Daily Reflections

from the Book of Psalms

August 8, A Surrendered Heart

The sacrifice mentioned in today’s passage is not doing something you don’t want to do or giving something you don’t want to give. It refers to the animal and plant offerings made as part of the worship experience of an Old Testament. You can feel spiritual when you go to church, of when you do make a “sacrifice” — something that you designate as...

August 7, Guidance

David was in trouble (again) and cried out to the Lord in one long prayer contained in Psalm 31. In the midst of his pain, he prayed that God would lead and guide him. God must make His will clear to you if He expects you to fulfill it, and He is a great communicator who has any number of ways of getting through to you.

August 6, Jesus in Your Storm

The Lord is all powerful over nature and, if He is powerful over nature, He can and is also over mankind. These verses cause one to reflect not only on the Flood, over which the Lord presided with complete authority, but also on the incidents on the Sea of Galilee where the Lord demonstrated again and again that He was in control of His own creation:

August 5, The Covenant

God wants to share His “secrets” with you, revealing to you who He is and what He is doing in the earth. He especially wants to reveal to you His covenant ways, showing you the riches of the benefits for you a participant in His new covenant. One aspect of the covenant is described in Deuteronomy, and it has to do with wealth and the need to be faithful to the Lord:

August 4, Source of Strength

David was a warrior king, renowned for his military prowess. Yet he learned not to trust in his own strength, experience, or gifting, but rather to trust in the name of the Lord. On once occasion, the Philistines attacked and David asked the Lord what he should do. The Lord replied, “Go, for I will surely deliver the Philistines into your hands” (2 Samuel 5:19b).

August 3, Helping the Poor

God’s heart is for the poor, who are the victims in a fallen world where injustice and oppression are the norm. The Bible is full of directives on how to treat, view, and care for the poor, but today’s verse indicates that evildoers don’t understand God’s care or concern. Therefore, the poor have...

August 2, Suffering

The psalmists all dealt with a common human experience, and that is suffering. Suffering is pain caused by broken relationships, misunderstandings, violence, persecutions and failures — all the human predicaments that lead to mental and physical turmoil and heartache. In today’s verse, David inquired of the Lord as to how long his suffering was going to last.

August 1, Only One God

Modern theologians declare that there are many ways to God. As long as someone is sincere, their thinking goes, then God will understand, and they can have access to God on their own terms. Yet somehow, that doesn’t even make logical sense, for if one says “This is good” and another says, “This is bad,” then both cannot be correct — it must either be good or bad, it cannot be both.

July 31, Studying God’s Word

Today’s verse contains a good prayer for you to pray when you are studying God’s word. You are studying God’s word, aren’t you? I am not talking about doing a quick reading every now and then, but actually delving into the sometimes intricate but always rewarding concepts and history contained within the text.

July 30, Your Emotional Health

The Lord is mindful of your emotional condition and can heal your hurts just like He can heal your physical problems. If the Lord is that interested in your emotional health, then you should be as well. That means you should take your feelings seriously, especially if you are depressed, angry, tense or fearful.

July 29, Handling Criticism (and the Critic)

Receiving input from others, especially when it isn’t requested and falls into the category of “constructive criticism,” can be a challenging event. David vowed in today’s verse that he would not reject the rebuke from others and would not be angry at the ‘rebuker,’ choosing instead to keep his focus on the real enemies in his life.

July 28, Getting Real with God

God already knows your thoughts and your words before you speak them. That is in part why the psalms are so brutally honest, for the writers knew it was ridiculous to try and hide their true feelings. Therefore, when someone says, “I would never say that to the Lord,” they are missing the point that, if they think it, it’s as good as saying it, for God knows.

July 27, Vindication

One of the most difficult aspects of life to surrender to the Lord is your reputation. When someone makes an accusation or charges you with an offense, everything in you wants to defend yourself and correct what people are thinking about you. Yet the Lord desires that you trust your reputation with Him, allowing Him to be your...

July 26, A Kingdom Worker

The concept of work is different for a believer than for someone who doesn’t know the Lord. For the unbeliever, work is how he or she makes money. For believers, God has promised to provide, so they work to extend God’s kingdom rule on the job. What does that mean?

Your Life Matters

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For centuries, people have turned to the Book of Psalms to help make sense and to find comfort in times of trouble. They have also gone there to find words to express the praise in their hearts for the magnificence and glory of God. In Your Life Matters: Daily Reflections from the Book of Psalms, John Stanko adds his own insight into the Psalms and how they relate to your life matters such as suffering, prayer, the poor, mercy, grace and leadership. For every day of the year, John assigns a reading from Psalms, picks a verse or passage, makes some devotional comments, asks some pointed questions and adds a cross reference to another portion of the Bible. Your Life Matters is practical, inspirational, and helpful, and is certain to become your daily favorite to help you reflect on your life and God’s role in it.