The Lord Always Before Me!

“O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.” Psalm 16:5-9 

Andrew Womack teaches, we do not try to get God to do something rather we recognise what He has already made provision for. Paul writes, “And yet the works have been finished from the foundation of the world.” & “For the one having entered into His rest, he also rested from his works, as God did from the own.” Hebrews 4:3,10 The point being for us to recognise what God has already purposed and we bring ourselves to conformity and rest. 

We at times strive with God to save or heal someone, and it sounds very virtuous on our part but we conveniently forget that redemption is His own work, without any of us having to plead or beg Him for it. He Himself purposed it before the foundation of the world. So rather than begging and pleading [which does nothing] we renew our thinking to realise His own exceeding love that compelled Him to the cross and we give our voice to His own very purpose, with praise and thanksgiving. It is like following someone’s wake and declaring their work, which they have already done. 

“Be anxious about nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6

So I am not begging God to do something as if God needed convincing, it is me who needed to realise the very good thing which He had always purposed. Therefore I set the Lord always before me, I walk in His wake of blessings which He has always intended for me. David expressed it in this way, “When I cry out to You, then my enemies will turn back; This I know, because God is for me. In God (I will praise His word), In the Lord (I will praise His word), in God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid.” Psalm 56:9-11 Notice, when David made this statement his enemies have yet to turn back! But he is confident they will because he knows God’s heart toward  him, so putting his trust in God, he casts aside all fear and sets himself to praise God [NOW] for His promises.

The Lord said to Lydia Prince, “I can only bless those things that are freely given to Me.” [Appointment in Jerusalem] Meaning you have to know My heart and not exalt your own. If we knew that it would lift the burden of us, and we would not hold so tightly. Our prayer to God will always be joyful, filled with praises and thankfulness, because we are only declaring to God what is in His heart to do and has done. God is for me. “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we might ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we might ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked from Him.” 1 John 5:14-15  

Therefore, we are either trying to pull God pleading or we are running after Him with praise and thanksgiving. If we are pulling Him, then our heart is taking the pre-eminence but if we are running after Him, His heart becomes the source of our confidence. “This I know because God is for me.” The Lord said of the good Shepherd, “When He has brought out all the own, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, because they know His voice.” John 10:4 To follow means to trust, to follow means to know the One before me has my best interest at heart. 

Curry Blake teaches how human emotions at times can be a hindrance. It might seem to us we are expressing our great care but it serves to diminish our faith in God and hinder His purpose. We fret because we are not confident in God. We are exalting our own heart above His will and desire to bless. So Paul says first and foremost of all “be anxious for nothing.” That is the foundation of the very bud of the expression of our faith, it is the ground we stand on, not because we are emotionless or heartless but because we are transfixed upon God who gave all to bless us. “If God is for us, who can be against us? For He who spared not the own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, with Him, grant us all things?” Romans 8:31-32

“This I know because God is for me,” therefore “My flesh will rest in hope.”

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