A Righteous Judge-Psalm 7
A Righteous Judge
Psalm 7
“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”Amos 5:24 ESV
Slander. Accusations. Gossip. These things hurt and cause pain, sorrow, contention, broken relationships, guilt, and grief. It can be hard to know how we ought to respond to this kind of adversity in our lives. In Psalm 7 David faces the slander of His enemies, and yet he entrusts himself to the Lord, the righteous Judge. Let’s pray today for that situation where unjust things have been spoken about you, or unjust things have been done to you, and let’s entrust ourselves to Him who judges righteously.
A Cry for Rescue
7:1-2 O Lord my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
Let’s pray:
▫️That when we are wrongly slandered, we would take refuge in the Lord. Who has slandered you or made false accusations against you? Let’s ask the Lord to save us from their slanderous speech and protect our reputation, for His sake.
▫️The Lord would overcome their false accusations against you.
▫️The Lord would hold you together and let your soul take its rest in Him, as slanderous words can cause deep sorrow. Are there any hurtful words, negative opinions from others, or lack of encouragement that we need to give to the Lord?
▫️For the Lord’s protection against the wiles of the devil, and the Lord would not allow him to overtake, discourage, or dishearten you.
A Call to Confession
7:3-5 O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
Let’s pray:
▫️And confess to the Lord any wrongdoing on our part and receive His forgiveness. Is there anything we can do to seek peace with the person slandering or mistreating us?
▫️That the Lord would search our own hearts for any bitterness or vengeance, and we would confess it.
▫️We would resist the temptation to seek revenge.
God, the Righteous Judge
7:6-11 Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous— you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.
Let’s pray:
▫️The Lord would arouse Himself for us to set right what has gone wrong.
▫️In His righteousness, He would take away our reproach among those who have heard the lies spoken about us.
▫️The Lord would bring justice and rescue us and set things in order.
▫️we would continue to walk in our integrity and uprightness.
▫️When Satan, others, or even our own conscience accuses us, our hope would rest on Christ’s righteousness and not our own. Let’s pray we would rest confidently, knowing that God has justified us in Christ so that there is no longer any condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
▫️The Lord would cause the wicked slander to be stopped and He would establish us, directing our hearts to His love and His steadfastness.
▫️In this testing of our faith, it would prove the genuineness of our faith, which is more precious than gold, and it would result in praise, honor, and glory to Jesus Christ.
▫️Through this testing, the Lord would strengthen our faith and perfect, establish, and strengthen us.
▫️We would be comforted knowing that Christ Himself was despised and rejected, and yet while being reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten; but He kept entrusting Himself to God, who judges righteously. May we do the same!
▫️He would be our shield and save us while we walk uprightly and in sincerity.
Repentance or Recompense
7:12-16 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.
Let’s pray:
▫️For true repentance in those who have conceived evil against us, lied about us, or caused mischief.
▫️The Lord would keep us from evil, mischief, and lies, and He would protect us from those who would seek to harm us in those ways.
▫️The one desiring evil against us, their mischief would return upon their own head, but that God would be merciful toward them.
▫️The Lord would turn all their evil intentions for our good.
Praise to God Most High
7:17 I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.”
Let’s praise the Lord:
▫️For His righteousness and that He always acts according to it.
▫️That He gave His Son on our behalf that we could be made right, justified, in Him.
▫️For He is God Most High and nothing is too difficult for Him.
▫️And sing praise to His name today for His abundant blessings.
May the Lord do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think, for His glory and our good. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Psalm 7 quoted from the ESV
Photo credit to Marilyn Nieves
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