# 35 2018 Dev. Ps. 44:22 Spiritual Opposition! Read all of Ps. 44. The purpose of these devotionals is to draw Gremar and I closer to God and grow spiritually by applying His Word to our daily living. All passages are taken from the NIV.
Psalm 44:22 “Yet for your sake we face death all day long:
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Book II of the Psalms begins with three prayers. Ps. 42&43, an individual prayer. Ps. 44, a prayer of the community. Ps. 45, a praise song yet considered to be a prayer. Ps 44 begins with praising God for past successes in battle, God is given the credit; “my sword does not bring me victory; but you give us victory…” That is the past. Vs 9- 16 “But now you rejected and humbled us”. These ten verses paint to a sad and dark place they are experiencing at this time.
Is there a sin in the land as was at the time they entered the land and destroyed Jericho, but the next battle overwhelmed them because one man stole what was dedicated to God? Sin can do that but God does not leave them. They left God!
We may identify with the Psalmist; sin clouds our spiritual decrement. We cannot see God in our daily life any longer but God does not leave us, we have left Him.
The Psalmist goes on to claim innocence; vs. 17-21 Their hearts are pure; they have not strayed. “If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God have discovered it since he knows the secrets of the heart?”
Perhaps we identify with this part of the prayer, if we dare because sin is too much with us. Yet, our God is merciful, not counting our sins against us but forgiving them, to be remembered no more (Ps.103:12.13, Ro. 4:7, Eph.2:5)!
The Psalmist understands this as punishment from God but the next verse, v,22 puts this prayer into Spiritual Opposition as Paul points out in Romans 8. Unbeknown to the Psalmist but by the the power of the Holy Spirits, this prayer moves into our time and into our lives, showing us again that the the Word of God is alive!
If the truth be told, God’s people in both the Old Testament church and in the the New Testament church are rejected, maligned, persecuted and killed only because we believe, worship, and honor our God in Christ in our daily living. Paul’s quote of this verse in Romans 8:36 makes that very clear: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height no depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. What do we take away from this Psalm? Followers of Jesus, trust in God’s unfailing love!
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