayer, I basked in that deep comfort – the incomparable comfort and assurance – in knowing that that petition has been answered.  By grace through faith in Messiah Yeshua and His substitutionary atoning death and shed sinless blood for the remission of sins and in His resurrection, Almighty God our heavenly Father has said to the souls of all those born of His Spirit: “I am your salvation.”

 What deep comfort and assurance which continually abides with us in these dark days as we continue to believe on and trust in Lord Yeshua.

As it is written, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Ephesians 2:8) (underlined added for emphasis).

So, my question to you who read this is: Has your soul heard from God?  If not, ‘believe on the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and you shall be saved’.  You shall hear from God when you seek Him with a sincere heart. Consider the account of a jailor in Philippi who had been charged to watch over the prisoners which included Paul the Apostle and his co-labourer Silas.  Paul and Silas had been beaten and thrown into prison on account of Paul casting out a spirit of divination in a young slave girl which hitherto had brought her masters a lot of money.  The evil spirit in the girl had been interfering with Paul and Silas’ labours in the Gospel, following them around and so Paul casts it out in the name of Yeshua the Messiah.  This ends up causing an uproar, ultimately leading to Paul and Silas being beaten severely and thrown into prison, securely bound in chains.  While Paul and Silas are praising God a huge earthquake hits and all the chains fall of the prisoners.   Rather than Paul and Silas fleeing, they remain put and reassure the jailor, who was about to take his own life – for fear of his fate of prisoners escaping on his watch – but the fear of God then came upon him and he fell down before Paul and Silas trembling.  For the whole account please do read the whole of Acts chapter 16.  For our purposes however, this leads us to Acts 16:30-34 which says this:

‘And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they [the apostle Paul and Silas] said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your house-hold.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.  And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.  Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced having believed in God with all his household.”

Praise the Lord!

If you have any questions concerning the above please email me and I will do my utmost to answer.

Shalom.