The first 8 verses of Psalm 44 are praises to God for the victories he has given his people.  The writer has had victory after victory in God, but in verse 9 everything changes. The writer then begins to talk about the defeat that the people of God are experiencing and he claims that it is all for God’s sake.

“But now you have rejected and humbled us;  

you no longer go out with our armies.

You made us retreat before the enemy,

    and our adversaries have plundered us.

You gave us up to be devoured like sheep

    and have scattered us among the nations.

You sold your people for a pittance,

    gaining nothing from their sale.

You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,

    the scorn and derision of those around us.

You have made us a byword among the nations;

    the peoples shake their heads at us.

I live in disgrace all day long,

    and my face is covered with shame

at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,

    because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.

All this came upon us,

    though we had not forgotten you;

    we had not been false to your covenant.

Our hearts had not turned back;

    our feet had not strayed from your path.

But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals;

    you covered us over with deep darkness.

If we had forgotten the name of our God

    or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

would not God have discovered it,

    since he knows the secrets of the heart?

Yet for your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

Psalm 144:9-22  NIV

  Many times in the Bible you see trouble and suffering come on God’s people as a result of their sin. But, in this instance the scripture tells us that it is not because of any wrong-doing on behalf of God’s people. The only reason the enemy is ravaging them is because they belong to God.

  Our heritage in the Lord is victory. Our inheritance includes everything that Christ died on the cross to obtain for us. This includes salvation, healing, deliverance, and provision. And yet, we all experience seasons and times when things just don’t go well.    

    When it does not seem like we are winning because we are experiencing troubles and trials. When this happens we many times tend to begin to explain away the troubles by thinking we must be doing something wrong. We use logic that says, “If we were doing everything we should be doing, we should always have victory and never have troubles or struggles.”  But this Psalm makes it clear that the struggles the people of God were experiencing at this time were NOT because they had broken covenant or strayed from God’s path. 

  When I read this passage during my normal devotional time it stuck out at me because it is quoted in another part of the Bible on which I had just recently been meditating. 

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

‘For your sake we face death all day long;

    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39

  I always thought when I read this passage that verse 36 (which quotes Psalm 44) seemed a little incongruous. Paul is telling us how strongly God is with us and how complete our security in Him is, but also throws in this little part about facing death and being slaughtered? Reading it this time made me think about the persecutions of the early Church to whom he was writing this letter. How they must have need reassurance that it was not because God was angry, or against them that they were suffering but really the exact opposite that was the cause.

  For us we need to understand that even when its not Governments or even other people that are persecuting us, we still have an enemy. We are a target simply because we belong to Jesus. Paul’s strong words to the people of his day apply to us as well. If you are experiencing trouble or struggles today God is saying, “It is just a trouble or struggle. If I have already given to you the best I had to give it is not me that is withholding other good things from your life.”  Don’t allow the temporary struggles you and every believer goes through to keep you from knowing that God is for you and not against you.

  Paul knew that the Devil would want to take further advantage of the difficult times he was stirring up against God’s people by whispering in their ear that it was because of sin and failure on their own part. He told them, “You haven’t done everything you could have done, or you aren’t right with God, or it’s because of that thing you did that this hardship has come on you.  But God says, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one.”

  Paul was talking to a Church who went through sufferings that we in this country can’t imagine. He was making clear to them that the foundation of their life was not that everything would always go well for them. The proof of God’s love is not that we will always have comfort and ease. We cannot equate our value in Christ with our circumstances, whether they are going well or not. No, the foundation for them, as well as for us, is that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. From this foundation we can weather all the storms that come our way and go from glory to glory in Christ. and walk in our full inheritance of victory.