“...Remember the word unto Thy servant, upon which Thou hast caused me to hope.” (Psalms 119:49)
It’s believed that David is the author of Psalms 119, but that is not a certainty. Psalms 119 is a prayer. In verse 49, the psalmist begins with the word remember, not that God would forget any Word that He has spoken. One of the implications of the word remember is to keep. In this verse, the psalmist pleads that the Lord keep, maintain and continue the word He has given to him. God is faithful to His Word. And the psalmist is not pleading for God not to forget and is not reminding Him of His Word.
Ethan the Ezrahite wrote in Psalms 89 about God’s faithfulness in keeping the promise He made to David. “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips. Once have I sworn by My holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah” (Psalms 89:34-37) This is the Lord’s promise that an eternal kingdom will come from David. It’s speaking of a divine and godly kingdom. It’s speaking of the reign of Christ as King and Lord, Jesus, a descendent of David. Although this is a promise to David, we see God’s nature in what He says. God doesn’t break His promises. He doesn’t change what He has said. And He doesn’t lie.
Notice the trust that the psalmist of Psalm 119 has in God to keep His Word. He says keep, maintain and continue what is already happening. I keep returning to the fact that God sees the end from the beginning. “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure:” (Isaiah 46:9-10). It was a done deal already to God.
What promises do we have in Christ? Can you recall them all? They are numerous. They are a done deal. Like the psalmist of Psalm 119, we can pray for the Lord to remember, not reminding Him, but asking Him to continue and maintain His goodness in the promise that is already done in heaven, the promise that has come from His Word and the promise that is for us. Do not doubt this important aspect of God’s nature and the reality of the spiritual realm in which God lives.
While it is true, we may not see the manifestation of it on earth, there are many factors that cause this. The main one is doubt because we are depending on what we see, hear and feel in the natural. This is not to say that if you are not receiving the promise, you are doubting. It might be God’s way of getting your attention, changing your direction, bringing others or other situations into play. It may be a zillion other things, but one thing is sure, if God said it, it’s true, and God is faithful to what He said.
The Word of God gave the psalmist hope. God’s promise to us gives us hope. What is hope? It’s the expectation, the assurance and confidence of what is to come. Hope is positive and never negative. When we say, “I hope” today, it’s most times negative because to us it has to do with the impossibility of something. But to God hope is positive. It’s the confidence that it will happen. And when this pertains to God’s Word, “I hope” should mean, “I have the assurance” of its manifestation because God said it. Does the situation look impossible? Is the thing we are hoping in impossible? It may be impossible to us. It may be impossible in this world. But God is the God of the impossible. The promises of His Word will not fail. “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
What is our attitude when we depend on God’s Word? Come to the Lord with the assurance (hope) that what He said He will remember. He will continue and keep it as it is already done in heaven.
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