7 Facts About The Lord That Will Encourage You Right Now
King David was a mighty man of valor who also suffered dejection, deep sorrow, and discouragement. This post considers some of the ways you can learn from that man after God’s own heart to encourage yourself in the Lord.
King David—the man after God’s own heart… Most of us know quite well that memorable accolade spoken of him by God. It is found in 1Kings 15:5 and is a fitting capstone on David’s remarkable life. Yet the rest of the verse shows us that God in no way minimized that other thing for which David is probably most infamously remembered…
because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.
David abused his kingly authority by taking a married woman named Bathsheba, impregnating her, and in an effort to conceal his indiscretion, arranging and ordering the death of her husband Uriah. He then married Bathsheba. But his lustful, murderous act caused God to take the life of their firstborn child. Yet even as tragic as that was, it wasn’t the only sinful stain on David’s legacy.
There was a time when Satan tempted David to take a census of the people. Joab, the captain of David’s army, tried to discourage the king. David ordered him to take the census anyway. That prideful act incurred God’s wrath prompting Him to send a plague on Israel that killed 70,000 of David’s own people (1 Chron. 21:1-16). King David foolishly numbered how large his kingdom had become, and God punished him by decreasing that number.
Now the list of David’s woes doesn’t end there. You see, despite having a very impressive resumé from his youth up, David also turned out to be a very poor father. He had a son named Amnon, who raped and abandoned his own half sister, Tamar. His other son, Absalom, brother of Tamar, then murdered Amnon, for raping her. Later, Absalom rebelled against his father, conspired to take the kingdom from him, and, in an act of open defiance, he even slept with his father’s concubines (2 Sam. 16:20-22). In the end, Joab killed Absalom, which thrust David into the depths of a soul-agonizing sorrow.
By a lack of fatherly leadership, David ended up with a daughter who was forever scarred by an incestuous rape and its shame, and two wicked sons who were killed. For these reasons, and many others, David was a man who often found himself heading towards the depths of discouragement. And yet, there is no one in all of Scripture who praises God more frequently or more heartily than David.
So, from where did he get such an inspirational and enduring ability to praise God? The answer is easy—the only place that anyone can truly get it, even today… He got it directly from a proper knowledge of the Lord.
In other words, David REALLY knew the Lord. And considering all that he went through in his life, there is no doubt that we can learn some very valuable lessons from this grief-stricken warrior of prayer and praise. Jesus helps us understand this “knowing” concept when in John 17:3 He says to the heavenly Father that, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Our salvation starts with knowing God. And Christ made it clear that we can only know God if He—the Son of God—reveals Him to us:
27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matt. 11:27).
That means that once we, through saving faith, come to know the Lord, we can continue to learn of Him, remember Him, and recall what we know about Him. David was a master of this art of relational remembrance. His psalms are replete with explicit descriptions of God’s attributes, character, and works. The simple fact is that David, despite a lifetime of heartaches and heartbreaks, knew how to encourage himself… in the Lord (e.g. see 1 Sam. 30:1-6), because he actually knew the Lord.
Let’s look at Psalm 145:17-21 to see 7 facts about the Lord that, if you’re a true believer in Christ, will encourage you right now:
17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. 18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. 19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. 20 The LORD keeps all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever (Psa. 145:17-21).
In this passage, there are three things that the Lord is, three things that the Lord will do, and one thing that the Lord does. And it concludes with how believers respond to this knowledge of the Lord:
Fact 1: “The LORD is righteous in all His ways…”
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the only true God, and He is Sovereign. That means that there is nothing that operates or exists outside of the realm of His ability to create, sustain, control, and/or destroy. If just one particle could function outside of the power and purview of God, then He would not be God.
The reason why God is righteous in all of His ways is because no matter what He has done, is doing, or will do, He never has to answer to anyone else. He is the very definition of justice. There is no authority over Him. And outside of the Triune Godhead, there are no other gods beside Him. It is for this reason that God cannot sin. And though sin does not originate with God, it came into existence within the confines of His created order, in the form of Lucifer’s foolish plan to exalt Himself above God.
No matter how a person feels about what goes on in this finite existence. It doesn’t change the fact that God, in every thing that He does, is always righteous. And since God doesn’t want people to merely have a head-knowledge of His excellent attributes, He through their faith in His Son Jesus, communicates (or imputes) His righteousness upon them and places His Spirit within them, thereby giving them an intimate and eternal relationship with Him.
Have you turned from sin to truly trust in Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection? If so, then you know that the Lord is righteous, and now, you are partaker of His righteousness. Therefore you are now able to know that His ways can be completely trusted, and that all His ways are always righteous, because what He says, goes:
And the heavens declare His righteousness, For God Himself is judge. Selah (Psa. 50:6).
