CNC Daily Psalms

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 44:1-16  Listen to Psalm 44:1-16

The psalm begins with recollecting God’s past intervention on Israel’s behalf when they came into the Promised Land. Their success was due entirely to the Lord. The writer goes on to assert Israel’s continuing reliance on God: they acknowledge that it is God who gives victory over the enemy, just as much as before.

In the second half of the passage for today the mood changes dramatically. In violent contrast to the past, the present experience is one of retreat, being plundered and scattered, reproach and disgrace. The enemy is walking all over them.

We are offered a clear-sighted analysis of the current situation: how things were when everything was going well; how we still rely on God, not our own resources, for help; how horrible things are currently. There is no sugar-coating of the pill, no putting a brave face on it or pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. And yet … all this is being poured out before the Lord, not bottled up inside.

Lord Jesus, when things are tough, help me to be honest with myself and with you and to come to you anyway, even when I am bewildered about why I am in my current situation.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 43  Listen to Psalm 43

As a point of interest, Psalms 42 and 43 are often seen as one psalm.

Have you ever needed to preach to yourself?

As our unusual lifestyle continues, we have few opportunities to be together (in a non-Zoom way), to be able share where we are, or to be encouraged by fellowshipping. Maybe the uncertainty of the future is pressing down on us...

I think we all have off days/weeks. Often what we need to do is to phone a trusted friend to talk with, or find someone to pray with on Zoom, sometimes we do need professional help. But at other times and maybe as our first line of action, what we need to do is to preach to ourselves!

In Psalm 42/43 the psalmists looks like they have real physical enemies to be rescued from. We might not have this but we can still respond in the same way.

Find a quiet place - the bathroom will do if nowhere else - and join with the psalmist in preaching aloud:

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

This medicine may need to be repeated!

Jesus is our Saviour and we are held in our Heavenly Father’s arms.

Father, send forth your light and your truth, let them guide me.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 42  Listen to Psalm 42

What are you missing during lockdown? What do you long for?

Is it a cuppa and a hug from family or friends?

A favourite pub or cafe to reacquaint yourself with?

The routine of going out to a day’s work?

A special place to visit?

Fewer people in the house? More people in the house?

In the poetic start to this psalm, the sons of Korah paint a picture of a deer panting, thirsty for water and compares it with his thirst and longing for God, asking “when can I go and meet with God”?

Our great news is that through Jesus’s work on the cross we don’t have to go searching for God - he came and found us! We can come into His presence as sons and daughters of the living God.

Like any relationship, to get to know, recognise and trust someone intimately takes time, talking, listening, just being with them, doing things to please them.

This lockdown could be just the opportunity to deepen your relationship with our Heavenly Father. Let’s ask God to increase our thirst for Him alone.

Father, I long to know you better, meet me in a new way.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 41  Listen to Psalm 41

“Dignify those who are down on their luck; you'll feel good - that’s what God does. God looks after us all, makes us robust with life. God protects, preserves, sustains. He is our nurse and nurses us back to health.” (MSG)

Now the psalmist personalises his statement for he recognises that enemies without and sin within accuse him. Even in sickness his visitors are liars and their well wishes are followed by slander and malice. Rumours that he has a fatal disease - self-inflicted.

However, God knows the truth and knows you inside and out. He whispers, “I am pleased with you. I will raise you up as I promised and affirm you with my yes, yes, yes. There will be no victory in the enemy camp” (verse 11).

Father, thank you for all your blessings bestowed on me. Help me to enjoy your pleasure and your presence amid all the challenges and difficulties of life. May I never degrade others by harsh judgement and unfair criticism but always seek to bless.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 40  Listen to Psalm 40

David patiently waits for God to rescue him from a deep pit of despair in which he is trapped. In love, God rescues and places him on a firm rock (verse 2), gives him a new song of praise and witnesses to others of his commitment to follow Him (verses 3-4, 10). He recognises God has already plans for him to do things beyond his imagination (verse 5). It’s not being religious but listening through an opened ear, obeying God’s law and finding His agenda as he trusts in Him (verse 8). He desires to do God’s will.

