January 16, 2025
I have set the Lord continually before me. (Psalm 16:8a, NASB)
I place the Lord in front of me always (Psalm 16:8a, CSV)
Everything in your life and your future depends upon where you place the Lord. Notice the Psalmist David indicated it is our deliberate choice and no one else’s. No one can do this for you. “I have SET … I PLACE the Lord in front of me.”
Where have you placed the Lord in your life?
IS HE BEHIND YOU?
Out of sight, out of mind? Although you may even know the Lord and have some relationship with Him, you have chosen to disregard Him generally and move other gods to be front and center.
There was a reason David did not do that.
I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have nothing good besides you … the sorrows of those who take another god for themselves will multiply. I will not pour out their drink offerings of blood and I will not speak their names with my lips.” (Psalm 16:2-4)
David had observed the result for those who placed God behind them: multiplied sorrows. He knew this led to a confused life and a bitter end. He recognized that he “had no good besides [God]” (vs. 2).
Have you become enamored with what the world offers? Its people, its entertainment, its temporary pleasure, and the momentary adrenaline of its pleasures and adulation? If so, God will be moved behind you, and you will place the world, flesh, and devil in front of you.
You may even go to church most Sundays, but it is hard to focus, worship, and hear because your tuner has been on the world’s stations the bulk of the week. You are pleased with the world’s music and noise, and your heart cannot switch channels quickly enough to hear God in a brief hour.
IS HE BESIDE YOU?
Many people know the Lord and have a genuine relationship with Him. Through His Word and prayer, they commune with Him occasionally (some more than others). Ten to twenty minutes is the limit of their attention span when they open the Bible. Prayer is almost impossible. They look to Him some and rely on Him for answers and needs. Christ has become their occasional running buddy. They see him out of the corner of their eye, but He is not before them, leading, guiding. Christ is in their peripheral vision, not front and center.
They only look to Him when there is a greater need. They are not antagonistic to Him in the least (quite the opposite). They love the Lord; they just don’t value Him first. They don’t seek the kingdom of God above all else. They have, perhaps unknowingly, chosen other gods before Him. They do not continually place Him before them.
Those who choose this placement of Christ will have only occasional satisfaction, for their vision is primarily filled with the world. It has become their cup and portion, the place from which they drink.
Not so, David.
“Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing of blessing. You hold my future. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” (16:5-6).
David knew that his life would only be satisfied as he drank of Christ. This was his rightful inheritance (as it is for all of us who truly know Christ), and it was pleasant, beautiful, and satisfying. Therefore, that was the cup from which David would continually drink.
(We notice that when he took his eyes from there, looked across the rooftops at Bathsheba, and placed HER before him, the results were disastrous.)
IS HE BEFORE YOU?
Here is the deliberate and Divine difference. These are the men and women and students who have found the fullness of life in Christ. This is where Christ desires to be in our attention and affection (“You shall have no other gods beside Me … love the Lord with all your heart and mind and soul and strength”). This is God's first and greatest call and command because He knows our lives won’t work any other way.
David had tasted the results of this deliberate choice to place the Lord—not behind or beside—but before him all the time. This is the Presence-centered life, the abiding, remaining life. We will never be satisfied until we are convinced that we have no good besides Him and deliberately choose to place Him continually before us. It is a challenge, because the world pulls at us with constant distractions. But for those who knowingly resist those distractions, the results are glorious, pleasant, and beautiful.
Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever. (Psalm 16:9-11)
Where are you placing the Lord? Choose carefully for this choice determines everything.
February 20, 2025
If you have questions about how real, how present, how personal and intimate the Lord is, then just read six words of travelogue in Luke’s journal as he traveled with Paul.
February 18, 2025
I have known many people who have had great joy and power in the midst of great suffering. It is humbling that the slightest inconveniences deter many of us from following God. We have not gotten to the bottom—settled the issue. Most often, we live for our comfort, reputation, or gain. When any of those goals are touched, we are troubled and discontent.
February 17, 2025
The repentant who finds God gains everything. “He who has God and everything else,” said C.S. Lewis, “has no more than he who has God alone.”