Fact 2: “The Lord is kind in all His deeds…”
Not only is the Lord righteous, and all people utterly sinful apart from Him, He is kind. One thing that is certain is that from the moment Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, all humanity became guilty of enough sin to condemn every single human being to eternal hellfire.
The apostle Paul, in defense of God’s unfathomable grace and mercy writes. . .
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And [He did so] to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 [even] us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles (Rom. 9:22-24).
God in His great kindness toward humanity endures with much patience those who are wicked. That is a simple reason why the wicked can prosper. He grants even the unrighteous the ability to live and thrive in this world. Yet if they never come to faith in Christ, this life will have been their reward, and hellfire will be their eternal home.
But look at what He does for us who trust in Him. In His kindness, even without us asking for it, God is at work preparing us for the world to come, where only righteousness will eternally exist (2 Pet. 3:13). How do sinners who only deserve hell gain access to such a world? It is through the kindness (or mercy) of the Lord that is present in all that He does.
Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples (Psa. 105:1).
Fact 3: “The Lord is near all who call on Him in truth…”
Just imagine for a moment someone calling Emergency Services by dialing 411. Or, for that matter, imagine them calling for information by dialing 911. It is certain that a 911 operator would not waste time responding to 411 information requests. Likewise, a 411 service will not be able to provide a caller with adequate emergency services.
As silly as those illustrations sound, it is even more foolish to think that choosing to call on God in a false manner will cause God to draw near to you. God is a God who continually offers wisdom and understanding. Proverbs 4:7 says that, “The beginning of wisdom is: acquire wisdom; and with all your acquiring, get understanding.” Due to a lack of knowledge of God through His word, people perish at their self-made prayer altars, as they call on God for things and in ways that flatly contradict and even deny His character.
People are calling on God to sanction sinful lifestyles. People are calling on God to bless their reasons for ending innocent lives in the womb. People are calling on God to ask for lustful, hedonistic, and idolatrous things. And guess what? God even speaks of such error when, in Isaiah 29:13 and Matthew 15:8, He says, “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” By false prayers they remain far from Him, and by the truth of His word, He remains far from them.
Thus, it is by knowledge and the fear of the Lord that we understand Who we are calling on and what He is like. And even if we don’t quite know what we should pray for, we know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings for which we have no words (Rom. 8:26).
But this calling is not only about prayer. It is about a never-ending conversation of intimacy with God. In other words, calling on God in truth is living in accordance with the truth that is His word. Calling on the Lord is another word used in the Bible for continual, faithful worship of the Lord. The nearness expressed here in Psalm 145:18 speaks of the intimacy of a heavenly Father with His children here on earth.
12 What shall I render to the LORD For all His benefits toward me? 13 I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD (Psa. 116:12-13).
In other words, I’m saved. See I have the cup. And daily, all I ask is that God fills it up!
Fact 4: “The Lord will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him…”
Fear of the Lord is reverence and respect for Him. It is not cowardice or somehow living in constant fear that God will send you to hell. Yet there actually is a place for that type of fear. Jesus literally commanded us, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).
And while that fear stands to serve as a real and present reminder to us all of a God who on judgment day will consign people to eternal hellfire, those who truly fear Him have received God’s everlasting love in their hearts (Rom. 5:5; 8:37-39). That love is described as “perfect love…”
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love (1 John 4:7-18).
The supreme desire of everyone who truly believes in the Lord is to be forever free from sin, suffering, and death, and to spend eternity with God. And that desire will, without exception, be fulfilled for every person who truly fears the Lord. But there’s more! You see, even in this life, God is lovingly at work reshaping the desires of His children, flooding their hearts with what’s best for them, and prompting them to ask Him for those desires. And in His time and His own way, He will faithfully fulfill them.
The more we learn of God through His word, and yield obediently to His will, the more we prove to have the kind of faith that pleases or delights God. And as a result we will learn that God gives us what we should desire, and also fulfills those desires:
Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart (Psa. 37:4).
Fact 5: “The Lord will hear their cry…”
Not only is God always hearing our calling on Him, and not only is He giving and fulfilling our desires, but He is also listening for our cries for help. People the world over are deceived into thinking that they can go on through life either acting as if God doesn’t exist, or changing Him into a god of their own design, and think that his ears are open to their emotional whims. And while God is an incredibly merciful God, who daily shows all sorts of mercies to a wicked world, the following is something worth remembering:
14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are [open] to their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 [The righteous] cry, and the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles (Psa. 34:14-17).
As we approach the end of this list of 7 facts about the Lord to encourage us, let us remember the alternative. While God is pleased with our faith in Him, He is also displeased with our unbelief. Over and again, God shows us in His word how people were destroyed for not trusting Him. Whenever we as true believers face trouble of any sort, we need to turn to God and cry out to Him in faith, knowing that He will hear us, and respond in the absolute best way for us.
