Our Lord, and Our Strength (Psalm 18) – January 18, 2023 (22-23/365)

I love you, O LORD, my strength.

The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Psalms 18:1-2

I talk and write a good deal about how Christ is our power, and our peace. I say that He’s the peace beyond understanding that keeps us together when something happens to us. Consequently, I also mention that Christ is the power beyond our senses that would have us make things happen in this reality.

However, on top of this, I go through these verses and I see that we can elaborate much further on just how powerful Christ is. Off the bat, I’m reminded, yes – He is our Lord. The Lord of lords, the one authority over all authority that is over us; and as we keep going down the line of how we understand lordship, we can also say, whether we feel it or not, that Christ is the influence over all that influences us, and, finally, the power over all powers.

It just goes to show that He is our strength, as the Psalmist would link; and since we’re going through a sort of pattern here, we may as well recognize, and proclaim: He is our strength of strengths. Let’s keep that in mind as we go along.

This set of Scripture goes on to say that Christ is our Lord, and He is our Rock; The Rock on whom we can stand, our Firm Foundation, as the Don Moen song goes. And actually, the song goes further by having us sing in the chorus – ‘I know I can stand secure’. This power we possess, who is no less than our Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus – By Him we are not only able to stand, but we are able to stand, secure. Firm. I’d say proud, but that might frustrate some of you.

When we are being weighed down by the burdens of the world, we have the power to stand – By Christ, who is our Rock. When we are being shaken by the movements of others, we have the power to stand – By Christ, who is our Rock.

Christ is our Power; He is our Lord, and more than being our Rock, He is our Fortress. More than being a Foundation, He demonstrates His power which is for us, by being our defense.

Now earlier, I wrote about how I had some regrets in writing about movement, stating that it’s doesn’t necessarily entail that we are immediately able to move, even against the giants and mountains I repeatedly indicate can show up right in front of us. It’s not always going to be a game of offense; I’ve seen through my own experience that, indeed, there will be times that we would have to take one step back, especially if moving forward would actually mean disaster and set us back so much further…. and we shouldn’t be surprised to see and behold, that as we do step back, the same Christ who is with us in the offense? Well, He is also our Fortress; our Refuge whom we could run behind, our Strong Tower to whom we run for safety.

Christ is our Power. He is our Lord. He is our Rock, and He is our Fortress. And on top of this, when it makes no sense to stand, nor does it make sense to take refuge… Friends, Christ is our Deliverer. Christ demonstrates His power and His wisdom by way of knowing when it is strategic in the grand scale of things to confront threats by way of flight – in order to fight another day? In order for the Lord to deal with things without the need for us to stay behind? Well, if we’ve come this far, I suppose we’d understand that Christ is a Power we could trust, and that beyond our nature to try to rationalize or understand things.

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And thinking about these verses, these terms in the light of what Christ has done for us… I suppose I could start off by saying that Christ proved how He is our Rock, by becoming sin and taking death; And by taking all the death we deserved our Savior also eliminated any permanent reason for us to fear. It’s fear that has us literally shaking in our boots, so much that we would have no ability to stand.

How’s that for a stretch? Christ became our Rock by taking away all our permanent fears on the cross. It’s because of His perfect love, that casts out all fear, that we are able to stand, and to stand secure.

And speaking of our being secure… By becoming sin and taking in all the accusations that the enemy could throw, He became our Fortress; and for us who came into being so far past Christ’s resurrection, this means that He already established Himself as our Defense, far before we had the slightest clue of all the condemnation flung at us.

So far, that’s what we’re saying: We were sin. We deserved to die. We were worthy of all the accusations, and condemnation was fitting for us; But Christ became our Rock, taking the death and the resultant fear of uncertainty that we were doomed to suffer; and Christ became our Fortress, coming against all the condemnation – and there it is. The Lord of Lords took condemnation of all condemnations, so we would not only be successfully defended, but brought before God in commendation.

Finally – and this is probably something we’ve already heard by way of the worship we sing and/or the points we hear other pastors speak – Christ became our Deliverer, simply by being true to His word as He shared in what we know as the Lord’s Prayer; That is, He delivered us from evil. Or we could say that Christ is our Deliverer, because He is our Rock, and our Fortress.

