Lord, don’t hold back your tender mercies from me! My only hope is in your love and faithfulness.
Psalm 40: 11 (LB)
Scripture: Psalm 40
We see God as a loving, faithful God. He is. However, we are told that He will also withhold His tender mercies. This devotion looks at Psalm 40: 11 as it connects a song of thanksgiving with a prayer of rescue from a trial.
Nuggets
- We should praise God when He rescues us from trials.
- Many times, a mountain-top experience is followed by a valley of trials.
- God chooses to extend mercies instead of judgment; however,
- He will withhold those mercies when we are not obedient.
- God through His Son Jesus is our only hope for salvation and eternal life.
- Judgment will come, but God has provided the plan of salvation to pay the cost of our sins.
Psalm 40 is really interesting. The first five verses are straight out praise. It is a prayer of thanksgiving for God rescuing David from trials he was facing. We should praise God when He rescues us from trials.
Verses six through ten documented David’s response. David said he finally understood (Ps. 40: 6). God wanted obedience (Ps. 40: 8), not sacrifices or offerings (Ps. 6). He told everyone who would listen about God’s unfailing love (Ps. 40: 10). Everything was good.
Then comes verse 11 and following. “… Don’t hold back your tender mercies from me! …” (Ps. 40: 11 NLT). Wait! What?
Where did that come from — left field? If things were good, why would God want to hold back tender mercies? When does God hold back tender mercies?
Let's Put It into Context
Verses 1 through 10 show David is through with a season of trials. Verses 12 through 17 show he was right back in a new season of trials.
How many times have we had mountain-top experiences immediately followed by valley experiences? When we get overtaken by the trial, sometimes it seems like it we get blindsided.
To read When Was the Last Mountain-top Experience?, click the button below.
We are still in the glow of being at the top. Then, bam.
I can see us saying, “God, where did You go?” I can see saying, “Oh, please don’t leave me.”
God’s Tender Mercies
Mercy is where God won’t judge us to the extent He could. When Adam and Eve committed the original sin, God could have judged us harshly. He could have said he was done with mankind.
God chose mercy. “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (Jas. 2: 13 ESV). It was God’s choice — He didn’t have to choose mercy.
Instead of judgment and death, we get salvation and eternal life. “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Ti. 3: 5 ESV). Salvation is offered to us because of mercy.
God is merciful because of His unfailing love for us. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us” (Eph. 2: 4 ESV). What a great love He has!
But what is the “hold back mercies” bit? “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Num. 14: 18 ESV). To me, this is an example of “if … then.”
If we accept God’s gift of salvation, He will forgive us of our sins. “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Heb. 8: 12 ESV).
If we are obedient and follow His laws and commandments, He will be merciful toward us.
If we are not obedient, why should we expect God to be merciful?
God expects obedience from us. We need to live the lives He wants us to live. We can’t expect to live the opposite of how He wants us to live and still get the rewards from Him.
My Only Hope
David knew that his only hope was in God. That is why he was hanging on to Him during the good times and the bad.
He may not have understood all what his Descendant was going to accomplish. “I will make sure that one of your descendants will always be king” (II Sam. 7: 16 CEV). He knew that God was going to choose one of his to sit on the throne forever.
That Descendant was Jesus, “… the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (Jn. 11: 25 NKJV).
Jesus is our only hope to gain salvation because He was the sacrifice given to pay the price for our sins. Acts 4: 12 says, “Salvation is to be found through him alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us” (GNT). Believing in Jesus in the only way to restore our relationship with God.
Our salvation means so much to God and Jesus that they completed the plan of salvation — at great personal cost — so that our relationship with them could be restored.
We have to
- admit that we are sinners;
- believe Jesus, who didn’t sin, died and rose again to be the sacrifice needed to restore our relationship with God;
- confess that we have asked God to be Lord of our lives and Jesus to be our Redeemer;
- change our lifestyle so that we are living the way God wants us to; and
- follow Jesus’ example on how to live.
If you have not admitted that your relationship is not right with God,
have not asked Jesus to be your Lord and Savior,
and have not confessed your sins,
please read through the Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
Your Love and Faithfulness
God extends His tender mercies and is our only hope because of His unfailing love for us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3: 16 KJV).
Sometimes it is really difficult to fathom how God loved us enough to send His Son. “But God has shown us how much he loves us – it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us!” (Rom. 5: 8 GNT). To know He did that when we were still so far from Him is mind boggling.
There is a reason God sent Jesus to be the sacrifice for our sins. There is a judgment day coming. “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment …” (I Jn. 4: 17 NKJV).
A day is coming where Jesus will return to earth. Eventually, there will be a rewards/repayment ceremony. We will have to decide if we are going to be a sheep on the right or a goat on the left. God, through the sacrifice of Jesus, has paid the price for our sins so that we can be a sheep on the right.
To read
Will We Be Rewarded or Repaid?
and
Will Being Kind to Others Get Us into Heaven?,
click the appropriate button below.
Making the Connections
Okay, let’s put the verse back in the context of the chapter. We’ve been talking big picture and future.
But doesn’t that help us with the present? David’s present was he was going back into a season of trials. “For innumerable evils have surrounded me; My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up …” (Ps. 40: 12 NKJV). That doesn’t sound like “He also brought me up out of a horrible pit …” (Ps. 40: 2 NKJV).
If God is our only hope in providing salvation and eternal life, isn’t He going to take care of us in this life? True, it may still hurt and be really, really bad at times.
But God is going to be there with us, surrounding us as we are going through the trial. He is still going to be loving us. He is still going to be faithful.
How Do We Apply This?
Yes, there are times that it is really hard to keep our faith and trust in God when we are knee deep in the bog David was talking about (Ps. 40: 2). But we have to keep the faith. God will get us through our trials.
What do we do when we are scraping bog goo off our knees? We work on our relationship with God. We pray more. We read His Word more. We fellowship with our fellow believers so they can support us.
There will always be seasons of trials while we are still on this earth. We have to do what we have to do to weather the storm. We also have to remind ourselves of the big picture. This is just an experience that is growing us to be what God wants us to be. It is preparing us for our heavenly home.
Gracious Lord. We thank You that You never leave us – either in the good times or in the bad. We know because of Your unfailing love for us that You will be right there for us. Lord, we know You expect obedience. We commit to obeying You. Help us to be even more obedient. Help us through the seasons of trials. May we use them to grow closer to You. Amen.
What do you think? Thing back on your experiences. Is there a time when you knew God help back His mercies for you? What do you need to change in your life so that He does not hold back again?
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