Anglican Devotional 2 November 2024 — Crying To The Lord In Distress

The Daily Fountain Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) 2 November 2024 — Crying To The Lord In Distress

TOPIC: Crying To The Lord In Distress

READ: Psalm 28:1-9 (NKJV)

A Psalm of David. To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock: Do not be silent to me, Lest, if You [are] silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.
Hear the voice of my supplications When I cry to You, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.
Do not take me away with the wicked And with the workers of iniquity, Who speak peace to their neighbors, But evil [is] in their hearts.
Give them according to their deeds, And according to the wickedness of their endeavors; Give them according to the work of their hands; Render to them what they deserve.
Because they do not regard the works of the LORD, Nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them And not build them up.
Blessed [be] the LORD, Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
The LORD [is] my strength and my shield; My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart greatly rejoices, And with my song I will praise Him.
The LORD [is] their strength, And He [is] the saving refuge of His anointed.
Save Your people, And bless Your inheritance; Shepherd them also, And bear them up forever.

THE MESSAGE:

All Souls’ Day is a Day the Church set aside to appreciate the lives of those who died in the Faith. In this Psalm, the writer cries to the Lord about his enemies and asks the Lord not to be silent to his cry. He petitioned the Lord to deliver him from the just judgment due his enemies (verses 1-4). He expressed confidence that the Lord will punish them (verse 5). He was very confident also of God’s answer to his prayer.

Enemies are common all around us and when one is succeeding or progressing in life, it naturally attracts these enemies. The concern then is how one handles the situation. The commonest thing in our contemporary society is to pray for our enemies to die. Our greatest enemy is the Devil who uses human agents and spiritual forces to fight us. The best approach to fighting our enemies is, like the Psalmist, to hand them over to God to judge them when we must have done all in our power for peace and reconciliation. Let us toe the path of reconciliation laid out to us by Christ in Matthew 18: 15-17 and also remember His injunction in Matthew 5: 43-46 to love our enemies, bless them, do good to them and also pray for them. This is possible by the grace of God.