Judge Me God Psalm 7:8
How many people would actually say that let alone pray it? I found at least one person in the Old Testament who prayed that prayer. That was David in Psalm 7:8.
What drew my attention to this was when I was reading the New Living Translation (NLT) compared to the King James Version (KJV).
Psalm 7:8
NLT “The Lord Judges nations. Declare me righteous, O Lord, for I am innocent, O Most High.”
KJV “The Lord shall judge the people: judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.”
How many people pray to God asking him for things believing they are righteous and innocent in God’s eyes? Just as the NLT has David doing in a very proud manner? Hey God, you know I’m righteous, so can you wreak havoc on my enemies? God I did this for you and that for you, so could you do this for me? God I’m basically good, and I’m really having a tough time down here. Could you do this for me to get me out of this problem?
When in reality we are anything but righteous and innocent in God’s eyes. We don’t want to believe that about our selves. We tell ourselves that we are basically good. Yet during a normal day, how many times have we gotten angry at someone? How many times have we thought ill/nasty thoughts against someone, even if what they did was accidental?
It was no accident in your eyes that the other driver cut you off on the road. When in reality they could have honestly have not seen you, or were blinded by the sun. How many times have you been rude and offensive to someone, and you may have not even known it? The list could go on and on.
Yet, I believe the NLT writers had David’s prayer backwards. David was actually praying with an extremely humble heart, and most of us would be scared to pray his prayer. Yes, there would be more people willing to pray in a proud spirit hoping God will do something for us. How many would pray as David actually did?
If you read above the verse, David says if I did wrong let my enemies persecute me and dishonor me. In that same spirit, David prayed with a humble heart asking God to judge him according to his righteousness and integrity that was in him. Yes, David actually asked God to judge him. David also knew he had a very strong relationship with God.
David was not declaring himself to be righteous or innocent. He was asking to be judged by how much righteousness he had. Actually how much righteousness David or any of us have only God knows. Would we dare pray the same thing? Would we dare pray to ask God to judge us knowing our righteousness is like a dirty cloth that needs to be washed? The only way it can be washed is through Jesus. Our innocence is only obtainable through the blood of Jesus that washes our sins away.
Do we dare ask God to judge us, and pray like David prayed? We would definitely need a humble heart, faith only God can give, and the willingness to let God truly judge us, for God would not judge us as kindly as we would want him to. We would have to accept his sentence, whether it would be taking us through his refining fire of trials and tests, or on an unknown journey that would show us more about ourselves than we would ever want to know.