Fact 6: “The Lord will save them…”
In another precious praise psalm he wrote, Psalm 34:4-9, David renders a praise in response to how God heard and saved him when he was on the run from King Saul and hiding out in the land of the enemy Philistines. He wrote…
4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. 5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. 8 O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! 9 O fear the LORD, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.
The Lord saves all who truly believe in Him. Yet, He also continually saves (or delivers) His saints from countless trials and dangers. Jesus promised that in this world we would have continual troubles, but told us to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (Jn. 16:33).
Fact 7: “The Lord keeps all who love Him…”
In John 17:17, part of what we call Christ’s high priestly prayer, we find Jesus praying these words to the Father on the behalf of His disciples:
13 “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. 14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
But that prayer wasn’t just for his original disciples. The rest of the chapter shows us that it was also, as verse 20 says, “for all who will believe on Me through [the disciples] words”.
This keeping prayer of Christ for us brings up a serious question: Do you love God? To elaborate, are you a beloved child of God who has been called to salvation, according to His purpose by faith in Christ Jesus? If so, you can know that no matter what happens to you in this life, God is causing all things to work together for good to you because of that love, that calling, and yes, His keeping (e.g. Romans 8:28).
By God, true believers are sanctified (or set apart) from sin and from the sinful stock that is the rest of humanity. They are given the Holy Spirit as a seal until the day Christ returns for them (Ephesians 1:13-14). And they are, therefore, “kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).
Yet there’s one more aspect of this keeping that is worth literally remembering… It is the critically important issue of God keeping us in perfect peace. Yet there is a condition. Isaiah 26:3 makes it abundantly clear when it says…
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Throughout the entirety of Psalm 145, David praises God, not only for his mercy and goodness to His saints, but also to all people. Yet before he ends the chapter, he takes time to remind us that while God will do the blessed work of keeping all who truly love Him, in the very same verse, he also says, “But all the wicked He will destroy”.
After this great paean of praise, David is moved by the Spirit to make sure all who read and sing this blessed Psalm understand that God will still execute justice and judgment upon the wicked. This is a clear opportunity for us all to examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith. If so, then the destruction of the wicked has nothing to do with us. And all of the wonderful promises of God throughout this psalm have everything to do with us!
How Then Do True Believers Respond?
Therefore, your response is simple. If you truly believe in the Lord, you will truly believe these things about the Lord. And if you believe these things about the Lord, then you will praise Him! Look at what David says in the final verse of Psalm 145:
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
The absolute best antidote for discouragement is the praise of who the Lord is, what He does, and what He will do! If that doesn’t encourage you right now, then you might need to check your faith, because all these things mean that everything is ultimately going to be alright.
The Almighty God has countless ways of addressing your needs and keeping you in perfect peace through the process. But you must keep your mind stayed on Him to experience His encouragement first-hand. Knowing the Lord and how to encourage yourself in the Lord is what true faith in the Lord is all about.
Be encouraged.
7 Facts About The Lord That Will Encourage You Right Now
King David was a mighty man of valor who also suffered dejection, deep sorrow, and discouragement. This post considers some of the ways you can learn from that man after God’s own heart to encourage yourself in the Lord.
King David—the man after God’s own heart… Most of us know quite well that memorable accolade spoken of him by God. It is found in 1Kings 15:5 and is a fitting capstone on David’s remarkable life. Yet the rest of the verse shows us that God in no way minimized that other thing for which David is probably most infamously remembered…
because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.
David abused his kingly authority by taking a married woman named Bathsheba, impregnating her, and in an effort to conceal his indiscretion, arranging and ordering the death of her husband Uriah. He then married Bathsheba. But his lustful, murderous act caused God to take the life of their firstborn child. Yet even as tragic as that was, it wasn’t the only sinful stain on David’s legacy.
There was a time when Satan tempted David to take a census of the people. Joab, the captain of David’s army, tried to discourage the king. David ordered him to take the census anyway. That prideful act incurred God’s wrath prompting Him to send a plague on Israel that killed 70,000 of David’s own people (1 Chron. 21:1-16). King David foolishly numbered how large his kingdom had become, and God punished him by decreasing that number.
Now the list of David’s woes doesn’t end there. You see, despite having a very impressive resumé from his youth up, David also turned out to be a very poor father. He had a son named Amnon, who raped and abandoned his own half sister, Tamar. His other son, Absalom, brother of Tamar, then murdered Amnon, for raping her. Later, Absalom rebelled against his father, conspired to take the kingdom from him, and, in an act of open defiance, he even slept with his father’s concubines (2 Sam. 16:20-22). In the end, Joab killed Absalom, which thrust David into the depths of a soul-agonizing sorrow.
