After a few years praying through the book of Psalms, I realize that if we would follow the directive of the Lord’s prayer we could actually have a meeting with the Holy Spirit. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus taught the first thing about prayer is “enter into thy closet” and “shut thy door”, that has to be absolute quiet without interruption, (maybe early in the morning or late at night). Next, really respect and acknowledge God is the highest in the universe, without accepting God’s authority over our way of life we would become rebellious children. Thirdly the scripture says; The end of all things is near, therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. (NIV 1Pte 4:7) we need to quiet our busy mind, do not think about anything, focus only on God. The Greek word here is “νήφω” meaning “to drink no wine”, KJV translate “watch onto prayer”, NIV translate to “self-controlled so that you can pray”, the problem today is vast amount of information (most of them fake) constantly drive us insane, we loose control of our mind and thoughts so badly that we can not pray. Many people fail to realize prayer is to communicate with the creator and the most high of the whole universe. It is the highest honor on earth to be able to talk to God, we have to prepare our heart and mind properly. Some are full of pride and self, without repentance they can not enter the presence of God.
When we read Psalms to ourselves the meeting starts, for example psalm one:
- the Holy Spirit speak to us: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. our soul may agree or doubt or even refuse. But our mind can’t be sure what happened in our spirit.
- Holy Spirit speak: But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Most people failed to realize the Holy Spirit is teaching us how to practice the most important commandment, to love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. To meditate the word of God day and night actually engage our heart, soul and mind to God that will make communication with Holy Spirit more likely. Many professing Christians don’t like this idea, they are distracted by the devil to put their focus on earthly things. They can’t read the Psalms for half an hour for it’s too boring. I think my soul have said “no” to the Holy Spirit lots of times. It’s a struggle, the next day I have to obey the scripture “speaking to yourselves with psalms” again. By God’s grace I didn’t give up, but it’s some may decide to stop, as the scripture described “receive the grace in vain”. To receive God’s grace means to do what the scripture said regardless it making sense or not, just trust and obey. This way we don’t jeopardize our spiritual progress.
Psalm 6, sickness, enemy, rebuking and healing
- Holy Spirit teach us how to pray for sickness: O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed. He is teaching me; I am weak, almost have no faith, that will result in many sin and willful sin, then become sick. I need to know It’s God’s rebuking and chastening. The best thing is to ask God not to rebuke me in his anger and heal me.
- Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all mine enemies. I need to know my sickness and trouble are caused by “all mine enemies”, due to walking in the flash I can’t see this, so Holy Spirit teach us to pray against enemies in the next verse;
- Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly. Can we ask God to kill all our enemies? Maybe not, this is the proper prayer in such situation. (I don’t know all this, only during my writing and meditating the understanding came into my mind.)
Psalm 7, Judgment and Righteousness
- Holy Spirit teach us a very important thing; The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me. Somehow I wish wouldn’t have to pray like this, for I know I have too little integrity and righteousness. Several years ago I did seek the Lord to judge me, during meditation and waiting, suddenly an “idea” came to me; “always underestimate God”. My soul knows this is so accurate, I underestimate God’s authority, his power, his love and his anger and … I simply knows very little about God. It reminds me Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 1:17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. (NIV) We really need to know him better.
- Holy Spirit tell us to pray in the next verse; O let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish the just. For the righteous God tries the minds and hearts. If we don’t pray like this, will the wickedness of the wicked come to an end by itself? Many of God’s children do not want to obey the word of God to pray according to his will, so here we have the earth full of trouble and suffering.
- Holy Spirit teach us God’s righteousness; God judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn, He will whet His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready. Yea, He has fitted for him instruments of death; But who is this wicked that God is angry with? Listen to Psalm 80 verse 4; O LORD God of hosts, how long will You be angry against the prayer of Your people? The book of Isiah give me understanding why God is angry against his people.
- But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; (ESV Isa 60:1,2) God told us there two type of people, one is humble who tremble at his word, another is not humble although they appear to have followed the scripture, but they choose their own ways. We have to heed the warning, not to choose our own ways again and again. Should we examine our heart to see whether we tremble at the word of God? How many have chosen their own ways? For those who refused God’s blessing by not meditating the law of the Lord day and night, did they not walk in the counsel of the wicked? However when we are weak or sick or tempted we sin against the Lord, remember to pray Psalm 6:1, O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger, neither chasten me in your hot displeasure.
- At the end of this chapter Holy Spirit remind us one important thing; I will praise the LORD according to His righteousness, and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high. Too often we take everything for granted and forget to praise the Lord. There are consequences of not praising the Lord, consequences of not praying according to God’s will, there so many teachings we have failed to obey, it’s better to wake up and repent now before the time runs out.
Do not be discouraged after praying through many Psalms and yet still can’t understand much, it takes time for the heart and soul to learn. When we follow Psalm 4 to commune with our heart at night, the word of God went to the heart, but it may not be convinced at once, so we need other words from the book of Psalms. I always have to struggle against my flash that has no understanding, impatient and keep wandering away from the Psalms. Maybe this is common when the Holy Spirit doing it’s work to clean and purify our inner being through the word of God. And all this is happening in the middle of a fierce battle of spiritual war that no one can see. We may not have much control of our spiritual condition as we thought, because it depends on the heart, spirit and soul. We have focused too much on the “exterior”, on the knowledge, logic and reasoning side but neglect the interior. We need to pay special attention to what the word of God said about the Holy Spirit; And we are His witnesses of these things. And so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him. (Acts 5:32) The key is those who obey him, whoever does not obey will not have the Spirit, those who chose to disobey partially still have to face the consequence.