Praying for more

David ends Psalm 36 with a prayer for all believers:

Continue your love to those who know you,
    your righteousness to the upright in heart.
 May the foot of the proud not come against me,
    nor the hand of the wicked drive me away.

See how the evildoers lie fallen—
    thrown down, not able to rise! (vs. 10-12)

David is asking God to continue His love to those who know Him. Even thought we have come to know God - even though we have experienced His grace and love through Jesus Christ, we need a steady, uninterrupted flow! We need more. And He has promised it.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 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 nor 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. (Romans 8:35-39)

But wait, you may say, why do we need to ask Him for it, if He has already promised to continue His love for us?

It's because as the old joke went, "God isn't finished with us yet." We are never fully sanctified in this life. We are sanctified (more and more, if we are seeking Him) each day, but we will not be completely like our Savior until we see Him face to face:

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (I John 3:2)

So, we must continue to ask God to bless us with the gift of His righteousness. Not just in outward behavior - also in uprightness of our hearts. We need to seek God, and we need to delight in Him, so that we may have a pure heart: a pure thought life.

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
    be pleasing in your sight,
    Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

Outward sin begins with corrupt thoughts. If we allow those thoughts to remain and give them a home in our heart, it's only a matter of time before we sin outwardly!

In closing the psalm, David asks that the Lord will protect him (and us) from the proud and the wicked . . . evil people feel uncomfortable around righteous people. They feel in their hearts, with the conscience that they still have, that they are somehow not quite right. They feel what the old-timers used to call "convicted." We don't hear that much nowadays, do we? (Grin) Conviction is a translation of the Greek word "elencho" and it means to "convince someone of a truth, to reprove, accuse, or cross-examine a witness." The Holy Spirit as a prosecuting attorney? Can't think of a better one! So, instead of just the pangs of a guilty conscience, the wicked have their evil exposed and reproved; they are convinced that they need a Savior. To be convicted is to feel the sheer ugliness of sin. And that happens when we have seen God's beauty, His purity, and His delightfulness. When they are convicted, the wicked would love to see the righteous fall, go away, be swept aside. Then they can continue in their sin. 

David looks into the future, though, and he says that he knows (verse 12) that the wicked will meet their final demise. He is so confident in the Lord that he sees this in the future, just as if it has already happened. We, too, can be confident that the Lord will protect us, and the wicked will receive His judgment.

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (Matthew 25:46)

Have we cried out to Jesus for life and light? Have we seen the deceitfulness of sin and turned away from its flattery? Have we delighted in God and His abundant blessings? Let's make the priority of each day to find happiness in our God!