Thank you all so much for journeying with us as we trek through the Psalms. We are elated we get to share what God is showing us through diving deep into scriptures! We hope that you continue to read along with us through our reading guide as we break down the Psalms!
As we journey through the second book of the Psalms, I discovered that there are so many wonderful encouragements filled in this book! There is something in this book for so many seasons of life that we can all learn from, which is why of the five books in Psalms, this one is my favorite!
I am particularly excited about this Psalm but also nervous. It is so convicting. Psalm 53 points out our sinful nature, the dangers of sin, and the even bigger dangers that come with ignoring the Judge in order to avoid the judgment. I first want to say that with this post, my goal is to simply breakdown scripture and show what God pointed out to me while reading this passage. I am in no way trying to offend or call anyone out on their sin. This is a passage that is so important to my faith and shows just how sinful of a people that we are apart from Christ.
Psalm 53 is so convicting and incredibly powerful. The darkness of our sinful nature is fully laid out in this chapter. One of the first things that I noticed when reading was the transition from prayer to praise that David gives. David was not afraid to come before God and express his true feelings and the needs David had in his life. We really hear David's heart cry poured out in this Psalm. That is something that I for sure need to work on. I often feel that I give God this "laundry list" of needs and never give any regard to my feelings or anything that may be going on deeper in my soul.
This psalm starts with a very bold statement in the first verse, “There is no God”. Echoing the message in Psalm 14, we see David proclaim the foolishness of atheism. I believe that the term “fools” used here speaks to our inward nature, our sinful nature. A “fool” does not necessarily lack intelligence in this instance, but “fools” are people who reject God, the only one who can save them. The latter part of the first verse, “There is no one who does good” immediately reminded me of Romans 3:10, “There is none righteous, not even one." I want to stress that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. Sin isn’t weighed in the eyes of God, (James 2:10-11) although sins here on Earth do have various consequences.
In verses 3-4, we see the “prayer to praise” that I was discussing earlier. David was not afraid to express to God what his true feelings and needs were. Due to the faithfulness of David here, we see that he could not help but praise God, his protector, helper, and friend. This is such a beautiful image, that we can have a personal relationship with him. He is our friend, our helper in time of need, and our protector.
Ending the chapter with verses 5 and 6, we see the dangers of believing the bold claim that “there is no God”. By this verse, the true reason for rejecting God is clear. The reason that people reject God has nothing to do with God’s existence, but everything to do with sin. In our sin and desire to do wrong, it is often easy for us (acting out of our sinful nature) to reject God or pretend he doesn’t exist. This type of rejection often too easily turns into an unhealthy fear of God. The harsh reality is that when God passes the final judgment, it will be too late to apologize for any unresolved issues or to admit any wrongs.
I want to thank you all for reading through the Psalms with us so far. I hope that you find joy or even conviction while we go through this book! We are so excited to be doing this series and sharing our thoughts with you all throughout each week!
Be a Blessing,
Courtney F.
Resources:
https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=spur&b=19&c=53
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