I hope you are doing well, having a great week, seeking the Lord, and hiding His Word in your heart! I have a question for you as we get started. What would you say if someone asked you, "Why are you memorizing scripture?" I think we need to know. That reason will motivate us. For me, there are several reasons, but the most important is that memorizing scripture is part of the process of renewing my mind and Lord knows I am in desperate need of a mind renewal! Scripture memory makes all the difference in helping me to think according to Truth. What about you? I encourage you to think about it and make sure you know why you are endeavoring to hide God's Word in your heart. As we do that, let's move on to the next verse.
In the NASB Psalm 56:11 reads:
"In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
I know you are already aware that verse 10 and 11 go together. I mentioned it last week and I am sure you have made note of it yourself as you are memorizing, too. They are collectively woven as one thought. Last week we saw David boast in Elohim, the true God and in the LORD, the self existent God. He continues his thought in verse 11 by saying, "In God I have put my trust..." As he says this, his reference to "God" goes back to the name, "Elohim" meaning "God of gods" or "the true God."
Continuing to look further, as David says, "I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?" two things really stand out to me. First, I see worship. Here is what I mean: When David says, "I shall not be afraid" he uses the word "yare" in the Hebrew and it means to be in awe of, to give honor and respect to. Allow me to paraphrase what I perceive to be David's thoughts. David has acknowledged the self existent, true God, three times and now he says, "I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?" I see him thinking, why would I even bother to give honor and respect and awe to man in any way? I have a relationship with the one True, self existent God. I will place my trust in Him. I will boast in Him and Him alone! The point is this... trust is really a matter of worship.
Secondly, I see the need for repetition. How easily we get distracted and wander down anxious paths. David did... I do... we all do. We need to repeat what we know about our God to ourselves. We need to say it out loud. We need to speak it to our minds and tell ourselves the Truth often. We have noted how verses 10-11 are really a repeat of verse 4. David is repeating to himself. Although our focus is Psalm 56, I find David boasting in his trust in God again and again as I look through the whole book of Psalms, repeating his boast in God alone to himself again and again. We need to do the same!
There is a good word for us in Psalm 56:11. The object of our trust is the object of our worship. We would be wise to remind ourselves often that the one True God is the only one worthy of our trust.