And I suppose it was just right for us to point out just how Christ’s power was seen in what we call His finished work at the cross – For, see, it was in His weakest and most vulnerable point that He actually demonstrated the greatest power there is – a power which is not only able to break past, but to reconcile the so-called boundaries between the finite and the infinite. By Christ’s birth, death, resurrection and ascension, we who were once hopelessly disconnected have been fully reconciled to God… and all that’s left for us is to believe.

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I mentioned in the start of this article that I talk about how Christ is the power for us to make things happen… but in our going through how Christ demonstrates true power by being our Rock, our Refuge, and our Deliverer, we’re assured of how Christ is our sure defense.

First of all, this tells me that the cliche is sort of confirmed: That the best offense is a perfect defense. Or was it the other way around?

Anyway, I suppose the more we are led to appreciate these demonstrations of Christ’s power, it ought to give us direction, and strength to go ahead and pay it forward.

Or, in other words, the more we appreciate how Christ is our Rock, the more we are inclined to be a rock for others – That is, we help them to stand, just as we have been helped. The Holy Spirit convicts us of the righteousness that we are because of Christ’s finished work, and we would also do well to remind whoever we are led to remind, that because of Christ, they can also stand, and not only stand, but run to God’s throne of Grace. If we aren’t physically helping other people to stand, we’re encouraging them – and sometimes, we don’t even have to say anything; All we need to do is to be present for those who we’re led to help, and celebrate with them when they do get back on their feet.

The more we appreciate how Christ is our Fortress, the more we are inclined to be a fortress for others. The same way that Christ defended us from accusation, so we are able to defend others, when people take a jab at them. Even before Christ was crucified He stood in defense for the adulteress – though punishable by death in the eyes of the law, He did not fight the accusers, but schooled them with the infinitely superior Truth: ”Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

I’m not saying we follow Christ as an example, but here, Christ does remind us that we have power – not according to how the world sees power, but power in the Truth that has set us free. For one thing, we’re always reminded of Christ’s defense against the devil in the wilderness, with pastor after pastor telling us that He always responded with ‘It is written’; and sure, we’d do well to stand in defense with the Scripture as our guide… No matter if the Bible is applicable in the defenses we need to put up or not, we ought to know that we always have Christ, who is the Living Word. He quoted that man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God; apparently, we are able to defend ourselves, and others, by the same Word.

Finally, the more we appreciate how Christ is our Deliverer, the more we ought to celebrate by way of delivering others, if only to demonstrate God’s goodness to them… for this same goodness to lead them and others to repentance. In our awe and gratitude towards how Christ has delivered us, as much as it is within our capacity, not only can we help other people to stand, and not only do we stand for other people – folks, we can add value to them by way of delivering them. We help them with what we have on hand, if only to deliver them from their trial, even if it is temporary. We help them by way of listening, and if needs be, we give them advice, and follow-up accordingly; and as such, we step with them, one, then multiple steps away from what bothers them – delivering them, by walking with them.

And while I was typing that that whole ‘Footprints In The Sand’ piece came to mind, and so I say – sometimes, just as Christ carried us, so we have the power to carry others, delivering them away from harm.

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Indeed, what I’m gathering from all this is that we can apparently look into how Christ gives us peace for our power to stand, and to stand for others, and to deliver them, when we need to. Jesus Christ is not only our Lord, but our Savior; And in our understanding just how much He is Lord and Savior, we shouldn’t be surprised if we see just how He is our Rock, our Fortress, and our Deliverer.

And it looks like the Psalmist wanted to reiterate it, for he closes the verse – yes, we’re only on the first half of verse 2 – with the following:

my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Just a couple of things more… Christ is not only a Fortress to whom we can run, but He is our Stronghold. Fine words to name any base of operations. It’s from a Fortress and a Stronghold that we are safe to move. But take note, Christ is not only a safe haven and a sanctuary, but as our Shield, it’s as if to say He is our defense wherever we go. And I’ll be honest here… I think I’ll need to read or watch a little further about horns. Although I have an idea that having horns adorn us shows (1) we have defeated who or what animal had those horns at first, and (2) our intention to intimidate simply by looking bigger.

Well, there’s something. Our salvation is public, as a horn. It’s not only for our sake, but for others to see that Christ has defeated death, and we are favored by no less than the most high God. Buzzer beater.

Conclusion: Christ is our Power to stand, our power to stand for others, and our power to deliver, as we have been delivered. We wear Christ as our standard, and by our salvation we make the world know of His goodness; That is, His superiority over death, and His righteousness unto eternal life.

Amen. Until the next post, God bless you.