David moves on to proclaim to others God’s salvation plan to make us righteous in heart. God is faithful and full of love and truth. Nicky Gumbel points out that these two qualities must be blended together as we witness to others - “For truth becomes hard if not softened by love. Love becomes soft if not strengthened by truth.” As we speak out, we will face many troubles and temptation (verses 14-15). Any sin that overtakes us will cloud our vision of the passionate God and guilt will rob us of our peace (verse 12). The final verse proclaims that God is our help, our deliverer and rescues us in our distress.

Lastly, here we see in this psalm Jesus Christ who made the same vow (verses 6-8) and became the ultimate sacrificial lamb for us (Hebrews 10:5-10). And he is the truth, full of grace and love.

Lord, thank you my rock. May I realise that your love for me is deeper than any pit I might be in. Help me to look to you for protection and deliverance. Help me to tell others my story with love and truth.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 39  Listen to Psalm 39

Verses 1-3. David says that he is not going to say anything. Even though godless people make him want to speak, he will not. He knew how his words would be misunderstood and misused by such persons, so it was better to be silent. To them his words would seem to be a criticism of God and his ways, but this makes him feel worse. So David decides that he will say something.

Verses 4-6. He asks God how long his life will be. Our lives are so short they seem like the wind blowing for a short time, or a shadow that goes when the sun goes down. David’s silence was broken in the best way – by humble prayer to God. He would not speak his fears and doubts before the wicked, but he would pour them out before His God. Here David asked God for wisdom – specifically, the wisdom to know the shortness and the frailty of his life. Every person should know that their lives on this earth are short (Psalm 103:15-16) every man at his best state is but ‘a puff of wind’. David was a champion, a successful warrior, a leader, a celebrity, a skilled poet, a musician, a survivor, and a king. If anyone might have thought more highly of himself, David had the right to. Yet he understood that he, like every man is – merely, a puff of steam or smoke.

Verses 7-10. Now David says what he really wants. He wants God to make him safe from the results of the bad things that he did. David thought that one of the results was his illness.

Verses 10-13. The psalmist, having meditated on the shortness and uncertainty of life, and the vanity and confusion of spirit that attend all the comforts of life, here, in these verses, turns his eyes and heart heaven-ward. When there is no solid satisfaction to be had in humanity, it is to be found in God and in communion with him and to him we should be driven by our disappointments in the world.

The last few words “before I depart and am no more” are perhaps revealing. We have the great joy of knowing our salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus and the assurance of life after death with Him. David, here gives no glimpse that he knew what lies beyond death for him.

Lord, we thank you that we have the assurance of eternal life with you. Please keep reminding us when we go through difficulties and illness that our ultimate hope is in you alone.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 38  Listen to Psalm 38

This Psalm of David is entitled ‘A Petition’ like Psalm 70 and is amongst those known as the penitential Psalms along with numbers 6, 32, 51, 102, 130 and 143. It comes out of David’s anguish over his sin and is an appeal for relief from severe painful suffering. His shame and guilt were really getting him down and it seems that it had caused not only psychological problems but physical ones too. This can happen to us today. If our mental and emotional health is not good, it can lead to physical ailments. Proverbs 17:22 says ‘a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.’

David was not hiding his sin from God though, like Adam and Eve or we might. He cries out to God – a wise thing to do, even though he senses God’s wrath and displeasure. (Verse 1) He feels overwhelmed by his iniquity and is physically and mentally spent (verses 2-10) at the end of his tether. Even his friends abandon him (verse 11) and his enemies plot against him (verse 12), but he does not fault God at all.

Some of us may feel abandoned at the present time and it is difficult when we cannot have friends round to help counsel and cheer us when we are feeling down. From time to time we need face to face contact and hug from someone, but we can take our cares to God who always listens. I hope there are people you can at least talk to on the phone if you are struggling.

David confesses and is troubled by his sin. In other psalms he declares his innocence, but not this one, as he knows he has done wrong. David knows where his help will come from (verse 15) and is prepared to hope for God’s help. By the end of the psalm he makes an urgent appeal for God’s presence and help (verses 21, 22) being sure that only God can save him from his desperate condition.

