Copy of Psalm Book PDF

Psalm 38

“Lighten up!” When spoken years ago, this phrase meant “Don’t be so serious! Relax! Chill out!” Maybe people still say it today to diffuse a tense, agitated person. But this phrase has taken on a whole new meaning today in our weight obsessed world. You can’t scroll Facebook or watch TV and not be bombarded by the commercial messages that we all need to “lighten up” and drop our extra pounds by eating special foods, taking miracle pills, walking ourselves fit, and doing chair yoga routines to get those pounds off. If we spend enough money by sending away for “how to” videos, pills, and potions, we’re promised that we can indeed “lighten up!,” shed those pounds, and get healthy. We can lose weight, become handsome and beautiful, and live happily ever after in toned bodies. News Flash! While it is good that we practice healthy eating and exercise habits, we all have a “weight problem” that no pills, potions, or exercise routines can ever touch. This is the weight problem that King David wrote of in Psalm 38. “There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.” (v. 3-4) David is weighed down, burdened by his sin. The guilt and weight of his sin is so heavy that he says, “My heart throbs, my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes - it also has gone from me.” (v. 10) That’s heavy, so heavy, that David admits in verse 4, it’s “too heavy for me.” What an awful predicament to be in! It reminds me of the words of the Bill Gaither song, “Shackled by a heavy burden, ‘neath a load of guilt and shame.” Sin is the heaviest weight we will ever carry, and the truth is, on our own, we can never diet or exercise its shackles off. It is too heavy for us! But Wait!!! (You’ve heard those words in many TV infomercials!) King David uses these wonderful, hope-giving words too. “BUT for You, O Lord, do I WAIT; it is You , O God, Who will answer…Make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.” (v. 15, 22) Jesus took our “weight problem” to the cross when He took our heavy sins upon Himself and died for them, for us. By His merciful grace, when we accept Him, we are forever forgiven, “lightened up”, declared not guilty, never to have to carry them around again. Are you carrying around the burdensome weight of unconfessed sin that is too heavy for you? The Good News is that Jesus is standing ready to take it off of your shoulders today! His is the greatest “weight loss” program ever offered to every man, woman, boy, and girl!

Approach, my soul, the mercy seat, where Jesus answers prayer; there humbly fall before His feet, for none can perish there. Bowed down beneath a load of sin, by Satan sorely pressed, by war without and fears within, I come to Thee for rest. - John Newton