Look inside this book.Where the Bush is Burning: A Daily Devotional by [Thomas Tice]

Tag: Psalm 56
When I Am Afraid

When I Am Afraid

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Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.  

Psalm 56: 3 

What shall we do when we are afraid? Fear is a genuinely human emotion we experience at a most elemental level. We experience it from our earliest days. We observe fear in a tiny infant in reaction to a loud noise or some other stimulus. As we grow older our fears become more sophisticated. Events or experiences from the past may continue to provoke fear in us through memories or triggers. We may face present fears because of peril or some situation which provokes the reaction because of a perceived threat. We may fear the future because of the unknown, or because we have a sense of foreboding about what may occur and the adverse effects of it. David had many occasions in his life which provoked fear. As a young person, he faced a lion and a bear. Later in his youth he faced the giant, Goliath of Gath. In the passage from which our text derives, he was in Goliath’s hometown and the citizens had recognized him as Goliath’s killer. David’s solution was to trust in God when he was afraid. The passage reveals his evangelical trust in Christ. We can learn much from David about how to deal with fear.  

Our Gracious Master and our God, 
we rejoice that You understand what makes us afraid. 
We praise You that we find in You, 
the answer for all our fears. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
God Is For Me

God Is For Me

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Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me? 

When I cry out to You, then my enemies will turn back; this I know, because God is for me.  

Psalm 56:3 & 9 

How do we know that God is for us? David was clear about his trust in God. His trust was that God would protect and preserve him; that God would judge the wicked; and that He was for David, as our text says. David’s hope in God was a decidedly evangelical hope. He knew enough to clearly articulate that Christ was his Lord; that He would sit upon His Throne; and that Jehovah would subdue all His enemies under His feet. He also knew enough to be able to say of Christ, ‘Your people shall be willing in the day of your power.’ He understood the saving power of the work of Christ. The Old Testament is full of the types, shadows and signposts that point to the Person and work of Christ. They lead us to the inevitable conclusion that God is for us. The overwhelming proof of that is Christ. He has come into the world; has lived perfectly; has died sacrificially; has arisen powerfully; has appeared Personally; has ascended visibly; is interceding perpetually and will come again victoriously. He has said He will not cast out any who come to Him. All this evidence leads us to the conclusion that God is for us.  

Our Glorious, Living Christ, 
we rejoice in all You are. 
We praise You that all You have done, 
has proven to us that You are for us. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
What Can Man Do?

What Can Man Do?

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When I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me? 

Psalm 56:3-4 

Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me? 

Hebrews 13:5-6 

David had hope in Christ. Christ referred to this understanding when He challenged the Pharisees regarding His identity. He asked them how Christ could be the Son of David, and David still refer to Him as Lord. This is one instance of David’s evangelical knowledge. In the four verses which form our text, we find the language is very similar. David repeats the key phrase even more specifically in the eleventh verse of the psalm when he says, ‘What can man do to me?’ The verses from Hebrews use that same phrase. We see there is a direct relation between David’s expressed confidence in God and the depiction of Christ from Hebrews. If David’s confidence was in Christ, so much so that he could say, ‘What can man do to me?’ we have every reason to believe that Christ will be as much with us as He was with him. We are the Body of Christ. We are the spiritual inheritors of the same faith David had. We believe, as David did, that nothing can happen to us that falls outside of the providential plan of God for us in Christ. If Christ will never leave us or forsake us, we may also boldly say, ‘What can man do to me?’  

Our Gracious God and our Savior, 
we rejoice that You are always with us. 
We praise that, because You are,  
no one can touch us apart from Your will and plan. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
Not Put To Shame

Not Put To Shame

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Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. 

Psalm 56:3  

For the Scripture says, Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. 

Romans 10:11 

Do we trust in God in vain? If we listen to those who carp and cavil against God and faith, we will conclude that trust in God is a vain and fruitless exercise. When Paul was writing to the Romans, he addressed this issue by saying, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ Within the context, Paul is referring specifically to salvation. The verses following our text say, ‘For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’  The most important issue in relation to our trust in God has to do with salvation. No other issue supersedes this one. Therefore, when we come to the matter of whether it is vain to trust in God, this is the first priority. If we can trust God for our soul’s salvation, we can trust Him for all the things that are less than that. Therefore, if we are trusting Christ with our soul and will not be put to shame, we can be sure that He will oversee all the other affairs which respect us. If a sparrow does not fall to the ground without His knowledge, and we are of more value to Him than many sparrows, then He will see to it that all is well with us. We shall not be put to shame.  

Our Holy, Unchanging God, 
we rejoice that You have given us every reason to trust You. 
We praise You that our trust in You 
is not in vain. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning
In The Light

In The Light

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For You have delivered my soul from death. Have You not kept my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living? 

Psalm 56:3, 13 

What is the end result of trusting in God? As David concludes the psalm from which our text derives, he expresses his confidence for the future based on God’s actions on his behalf. Verse thirteen articulates his certainty about his future. Because God has delivered his soul from death and has kept his feet from falling, he anticipates that he will walk before God in the light of the living. This statement was true for David in the immediate sense, in that God did deliver him from the hands of the Philistines, but it also has a much larger implication. David’s expectation was not confined to this life only. His confidence in Christ was such that he anticipated the day when he would be with Christ in the light of the living for all eternity. Christ’s statement from John 11 is an all-encompassing statement which applies to all who believe. He said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die….’ This is the end result of trust in Christ. He is able to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Our future is with Him. Because He lives, we shall live also. The life we have with Him now is but the prelude to eternity with Him.  

Our Glorious, Living Christ, 
we rejoice that You are our hope. 
We praise You that we shall walk with You, 
in the light of the living. 

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

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