Psalm 120 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Here to start your day along with you in the Word of God, spending time with God.

You know, reading the Bible each day, it can just be a dry, boring thing, but when you recognise that the Bible is God’s Word to you.

It is God’s message not just to all people of all time. God’s message to you that God has put His Holy Spirit in your heart and life if you have a living relationship with Him.

His Holy Spirit in your life.

In order to help you understand His message through the Bible to you, and the Holy Spirit personalises what you read, and your own Spirit recognises the voice of God in your heart speaking to you through His Word. I hope you take time every day of your life, not just our time together, but your own time reading your Bible, listening to God.

We come today to Psalm 120. The psalmist says:

In my trouble, I cried to the Lord, and He answered me.

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Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

What shall be given to you and what more shall be done to you, you deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the warrior with the burning coals of the broom tree.

Woe is me, for I sojourn in Meshek, for I dwell among the tents of Kedar. Too long has my soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace.

I am for peace, but when I speak they are for war.

Hmmm.

You sense how much the psalmist feels out of place, don’t you?

Too long has my soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war.

Do you know something?

Those who are walking with God in a healthy relationship with God, learning to live by His precepts, to make His word the definition of their lives.

Those people will always feel like foreigners among the secular people that they live and work with.

They’ll feel out of place in their culture, culturally distant.

They won’t feel like they fit in. They won’t feel the same. There’ll be a level of discomfort when they are with worldly people, even if they love those people and have similar hobbies, similar interests to them. There is the foundational difference of someone with God at the centre of their lives that cannot be overcome. You’re just different.

The only way you can cease being different is to become worldly yourself. It’s a good thing to feel like foreigners, to feel different and distant.

Do not allow the pressure and desire to be like other people, to fit in – allow you to compromise your own walk with God, your own spiritual convictions. Come to God’s Word every day. Build your life around it. Allow God to be your closest friend. Fit in with God’s kingdom, not with the kingdoms of this world.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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