I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.

Psalm 5 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Prayer for Protection from the Wicked.  A Psalm of David.

Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my groaning.
² Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God,
For to You I pray.
³ In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice;
In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.

⁴ For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness;
No evil dwells with You.
⁵ The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes;
You hate all who do iniquity.
⁶ You destroy those who speak falsehood;
The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
⁷ But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house,                                  At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.

⁸ O Lord, lead me in Your righteousness because of my foes;
Make Your way straight before me.
⁹ There is nothing reliable in what they say;
Their inward part is destruction itself.
Their throat is an open grave;
They flatter with their tongue.
¹⁰ Hold them guilty, O God;
By their own devices let them fall!
In the multitude of their transgressions thrust them out,
For they are rebellious against You.

¹¹ But let all who take refuge in You be glad,
Let them ever sing for joy;
And may You shelter them,
That those who love Your name may exult in You.
¹² For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord,
You surround him with favor as with a shield.

In Matthew 21:22 Jesus says:  "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."  In John 14:13-14, He says:   “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”    So in these two verses we see two of the elements of successful prayer; that we believe and that we ask in Jesus name.  In today’s psalm, the psalmist begins saying:   Give ear to my words, O Lord,
Consider my groaning. Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God, For to You I pray. In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice; In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.    First, David who was himself a king, acknowledges the position and the name of the one to whom he prays. He calls Him Lord, God and King. Then he says that he will pray and eagerly watch. If we would pray as Jesus said, believing, then we too would eagerly watch. If we pray believing, then we should pray with eager expectation of receiving. Jesus taught us to pray: Your kingdom come, Your will be done. We sometimes though misapply this statement. Rather than praying believing, with eager expectation, we ask, then say, “if it be Your will.”  We temper our expectations by giving God a reason not to answer our prayer. We assume in advance that if our prayer is not answered, it must not be God’s will. God doesn’t need us to make an excuse or a way out of answering our prayer. He is capable of doing anything we could ask. The right solution is that we know the will of God when we pray. If we pray based on what God has said, if we pray His promises from scripture, His word, then we can pray believing because we know our prayer is already according to His will. When Jesus was on the cross, He said: “It is finished!(John 18:30) When we pray that the Lord’s will would be done, we pray in agreement with the finished work of the cross. It will be done because it is done already in and through the cross.

The psalmist continues:  For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. You destroy those who speak falsehood; The Lord abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit.
But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house, At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.    Hebrews 4:16 says:  Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.   We can come boldly into the presence of God and we can ask for what we need because of His mercy and grace, granted to us through the cross. Yet while we come boldly and expectantly, we still must come humbly, bowing in reverence to God. We must not be boastful or arrogant, as if we deserve what we ask. We also, knowing the character of God as the psalmist does, knowing that He takes no pleasure in wickedness and that there is no evil in Him, must be certain that there also is no evil in us and that what we ask has no pleasure in wickedness. To ask with pleasure in wickedness is not only to ask that God do harm to others, but also it is to ask that our own lust or greed be satisfied. James 4:3 says:  You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.    Philippians 4:19 says:   my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.   God will indeed supply all that we need, but that doesn’t mean that He will respond well to our prayers if they are based in greed.  

The psalmist says:   But let all who take refuge in You be glad, Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them, That those who love Your name may exult in You. For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord, You surround him with favor as with a shield.   Let us say, Amen. Thank You heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ and precious Holy Spirit, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, in and through my life. I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch. Amen.