By a lack of fatherly leadership, David ended up with a daughter who was forever scarred by an incestuous rape and its shame, and two wicked sons who were killed. For these reasons, and many others, David was a man who often found himself heading towards the depths of discouragement. And yet, there is no one in all of Scripture who praises God more frequently or more heartily than David.
So, from where did he get such an inspirational and enduring ability to praise God? The answer is easy—the only place that anyone can truly get it, even today… He got it directly from a proper knowledge of the Lord.
In other words, David REALLY knew the Lord. And considering all that he went through in his life, there is no doubt that we can learn some very valuable lessons from this grief-stricken warrior of prayer and praise. Jesus helps us understand this “knowing” concept when in John 17:3 He says to the heavenly Father that, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Our salvation starts with knowing God. And Christ made it clear that we can only know God if He—the Son of God—reveals Him to us:
27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matt. 11:27).
That means that once we, through saving faith, come to know the Lord, we can continue to learn of Him, remember Him, and recall what we know about Him. David was a master of this art of relational remembrance. His psalms are replete with explicit descriptions of God’s attributes, character, and works. The simple fact is that David, despite a lifetime of heartaches and heartbreaks, knew how to encourage himself… in the Lord (e.g. see 1 Sam. 30:1-6), because he actually knew the Lord.
Let’s look at Psalm 145:17-21 to see 7 facts about the Lord that, if you’re a true believer in Christ, will encourage you right now:
17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. 18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. 19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. 20 The LORD keeps all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever (Psa. 145:17-21).
In this passage, there are three things that the Lord is, three things that the Lord will do, and one thing that the Lord does. And it concludes with how believers respond to this knowledge of the Lord:
Fact 1: “The LORD is righteous in all His ways…”
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the only true God, and He is Sovereign. That means that there is nothing that operates or exists outside of the realm of His ability to create, sustain, control, and/or destroy. If just one particle could function outside of the power and purview of God, then He would not be God.
The reason why God is righteous in all of His ways is because no matter what He has done, is doing, or will do, He never has to answer to anyone else. He is the very definition of justice. There is no authority over Him. And outside of the Triune Godhead, there are no other gods beside Him. It is for this reason that God cannot sin. And though sin does not originate with God, it came into existence within the confines of His created order, in the form of Lucifer’s foolish plan to exalt Himself above God.
No matter how a person feels about what goes on in this finite existence. It doesn’t change the fact that God, in every thing that He does, is always righteous. And since God doesn’t want people to merely have a head-knowledge of His excellent attributes, He through their faith in His Son Jesus, communicates (or imputes) His righteousness upon them and places His Spirit within them, thereby giving them an intimate and eternal relationship with Him.
Have you turned from sin to truly trust in Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection? If so, then you know that the Lord is righteous, and now, you are partaker of His righteousness. Therefore you are now able to know that His ways can be completely trusted, and that all His ways are always righteous, because what He says, goes:
And the heavens declare His righteousness, For God Himself is judge. Selah (Psa. 50:6).
Fact 2: “The Lord is kind in all His deeds…”
Not only is the Lord righteous, and all people utterly sinful apart from Him, He is kind. One thing that is certain is that from the moment Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, all humanity became guilty of enough sin to condemn every single human being to eternal hellfire.
The apostle Paul, in defense of God’s unfathomable grace and mercy writes. . .
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And [He did so] to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 [even] us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles (Rom. 9:22-24).
God in His great kindness toward humanity endures with much patience those who are wicked. That is a simple reason why the wicked can prosper. He grants even the unrighteous the ability to live and thrive in this world. Yet if they never come to faith in Christ, this life will have been their reward, and hellfire will be their eternal home.
But look at what He does for us who trust in Him. In His kindness, even without us asking for it, God is at work preparing us for the world to come, where only righteousness will eternally exist (2 Pet. 3:13). How do sinners who only deserve hell gain access to such a world? It is through the kindness (or mercy) of the Lord that is present in all that He does.
Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples (Psa. 105:1).
Fact 3: “The Lord is near all who call on Him in truth…”
Just imagine for a moment someone calling Emergency Services by dialing 411. Or, for that matter, imagine them calling for information by dialing 911. It is certain that a 911 operator would not waste time responding to 411 information requests. Likewise, a 411 service will not be able to provide a caller with adequate emergency services.
As silly as those illustrations sound, it is even more foolish to think that choosing to call on God in a false manner will cause God to draw near to you. God is a God who continually offers wisdom and understanding. Proverbs 4:7 says that, “The beginning of wisdom is: acquire wisdom; and with all your acquiring, get understanding.” Due to a lack of knowledge of God through His word, people perish at their self-made prayer altars, as they call on God for things and in ways that flatly contradict and even deny His character.
