Learn to pray short prayers like King David.
Psalm 143:1-6 (NIV)
1 LORD, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.
2 Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.
3 The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
like those long dead.
4 So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.
5 I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.
6 I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.
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11 For your name’s sake, LORD, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.
12 In your unfailing love (ḥěʹ·sěd), silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 23: The Justification of Sinners
We believe
that our blessedness lies in the forgiveness of our sins
because of Jesus Christ,
and that in it our righteousness before God is contained,
as David and Paul teach us
when they declare that man blessed
to whom God grants righteousness
apart from works.
And the same apostle says
that we are justified “freely” or “by grace”
through redemption in Jesus Christ.
And therefore we cling to this foundation,
which is firm forever,
giving all glory to God,
humbling ourselves,
and recognizing ourselves as we are;
not claiming a thing for ourselves or our merits
and leaning and resting
on the sole obedience of Christ crucified,
which is ours when we believe in him.
That is enough to cover all our sins
and to make us confident,
freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror
of God’s approach,
without doing what our first father, Adam, did,
who trembled as he tried to cover himself
with fig leaves.
In fact,
if we had to appear before God relying—
no matter how little—
on ourselves or some other creature,
then, alas, we would be swallowed up.
Therefore everyone must say with David:
“Lord, do not enter into judgment with your servants,
for before you no living person shall be justified.”
Summary
Each day as we read the Bible, we practice praying the very passage we just read back to God using the Triple-A prayer pattern, where we begin by Acknowledging who God is, then Aligning our lives with Him, before we finally Ask God for what we need. We use this pattern because it's the pattern Jesus used in teaching us to pray the Lord's Prayer, and because so many biblical prayers follow it as well.
We've seen before in the Psalms how David also utilizes these same three elements in his prayer-based psalms, but, as is the case today, he likes to throw them into a poetic blender so that it becomes difficult to separate acknowledgement from alignment or asking.
Such is the case with the 2nd verse of David's prayer which grabs our attention today:
Ask: Do not bring your servant into judgment... This is the focus of so many of David's psalms: asking God to restore the shalom in their relationship.
Alignment: for no one living is righteous... This may not initially seem like a prayer of alignment, but it is. David's not making an excuse by saying God shouldn't judge him because nobody else is righteous either, rather, it's an admission of his sinful condition, which is the first step of repentance and living in alignment with God.
Acknowledgment: before you. David here acknowledges that God is just in His expectation for righteousness because He is the very definition of righteousness (this becomes very clear when reading this second verse in conjunction with the first).
Certainly this second verse is part of a larger prayer (the whole psalm), but you can see that it stands on its own as a prayer as well. Remember, as is often the case, short prayers are often the best prayers! Pray David's prayer in v2 often, that it would cause you to cling to Christ all the more.
Dig Deeper
When we read Psalm 143 last year, we noted that it sure seems like David wrote this psalm later in life. By this point he would have amassed great wealth as the king of Israel and there was very little he lacked.
But David knows the one thing he needs more than anything else - the one thing that is worth more than his entire earthly kingdom - is out of his reach. David knows he needs perfect righteousness in order to enjoy eternity at peace with God, but since "no one living is righteous," this peace David longed for seemed unattainable.
Certainly David didn't know Jesus, his greater son, who would make this peace possible by giving all those who put their faith in Him His own perfect righteousness. But David did know what to appeal to: God's unfailing covenant love (ḥěʹ·sěd - v12). This is the love in which God obligated Himself to care for His people which caused Him to send His only begotten Son for your salvation.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: LORD, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief (v1);
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you (v2);
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED: Help me to cling to Christ.
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Luke 18
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