Psalms 8:1, and 20:1-4
My Shepherd met me in His green pastures and laid me down in Psalm 21. Verse 2 caught my attention:
Psalms 21:2 Thou hast given him his heart’s desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips. Selah.
David had prayed: “Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfill all thy counsel” in Psalm 20:4. In the next Psalm, Psalm 21:2, he testified that this is something God had done for him.
The Mind of the Spirit engaged the spirit of my mind when I contemplated Psalm 21 as the king’s psalm, and the Spirit took my mind to Revelation 1:6, and impressed this thought upon my heart: God made David a king by the anointing of Samuel the Prophet/Priest of Israel (1 Samuel 16:13). God made me a king by the Anointing of Jesus Christ, the “prince of the kings of the earth”: “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5-6). This psalm is mine, and it is yours, provided you are “washed…from [your] sins in [Christ’s] own blood.”
Along the still waters, I reflected on the implications of the truth that every believer is made a king and a priest unto God by Jesus Christ.
Israel was made a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). Although the office of priesthood for Israel was delegated to the Levites, the entire nation of Israel was nonetheless a kingdom of priests unto God (“And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6).
God did not make Israel a kingdom of kings. These offices were separated and the separation was jealously guarded (2 Chronicles 26:16-23).
Jesus, however, is a priest after the order of Melchisedec (Hebrews 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:17, 21), referring to the king of Salem to whom Abraham paid tithes (Hebrews 7:1-2) who was a similitude of Christ: the King of rightousness, King of Salem, which is, King of peace” (Hebrews 7:2; see Genesis 14). It follows, therefore, that we are made kings and priests by the King of Kings and High Priest of our profession (Hebrews 3:1; 4:14-15), whom the Father ordained to His Priesthood (Hebrews 5:5-10).
In the valley, I remembered that Psalm 21 follows 20 and precedes 22. Here is what I mean. In Psalm 20, we extol the LORD Who is our King. In Psalm 21, we who are by God made kings “joy in [His] strength” and rejoice in His favor. We are made kings, and have a place in Him upon His throne (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; 2:6; see Romans 8:17). In Psalm 22, we remember His suffering and understand that if we will join Him in His glory, we must also follow Him to His Cross (Psalm 22; see Romans 8:17, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”) I heard the Spirit Christ say, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23). I obeyed!
At the table, we went over the king’s psalm together, and I worshipped Him. I joy in His strength, and greatly rejoice in His salvation (21:1). I thanked Him for giving me my heart’s desire and hearing my prayers (21:2). I thanked Him for His goodness and mercy, and the promised crown (21:3; 1 Peter 5:4), the eternal life He has given me (21:4), and the glory of His salvation (21:5; Philippians 3:20-21), for gladdening my heart with His countenance (21:6; Psalm 27:8 with Matthew 7:7). I declared my trust is “in the LORD,” and that “through the mercy of the most High [the king] will not be moved”—displaced, cast off (21:7). I praised Him that all our enemies will be exposed and brought to judgment by and to the “right hand” of the Almighty (21:8-10) who “intended evil against thee” but whose “mischievous device” will fail in the day the LORD rises against them (21:11-12). And I concluded, singing with David: “Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy power,” where the word translated power is the Hebrew equivalent to the Greek word exousia (Matthew 28:18).
Finally, just as goodness and mercy appeared and we prepared to leave the table to the harvest, I remembered what Paul said to the Corinthians: “Now are ye full, now are ye rich, ye have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you” (1 Corinthians 4:8). Now? Selah!
Praying for revival! 🙏
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