God Our Liberator Series

God our Liberator

We read in Psalm 91:15,“When they call to me, I will answer them; when they are in trouble, I will be with them. I will rescue them and honor them.” (GNB)

As we continue our study on Psalm 91, we will meditate on verse 15 in its entirety and thereby try to comprehend all that the Lord is conveying to us. This entire Psalm as we have seen is directed towards the one who has made God his refuge, fortress and His eternal dwelling place. This is the man who through all the changing circumstances of life, its ups and downs, has his faith firmly fixed on the Lord and has unshakable trust in God most High. There are four parts of this verse that the Lord declares to those who have made Him their refuge, which we are going to study in detail.

1. The Lord will answer

We often approach others when we are in trouble, and ever so often they have no answer to our problems. In contrast the Almighty God who is the creator of the heavens and the earth promises us that when we call upon Him, He will certainly answer us.

This is the promise of God in Jeremiah 33:3,"Call to me, and I will answer you; I will tell you wonderful and marvelous things that you know nothing about.” (GNB)

The answers that God will give to us, will be so astounding that it will be way beyond our human thinking and understanding. Irrespective of the kind of situations that we are challenged with, if the Lord is with us, we can come out victorious. There are many who are discouraged and have their minds filled with questions about the circumstances that are constantly changing. In all those seemingly hopeless times, if we humble ourselves to call on the name of the Lord Jesus, He will certainly answer us in a most profound way. When we think of solutions to the problems we are confronted with, we can only think of limited ways to get things sorted out. However, when the Lord takes over, He can work in ways that are far beyond our understanding and comprehension. Whoever seeks the Lord earnestly in prayer will most assuredly have victory and the ones who oppose such a person will certainly end up with defeat.

The bible speaks about the Lord as our counselor. The Lord speaks and counsels us in various ways, but the most frequent way is through His word. As we prayerfully read the word of God, the Lord we will distinctly hear the voice of God. Many people are impatient and do not want to wait on the Lord, but instead find the easier way to ask someone else to pray on their behalf. God has given us His word in our hands, and we need to do is spend time in God’s presence, read His word, seek Him earnestly and He will give us clear direction and counsel.

2. The Lord will be with us in trouble

There are those who have the misconception that if they pray regularly, they will not have to face any trouble or trials. This is not true as the Lord Himself is encouraging us to call on Him in the time of trouble. This only implies that the Lord is categorical that we will encounter hardships and difficulties in life. There are others who think that because they began praying fervently, they were now being loaded with more troubles. Let me reassure such people that if you prayed for an hour and felt that you were pressed with calamities, pray even more, increase your prayer time and you will find the problems will disappear, and you will be triumphant over all your challenges. Never give up on praying, spend as much time as you can in the presence of the Lord. We will face heartaches, oppositions, trials, temptations, testing and even dangers, but the Lord will rescue us from them all.

At one time Jesus invited His disciples to come along with Him on a boat to go across the lake. Though the Lord was with them on that boat, they were ravaged by a fierce storm that rocked their boat and terrified them. The disciples, some of whom were fishermen, were in dread for their lives, not realizing that Jesus was with them.

Daniel was a man who prayed most earnestly to God three times a day, though he was in exile in a foreign country. He was confronted with opposition from those who worked alongside him, who were envious of him. When they could find no fault in him, they plotted to trap him, by putting to test His sincere commitment to God. They procured an order from the king in order to ambush Daniel and even managed to have him thrown into the Lion’s den.