People are calling on God to sanction sinful lifestyles. People are calling on God to bless their reasons for ending innocent lives in the womb. People are calling on God to ask for lustful, hedonistic, and idolatrous things. And guess what? God even speaks of such error when, in Isaiah 29:13 and Matthew 15:8, He says, “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” By false prayers they remain far from Him, and by the truth of His word, He remains far from them.
Thus, it is by knowledge and the fear of the Lord that we understand Who we are calling on and what He is like. And even if we don’t quite know what we should pray for, we know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings for which we have no words (Rom. 8:26).
But this calling is not only about prayer. It is about a never-ending conversation of intimacy with God. In other words, calling on God in truth is living in accordance with the truth that is His word. Calling on the Lord is another word used in the Bible for continual, faithful worship of the Lord. The nearness expressed here in Psalm 145:18 speaks of the intimacy of a heavenly Father with His children here on earth.
12 What shall I render to the LORD For all His benefits toward me? 13 I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD (Psa. 116:12-13).
In other words, I’m saved. See I have the cup. And daily, all I ask is that God fills it up!
Fact 4: “The Lord will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him…”
Fear of the Lord is reverence and respect for Him. It is not cowardice or somehow living in constant fear that God will send you to hell. Yet there actually is a place for that type of fear. Jesus literally commanded us, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).
And while that fear stands to serve as a real and present reminder to us all of a God who on judgment day will consign people to eternal hellfire, those who truly fear Him have received God’s everlasting love in their hearts (Rom. 5:5; 8:37-39). That love is described as “perfect love…”
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love (1 John 4:7-18).
The supreme desire of everyone who truly believes in the Lord is to be forever free from sin, suffering, and death, and to spend eternity with God. And that desire will, without exception, be fulfilled for every person who truly fears the Lord. But there’s more! You see, even in this life, God is lovingly at work reshaping the desires of His children, flooding their hearts with what’s best for them, and prompting them to ask Him for those desires. And in His time and His own way, He will faithfully fulfill them.
The more we learn of God through His word, and yield obediently to His will, the more we prove to have the kind of faith that pleases or delights God. And as a result we will learn that God gives us what we should desire, and also fulfills those desires:
Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart (Psa. 37:4).
Fact 5: “The Lord will hear their cry…”
Not only is God always hearing our calling on Him, and not only is He giving and fulfilling our desires, but He is also listening for our cries for help. People the world over are deceived into thinking that they can go on through life either acting as if God doesn’t exist, or changing Him into a god of their own design, and think that his ears are open to their emotional whims. And while God is an incredibly merciful God, who daily shows all sorts of mercies to a wicked world, the following is something worth remembering:
14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are [open] to their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 [The righteous] cry, and the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles (Psa. 34:14-17).
As we approach the end of this list of 7 facts about the Lord to encourage us, let us remember the alternative. While God is pleased with our faith in Him, He is also displeased with our unbelief. Over and again, God shows us in His word how people were destroyed for not trusting Him. Whenever we as true believers face trouble of any sort, we need to turn to God and cry out to Him in faith, knowing that He will hear us, and respond in the absolute best way for us.
Fact 6: “The Lord will save them…”
In another precious praise psalm he wrote, Psalm 34:4-9, David renders a praise in response to how God heard and saved him when he was on the run from King Saul and hiding out in the land of the enemy Philistines. He wrote…
4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. 5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. 8 O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! 9 O fear the LORD, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.
The Lord saves all who truly believe in Him. Yet, He also continually saves (or delivers) His saints from countless trials and dangers. Jesus promised that in this world we would have continual troubles, but told us to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (Jn. 16:33).
Fact 7: “The Lord keeps all who love Him…”
In John 17:17, part of what we call Christ’s high priestly prayer, we find Jesus praying these words to the Father on the behalf of His disciples:
13 “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. 14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
But that prayer wasn’t just for his original disciples. The rest of the chapter shows us that it was also, as verse 20 says, “for all who will believe on Me through [the disciples] words”.
This keeping prayer of Christ for us brings up a serious question: Do you love God? To elaborate, are you a beloved child of God who has been called to salvation, according to His purpose by faith in Christ Jesus? If so, you can know that no matter what happens to you in this life, God is causing all things to work together for good to you because of that love, that calling, and yes, His keeping (e.g. Romans 8:28).
By God, true believers are sanctified (or set apart) from sin and from the sinful stock that is the rest of humanity. They are given the Holy Spirit as a seal until the day Christ returns for them (Ephesians 1:13-14). And they are, therefore, “kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).