We have more revelation now and have the knowledge that Jesus has made the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that if we confess our sins and are sorry for the wrong we do, we will be forgiven and can be free of guilt and shame.

Thank you Jesus, that you died on the cross for all our sins and when we are sorry, your forgiveness is complete. Help us to be honest and open with you.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 37:21-40  Listen to Psalm 37:21-40

In the second half of this psalm about God’s justice, David shows us the stark difference between two groups of people, the ‘wicked’ and the ‘righteous’.

A bit of an explanation first. The Bible says “no one is righteous” (Romans 3:10). So who are the righteous? The righteous are those who belong to a righteous God and the wicked are those who do not. Being righteous is nothing to do with how good we are, or the greatness of our character. Christians receive God’s righteousness through the work of Jesus: “God made him, who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

If you have experienced the pain of injustice, then be encouraged by these truths. Being the victim of injustice, we can ‘stumble’, although God can make our ‘steps firm’ (verse 23).

A tension we must live with before Jesus returns, is that the ‘wicked’ seem to get away with things, (verse 21) and we are left with all the hurt. God knows we have sought to act justly and he ‘loves the just’ (verse 28). The Lord will ‘not leave’ us in their power, even if a case comes to court, truth and justice will prevail (verse 33).

Going through injustice brings insecurity, remember that God is our security, a 'stronghold’ and a ‘refuge’ (verses 39-40).

Lord, help me to “Bless those who persecute me; bless and… not curse.” Romans 12:14

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm Psalm 37:1-20  Listen to Psalm Psalm 37:1-20

This psalm reminds us that God is passionate about injustice. Here David reflects over his life and remembers all the injustice he has witnessed; yet He knows that God is faithful. Because of this, David calls us to find our delight in the Lord and to commit our ways to Him, waiting patiently for Him (verses 5-7).

Although when we feel we have been wronged we can ‘fret’; here we are told three times not to fret. To fret means “to become angry and worry”. Fretting is an immensely powerful emotion and can cause us to lash out in anger or frustration; this ‘leads only to evil’ (verse 8).

Rather we are called to be meek (verse 11). This quality is misunderstood in today’s culture; it is seen as weakness. In the Bible it is a strength and is linked to being humble.  Moses was described as a very humble man. He is not a picture of weakness, rather of someone who trusted God. Jesus was positive about meekness and he quoted this psalm: ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth’ Matthew 5:5.

We are encouraged to trust in the Lord and not to become angry, because God will ultimately bring His justice. For those who do evil ‘will be broken’ and God will ‘uphold the righteous’ (verse 17). In a world of injustice let's share this truth to comfort and help one another.

Lord, in times of injustice, help me to “be still,” rather than to fret.

We are continuing our series of reflections on the Psalms. Each day we will upload a new reflection to the website. We hope and pray that you will find them helpful and that they bring hope during this season. Click on these buttons to read the text of the psalm or listen to a recording of it. You can also listen to the reflection using the audio player below.

Read Psalm 36  Listen to Psalm 36

David again starts this psalm with concern for the people who are disobedient to God. They are intent on being foolish, accepting what is wrong and breaking God's laws. But God is so great and His love is all-pervading. His love and faithfulness stretch as far as the eye can see and further into the heavens beyond. The solidity of the mountains is a picture of the reliability of His righteousness. The depth of the oceans a picture of the depth of His justice. He looks after everyone- man and animals. “His love never fails it never runs out”.

Everyone can come to God and find shelter in Him. He blesses us with His provision and gifts. God gives us so many good things. We receive life from Him and light from Him. David uses the last verses of this psalm to ask of God: that He will continue to give His love to those who know Him, that He will remain faithful to those who follow Him, who are obeying the Law and living as God has asked them to.

He finishes by praying for protection from the proud person who might distract him from living under God's direction. He is anxious that he should stand firm and not succumb to the temptation of the “wicked" who might try to draw him away from his commitment to Jehovah. The final verse points again to the overcoming of those who live outside of God's protection.

Lord, protect me as you do all your creatures. Strengthen me to live according to your will, to know your love, protection and the provision you make for those who love you.