"You are my Rock and my Fortress; therefore for your Name's sake lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me; for Youare my strength." (Psalm 31:3-4)
Did you ever give serious thought to the fact that although the Bible represents us as being in the sorest need and the most pitiable condition of helplessness, it never once intimates that anything of all that is done for us is for our own sake? It is all for the Lord's own sake--for His name's sake.
Why? The reason is suggested in the first part of the text quoted. God is our Rock and our Fortress; He is our dwelling place; "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." (Acts 17:28) "He is our life." (Deuteronomy 30:20) "We are His offspring," (Acts 17:28) who nevertheless even down to old age and gray hairs are not separated from His being, but are borne by Him as part of His own life. Since we are so intimately connected with Him, His reputation, His good name, is bound up with ours. It is to His own personal interest to have us kept from evil. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:6)
This means that God has taken our sins on himself, for Christ is the shining of His glory, the very impress of His being, and His name is in Him. So in the exhortation to the elders of the church we read: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." (Acts 20:28) "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Corinthians 5:19)
The Lord is personally interested in our salvation. He has "interposed himself by an oath," (Hebrews 6:17) swearing that He would do good, and only good, to us. That means that, like the most indulgent parent that He is, He will give us the desire of our heart. He will not oppose our wills in any respect.
If we do not love life, and thrust it from us, He will let us have just what we labor and long for; but if we love life, and choose it, He will give us "more abundantly [of it,] above all that we ask or think." (Ephesians 3:20)
He gives us wrath, if we will have it, but no more than we have worked for and treasured up; because He has no pleasure in the death of any. But when we choose life and blessing, He bestows it in superabundance, because "He delights in mercy." (Micah 7:18) "You number my steps; do You not watch over my sin? My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and You sew up my iniquity." (Job 14:16-17)
Is it not a most comforting assurance? How natural that He who numbers the hairs of our heads should also number our steps. He knows just how many steps we have taken in all our lives. He knows how many useless steps we have taken, how many steps in the forbidden places; but He sews up all the wickedness in a bag, and casts it into the depths of the sea, for His own sake. "He leads us in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." (Psalm 23:3)
He guides us with His eye upon us: "I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I will guide you with my eye." (Psalm 32:8)
How sure we are in our goings, when we are content to walk in His way.
What a multitude of worn out people there are in the world! How many there are with tired feet, wearied with the numerous steps they have taken, both profitably and uselessly. To all such the Lord promises rest. "They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31)
What a blessed thing to have our steps so guided by the Lord that we shall not get wearied and faint! Is it possible? The Lord says so; why not believe it, and find the joy of it?
If to any person these things seem fanciful, it is only because God is to him an unreality. If we regard Him as a Being sitting apart by himself, far off from us, looking at us with critical eyes, we shall find no practical support or joy. But when we accept Him as He is, "above all, and through all, and in all," (Ephesians 4:6) remembering that in the most literal sense He is our strength, we shall experience the joy of His salvation.
We expect certain things to be done by the little strength that we assume to be our own; we know that we can do a certain amount of work without getting weary; very well, take God himself for your strength, live in and from Him, and you will find the results as much greater than anything you have heretofore known or thought, as the infinite God is greater than puny man.--Present Truth, November 2, 1899--Original title: Front Page--Psalm 31:3-4.