Who You Say I Am (Psalm 7:1-9)

¹ Lord my God, I take refuge in you;
save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
² or they will tear me apart like a lion
and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

³ Lord my God, if I have done this
and there is guilt on my hands—
⁴ if I have repaid my ally with evil
or without cause have robbed my foe—
⁵ then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
let him trample my life to the ground
and make me sleep in the dust.^[c]

⁶ Arise, Lord, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.
⁷ Let the assembled peoples gather around you,
while you sit enthroned over them on high.
⁸     Let the Lord judge the peoples.
Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity, O Most High.
⁹ Bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure—
you, the righteous God
who probes minds and hearts.

 _______

We’re just going to take a look at the first have of Psalm 7 today and look at the rest tomorrow.

Who are you?  What is your identity?  Who gets to decide?  Is it determined by what others think of you?  Or what you choose to reveal about yourself.

One of the aspects of the online, social media culture is the care some people give to their online image.  For instance, by carefully curating what is posted, we can give the impression that we are always joyful, our kids are well behaved and creative, and our lives are filled with one pleasant adventure after another.  But that’s not who we really are.  And we know it.

On the other hand, we can take to heart too deeply how others see us.  That is no doubt what is behind the curated image, trying to influence what other people think of us.  In the search for approval and acceptance, we can seek to conform to the wishes of others and be overly influenced by their approval and disapproval.

The point of the first part of this Psalm is David’s insistence that his identity comes from the Lord.  David sees the Lord as his judge and not the people who are opposing him.  David apparently is being falsely accused and cries out to the Lord for deliverance from those who seek to destroy him with their accusations.  His desire is that the Lord serve as his judge, and not his accusers.  Ultimately what matters to David is how he stands before the Lord, not those who seek to destroy him.

What struck me in this section of the psalm is this simple truth:  My identity and my sense of worth come from the Lord, and not from the opinions of the people around me – whether positive or negative.  This does not mean that I don’t care about my image in the eyes of those around me.  But the Lord’s “opinion” is what truly matters because He is the source of truth.

So my prayer is that today and each day, I will find my identity in my God.  I pray that I will not be discouraged by the negative view with which some regard me.  But I also pray that I will not be led astray by the positive views either.  I pray that my sense of identity comes from my Savior above all.

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