Glorified In Our Help (Psalm 50:14-15)

 


Wednesday, May 21, 2025


Psalm 50

Exodus 32:15-35

John 12:44-50


Glorified In Our Help (Psalm 50:14-15)


Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,
    and perform your vows to the Most High,
 and call upon me in the day of trouble;
    I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”


“Glory” is one of those funny words that we think we know the meaning of, but often fail to explain fully. Certainly there is an idea that it is a display of greatness – God is the God of glory, in that he displays his greatness in the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. Another part of the definition of “glory” is that it is when everything goes according to how it ought.


So when God is glorified, we mean that God is doing exactly what God loves to do and does well, and that it is also out on display for all to see. Keep that in mind with our passage from Psalm 50.


God is glorified when we ask him for help and he delivers us. We might find ourselves tempted to think of God as some sort of magic genie when we ask him for help. Or maybe like a kindly old grandfather who just wants us to have a good time. But the fact that coming to our aid brings God glory excludes those ideas from the nature of who God is. He is the judge of all things and calls out to heaven above and earth below; he needs nothing, and would not even tell us if he did. This God, then, is the God who is glorified when we call on him for help, and he delivers us.


When we ask God for help, we shouldn’t think that we are hassling him. Nor should we think that we are disappointing God by somehow failing and therefore needing his help. If we want to glorify God, then hear what he tells us in his word: offer to him a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and call upon him in the day of trouble. When he delivers you, then you will be glorifying him. What a wonderful privilege to glorify God; and what a gracious God that is glorified by delivering us from trouble!


What are you worried about asking God help for? How might your deliverance from those troubles bring glory to God?


God of glory: we thank you for delivering us from the power of sin and death through your only beloved Son. Grant us your grace in our time of trouble that, through your deliverance, your glory may be seen to the whole creation.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Monday, July 25, 2022

  Monday, July 25, 2022 Psalm 62; 63 Hosea 1 Romans 4:1-12 He only is my rock and my salvation: my strong tower, so that I shall not be moved. The prophecies of Hosea are rich with vivid imagery. Look at these names: firstly, “Hosea” means “salvation”. So too do the names Joshua and Jesus. Then Hosea has three children: “God scatters”, “Not pitied”, and “Not my people”. This is because the children are part of the marriage between Hosea and Gomer, which is an image God is showing to the nation. It is to our profit that God has used real-life events to communicate spiritual imagery and divine truths. We find it very easy to understand our relationship with God as being a faithful wife to a loving husband. We can reconcile this message with what Paul has to teach us today in Romans. He makes the very important observation that Abraham was given God's righteousness as a result of his faith before, not after, his circumcision. Again, this is God using real-life events...
Read more

The LORD will make you a house.

  Friday, July 28, 2023 Psalm 71 2 Samuel 7 John 8:1-11 Observance: Samson, bishop (d. 565) The LORD will make you a house. We learn three things from this conversation between David, Nathan and God. First, it is that we do not invite God into our presence. Rather, God comes alongside us, where we are, hiking through the wilderness. God gets down into the dust with us and puts up a tent. There is a reason why John made so much of this tent language in his first chapter: that the Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us. Whichever part of the Bible we are reading, we see God coming to the people, rather than the people moving towards God. This is of particular comfort when we feel like we haven’t prayed enough, or regularly. We might have been distracted by the dust on our feet, but God has always been there right beside us. We just have to look up. Second, it is that God’s presence among us is not something to be feared. Have you noticed that,...
Read more

The God of Those Who Repent (The Prayer of Manasseh 13)

Image
  Thursday, August 29, 2024 Psalm 145 The Prayer Of Manasseh Romans 15:22-33 Observance: Beheading of John the Baptist The God of Those Who Repent (The Prayer of Manasseh 13) This morning we have a passage from a book that is not inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Prayer of Manasseh is included in what the church calls the “apocrypha”, which is a set of written works that sit alongside the Bible. We read them for example of life and instruction of manners, but do not apply them to establish any doctrine, according to the sixth Article of Religion at the back of our prayer book. Nonetheless, we did just yesterday read about King Manasseh and his wild ride of a life journey. It must have been quite a change of character he went through: first he rebelled both against his father and God, replacing true worship with devil worship. Then he was captured by the Assyrians in a most undignified manner, in chains and with a hook through his nose. During this ...
Read more