Yet there’s one more aspect of this keeping that is worth literally remembering… It is the critically important issue of God keeping us in perfect peace. Yet there is a condition. Isaiah 26:3 makes it abundantly clear when it says…
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Throughout the entirety of Psalm 145, David praises God, not only for his mercy and goodness to His saints, but also to all people. Yet before he ends the chapter, he takes time to remind us that while God will do the blessed work of keeping all who truly love Him, in the very same verse, he also says, “But all the wicked He will destroy”.
After this great paean of praise, David is moved by the Spirit to make sure all who read and sing this blessed Psalm understand that God will still execute justice and judgment upon the wicked. This is a clear opportunity for us all to examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith. If so, then the destruction of the wicked has nothing to do with us. And all of the wonderful promises of God throughout this psalm have everything to do with us!
How Then Do True Believers Respond?
Therefore, your response is simple. If you truly believe in the Lord, you will truly believe these things about the Lord. And if you believe these things about the Lord, then you will praise Him! Look at what David says in the final verse of Psalm 145:
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
The absolute best antidote for discouragement is the praise of who the Lord is, what He does, and what He will do! If that doesn’t encourage you right now, then you might need to check your faith, because all these things mean that everything is ultimately going to be alright.
The Almighty God has countless ways of addressing your needs and keeping you in perfect peace through the process. But you must keep your mind stayed on Him to experience His encouragement first-hand. Knowing the Lord and how to encourage yourself in the Lord is what true faith in the Lord is all about.
Be encouraged.
7 Facts About The Lord That Will Encourage You Right Now
King David was a mighty man of valor who also suffered dejection, deep sorrow, and discouragement. This post considers some of the ways you can learn from that man after God’s own heart to encourage yourself in the Lord.
King David—the man after God’s own heart… Most of us know quite well that memorable accolade spoken of him by God. It is found in 1Kings 15:5 and is a fitting capstone on David’s remarkable life. Yet the rest of the verse shows us that God in no way minimized that other thing for which David is probably most infamously remembered…
because David did what was right in the sight of the LORD, and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him all the days of his life, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.
David abused his kingly authority by taking a married woman named Bathsheba, impregnating her, and in an effort to conceal his indiscretion, arranging and ordering the death of her husband Uriah. He then married Bathsheba. But his lustful, murderous act caused God to take the life of their firstborn child. Yet even as tragic as that was, it wasn’t the only sinful stain on David’s legacy.
There was a time when Satan tempted David to take a census of the people. Joab, the captain of David’s army, tried to discourage the king. David ordered him to take the census anyway. That prideful act incurred God’s wrath prompting Him to send a plague on Israel that killed 70,000 of David’s own people (1 Chron. 21:1-16). King David foolishly numbered how large his kingdom had become, and God punished him by decreasing that number.
Now the list of David’s woes doesn’t end there. You see, despite having a very impressive resumé from his youth up, David also turned out to be a very poor father. He had a son named Amnon, who raped and abandoned his own half sister, Tamar. His other son, Absalom, brother of Tamar, then murdered Amnon, for raping her. Later, Absalom rebelled against his father, conspired to take the kingdom from him, and, in an act of open defiance, he even slept with his father’s concubines (2 Sam. 16:20-22). In the end, Joab killed Absalom, which thrust David into the depths of a soul-agonizing sorrow.
By a lack of fatherly leadership, David ended up with a daughter who was forever scarred by an incestuous rape and its shame, and two wicked sons who were killed. For these reasons, and many others, David was a man who often found himself heading towards the depths of discouragement. And yet, there is no one in all of Scripture who praises God more frequently or more heartily than David.
So, from where did he get such an inspirational and enduring ability to praise God? The answer is easy—the only place that anyone can truly get it, even today… He got it directly from a proper knowledge of the Lord.
In other words, David REALLY knew the Lord. And considering all that he went through in his life, there is no doubt that we can learn some very valuable lessons from this grief-stricken warrior of prayer and praise. Jesus helps us understand this “knowing” concept when in John 17:3 He says to the heavenly Father that, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Our salvation starts with knowing God. And Christ made it clear that we can only know God if He—the Son of God—reveals Him to us:
27 “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (Matt. 11:27).
That means that once we, through saving faith, come to know the Lord, we can continue to learn of Him, remember Him, and recall what we know about Him. David was a master of this art of relational remembrance. His psalms are replete with explicit descriptions of God’s attributes, character, and works. The simple fact is that David, despite a lifetime of heartaches and heartbreaks, knew how to encourage himself… in the Lord (e.g. see 1 Sam. 30:1-6), because he actually knew the Lord.
Let’s look at Psalm 145:17-21 to see 7 facts about the Lord that, if you’re a true believer in Christ, will encourage you right now:
17 The LORD is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds. 18 The LORD is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. 19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He will also hear their cry and will save them. 20 The LORD keeps all who love Him, But all the wicked He will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever (Psa. 145:17-21).
