GREAT REASONS TO REJOICE
Psalms 5: 11-12 NKJ
11 But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You;
Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them;
Let those also who love Your name
Be joyful in You.
12 For You, O Lord, will bless the righteous;
With favor You will surround him as with a shield.
I do love the Psalms. One of my goals this year is to read through the Psalms once per month. That’s only five psalms a day, but now that it’s public, I am committed. Feel free to ask me how I am doing. But I would rather shoot high and miss it than shoot at nothing and make it.
The Psalms is such a great mixture of revealed truth and revealed heart. We see David express his heart for the Lord in good times and difficult times. And we get glimpses of who God is and who He can be to us. Today is one of those peeks into the nature of God and what He does for His own. These two verses supply great reasons to rejoice.
We can rejoice because we put our trust in God. We have a God who is also our Heavenly Father, and we have someone who is great and powerful, and totally trustworthy. I have some people in my life that I know I can trust. They are a blessing to me because I know what to expect. I certainly can’t say that about everyone in my life, but the ones I can trust add such peace and value. It is good to tell the Father that we trust Him and He is always faithful. Speaking these words does not change God or cause Him to respond to us, but it does something for us. Declaring we can put our trust in God is a declaration of faith. And faith is how the kingdom of God operates.
We can shout for joy because God defends us. The word defends can also be translated protect or, literally, cover. God has us covered. I say that to people who are important to me - I got you! I got you covered! We are important to God, and He has us, so we can rejoice. He’s got us!
We can be joyful in God because everything in our life is perfect. No, that’s not accurate. We can be joyful and rejoice in our God because He blesses the righteous. The righteous are those who are in right standing with God. We come into right standing with God when we make Jesus our Lord and Savior. And we live as the righteous when we are intentional about pleasing God. So, in Christ, we were made right so that we might live right. And the righteous are blessed. I encourage you to not look at every area of your life to determine if you are blessed. Rather, accept the blessings that are yours in Christ and rejoice in that. We always believe before we see.
And we can rejoice because God surrounds us with favor as a shield. God’s favor has shown up throughout the scriptures. We see God’s favor on Joseph and Daniel, which caused people to treat them favorably. Now you may not think that you have any favor in your life. But a great way to see increased favor is to thank God for His favor before you see it. This is trusting that God has told us the truth in His word, and we believe it. Remember, we walk by faith, not by sight.
Because we have a relationship with God, we live differently. We rejoice before we see good things. We rejoice before everything looks right. Anyone can rejoice when things are going great, but we don’t wait. We rejoice because we trust in our God, who covers us, blesses us, and surrounds us with His favor. As believers, we have great reasons to rejoice!