Faithful on Fridays Blog

Our final four Hebrew letters draw this Psalm to a close with words of affirmation and encouragement. God has David connect the word ‘many’ with ‘all’ as you read verse nineteen. He intimately knows our troubles, stresses, and tight places (afflictions) but also promises deliverance out of them all. We have an enemy that patrols the earth (Job 1&2), watching for an inroad in our lives: He’s our adversary. His goal is to defeat you, draw you away from your relationship with God, and keep you down until the final count. The Spirit’s goal is to be available with the spiritual power necessary to be victorious against him. Many … all, it’s one of the benefit’s of being found righteous ‘in Christ’.

We have a divine bodyguard, the next verse reminds us, whose name is the Spirit of Christ. He stands guard, protects, and watches us for any approaching enemies whose desire is to break us down. ‘All of his bones’ is a metaphor for our whole life, body, soul, and spirit: all that makes us alive. The enemy wants to deplete our strength  removing our power, but God rescues us when we cry out to Him. As Job learned, Satan cannot kill us, but he is given a limited amount of authority until his allotted time is completed. Our job is to stay the course, renew our relationship with Christ every day, and receive all we need to be victorious.

We are delivered from the evil afflictions of our enemy, all of the misery, distress, and even wrongs done to us, but until the rescue comes, verse twenty-one tells us, it’s crucial to remember that Satan does have an end. His evil, this Psalm reminds us, is pictured as slaying to the death with his condemnation as his future. Those who hate followers of Christ have a fate quite different from us, the righteous. Eternity for a believer begins when we put our trust in Jesus Christ to forgive us, redeem us, and the privilege to run to Him for refuge and safety. 

… and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death. Philippians 3:9-10 ESV

If you find yourself under more stress than usual, this Psalm will help you remember, like a mnemonic device, that God the Father sent His Son to redeem you, His Spirit to guide and empower you, and seal your fate for eternity.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1 NKJV

You don’t have to know the Hebrew alphabet to gain wisdom and understanding from Psalm 34, only an open heart to receive His affirmation and encouragement.