In this passage, there are three things that the Lord is, three things that the Lord will do, and one thing that the Lord does. And it concludes with how believers respond to this knowledge of the Lord:
Fact 1: “The LORD is righteous in all His ways…”
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the only true God, and He is Sovereign. That means that there is nothing that operates or exists outside of the realm of His ability to create, sustain, control, and/or destroy. If just one particle could function outside of the power and purview of God, then He would not be God.
The reason why God is righteous in all of His ways is because no matter what He has done, is doing, or will do, He never has to answer to anyone else. He is the very definition of justice. There is no authority over Him. And outside of the Triune Godhead, there are no other gods beside Him. It is for this reason that God cannot sin. And though sin does not originate with God, it came into existence within the confines of His created order, in the form of Lucifer’s foolish plan to exalt Himself above God.
No matter how a person feels about what goes on in this finite existence. It doesn’t change the fact that God, in every thing that He does, is always righteous. And since God doesn’t want people to merely have a head-knowledge of His excellent attributes, He through their faith in His Son Jesus, communicates (or imputes) His righteousness upon them and places His Spirit within them, thereby giving them an intimate and eternal relationship with Him.
Have you turned from sin to truly trust in Christ and His death, burial, and resurrection? If so, then you know that the Lord is righteous, and now, you are partaker of His righteousness. Therefore you are now able to know that His ways can be completely trusted, and that all His ways are always righteous, because what He says, goes:
And the heavens declare His righteousness, For God Himself is judge. Selah (Psa. 50:6).
Fact 2: “The Lord is kind in all His deeds…”
Not only is the Lord righteous, and all people utterly sinful apart from Him, He is kind. One thing that is certain is that from the moment Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, all humanity became guilty of enough sin to condemn every single human being to eternal hellfire.
The apostle Paul, in defense of God’s unfathomable grace and mercy writes. . .
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And [He did so] to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 [even] us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles (Rom. 9:22-24).
God in His great kindness toward humanity endures with much patience those who are wicked. That is a simple reason why the wicked can prosper. He grants even the unrighteous the ability to live and thrive in this world. Yet if they never come to faith in Christ, this life will have been their reward, and hellfire will be their eternal home.
But look at what He does for us who trust in Him. In His kindness, even without us asking for it, God is at work preparing us for the world to come, where only righteousness will eternally exist (2 Pet. 3:13). How do sinners who only deserve hell gain access to such a world? It is through the kindness (or mercy) of the Lord that is present in all that He does.
Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples (Psa. 105:1).
Fact 3: “The Lord is near all who call on Him in truth…”
Just imagine for a moment someone calling Emergency Services by dialing 411. Or, for that matter, imagine them calling for information by dialing 911. It is certain that a 911 operator would not waste time responding to 411 information requests. Likewise, a 411 service will not be able to provide a caller with adequate emergency services.
As silly as those illustrations sound, it is even more foolish to think that choosing to call on God in a false manner will cause God to draw near to you. God is a God who continually offers wisdom and understanding. Proverbs 4:7 says that, “The beginning of wisdom is: acquire wisdom; and with all your acquiring, get understanding.” Due to a lack of knowledge of God through His word, people perish at their self-made prayer altars, as they call on God for things and in ways that flatly contradict and even deny His character.
People are calling on God to sanction sinful lifestyles. People are calling on God to bless their reasons for ending innocent lives in the womb. People are calling on God to ask for lustful, hedonistic, and idolatrous things. And guess what? God even speaks of such error when, in Isaiah 29:13 and Matthew 15:8, He says, “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” By false prayers they remain far from Him, and by the truth of His word, He remains far from them.
Thus, it is by knowledge and the fear of the Lord that we understand Who we are calling on and what He is like. And even if we don’t quite know what we should pray for, we know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings for which we have no words (Rom. 8:26).
But this calling is not only about prayer. It is about a never-ending conversation of intimacy with God. In other words, calling on God in truth is living in accordance with the truth that is His word. Calling on the Lord is another word used in the Bible for continual, faithful worship of the Lord. The nearness expressed here in Psalm 145:18 speaks of the intimacy of a heavenly Father with His children here on earth.
12 What shall I render to the LORD For all His benefits toward me? 13 I shall lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the LORD (Psa. 116:12-13).
In other words, I’m saved. See I have the cup. And daily, all I ask is that God fills it up!
Fact 4: “The Lord will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him…”
Fear of the Lord is reverence and respect for Him. It is not cowardice or somehow living in constant fear that God will send you to hell. Yet there actually is a place for that type of fear. Jesus literally commanded us, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28).
And while that fear stands to serve as a real and present reminder to us all of a God who on judgment day will consign people to eternal hellfire, those who truly fear Him have received God’s everlasting love in their hearts (Rom. 5:5; 8:37-39). That love is described as “perfect love…”
17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love (1 John 4:7-18).
The supreme desire of everyone who truly believes in the Lord is to be forever free from sin, suffering, and death, and to spend eternity with God. And that desire will, without exception, be fulfilled for every person who truly fears the Lord. But there’s more! You see, even in this life, God is lovingly at work reshaping the desires of His children, flooding their hearts with what’s best for them, and prompting them to ask Him for those desires. And in His time and His own way, He will faithfully fulfill them.
The more we learn of God through His word, and yield obediently to His will, the more we prove to have the kind of faith that pleases or delights God. And as a result we will learn that God gives us what we should desire, and also fulfills those desires:
Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart (Psa. 37:4).
Fact 5: “The Lord will hear their cry…”
Not only is God always hearing our calling on Him, and not only is He giving and fulfilling our desires, but He is also listening for our cries for help. People the world over are deceived into thinking that they can go on through life either acting as if God doesn’t exist, or changing Him into a god of their own design, and think that his ears are open to their emotional whims. And while God is an incredibly merciful God, who daily shows all sorts of mercies to a wicked world, the following is something worth remembering:
14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are [open] to their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 [The righteous] cry, and the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles (Psa. 34:14-17).
As we approach the end of this list of 7 facts about the Lord to encourage us, let us remember the alternative. While God is pleased with our faith in Him, He is also displeased with our unbelief. Over and again, God shows us in His word how people were destroyed for not trusting Him. Whenever we as true believers face trouble of any sort, we need to turn to God and cry out to Him in faith, knowing that He will hear us, and respond in the absolute best way for us.
Fact 6: “The Lord will save them…”
In another precious praise psalm he wrote, Psalm 34:4-9, David renders a praise in response to how God heard and saved him when he was on the run from King Saul and hiding out in the land of the enemy Philistines. He wrote…
4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. 5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces will never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. 8 O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! 9 O fear the LORD, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want.
The Lord saves all who truly believe in Him. Yet, He also continually saves (or delivers) His saints from countless trials and dangers. Jesus promised that in this world we would have continual troubles, but told us to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (Jn. 16:33).
Fact 7: “The Lord keeps all who love Him…”
In John 17:17, part of what we call Christ’s high priestly prayer, we find Jesus praying these words to the Father on the behalf of His disciples:
13 “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. 14 “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil [one.] 16 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
But that prayer wasn’t just for his original disciples. The rest of the chapter shows us that it was also, as verse 20 says, “for all who will believe on Me through [the disciples] words”.
This keeping prayer of Christ for us brings up a serious question: Do you love God? To elaborate, are you a beloved child of God who has been called to salvation, according to His purpose by faith in Christ Jesus? If so, you can know that no matter what happens to you in this life, God is causing all things to work together for good to you because of that love, that calling, and yes, His keeping (e.g. Romans 8:28).
By God, true believers are sanctified (or set apart) from sin and from the sinful stock that is the rest of humanity. They are given the Holy Spirit as a seal until the day Christ returns for them (Ephesians 1:13-14). And they are, therefore, “kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).
Yet there’s one more aspect of this keeping that is worth literally remembering… It is the critically important issue of God keeping us in perfect peace. Yet there is a condition. Isaiah 26:3 makes it abundantly clear when it says…
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Throughout the entirety of Psalm 145, David praises God, not only for his mercy and goodness to His saints, but also to all people. Yet before he ends the chapter, he takes time to remind us that while God will do the blessed work of keeping all who truly love Him, in the very same verse, he also says, “But all the wicked He will destroy”.
After this great paean of praise, David is moved by the Spirit to make sure all who read and sing this blessed Psalm understand that God will still execute justice and judgment upon the wicked. This is a clear opportunity for us all to examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith. If so, then the destruction of the wicked has nothing to do with us. And all of the wonderful promises of God throughout this psalm have everything to do with us!
How Then Do True Believers Respond?
Therefore, your response is simple. If you truly believe in the Lord, you will truly believe these things about the Lord. And if you believe these things about the Lord, then you will praise Him! Look at what David says in the final verse of Psalm 145:
My mouth will speak the praise of the LORD, And all flesh will bless His holy name forever and ever.
The absolute best antidote for discouragement is the praise of who the Lord is, what He does, and what He will do! If that doesn’t encourage you right now, then you might need to check your faith, because all these things mean that everything is ultimately going to be alright.
The Almighty God has countless ways of addressing your needs and keeping you in perfect peace through the process. But you must keep your mind stayed on Him to experience His encouragement first-hand. Knowing the Lord and how to encourage yourself in the Lord is what true faith in the Lord is all about.
Be encouraged.