Today’s post is part of our Psalm Saturdays series from guest blogger Robert Chamberlain. You can contact him by sending a message to  bobjc88 @ gmail.com. You can also find him at his new blog at www.roberlain.blogspot.com .

Psalm 7:1–17 (ESV)
1 O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,
2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.
3 O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands,
4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause,
5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah
6 Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.
7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high.
8 The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous— you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!
10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.
11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.
12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow;
13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.
14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.
15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.
16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.
17 I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.

David was evidently in trouble, fleeing the pursuit of the enemy. So he sought refuge in Yahweh. That’s what we need to do when we face afflictions.

He was evidently a man of integrity, because he said that if he somehow deserved the attacks he was enduring, then let him be destroyed. But he knew he was being unjustly opposed. So he looked to God to vindicate him.

In our new covenant days, we often shy away from calls for God to judge. But if we believe in God’s justice, we shouldn’t be afraid of asking Him to act justly.

David seems rather legalistic in this Psalm- asking God to judge him according to his own righteousness and integrity. But as the Bible makes clear, the righteous live by faith in the One who imparts His perfect righteousness to our accounts. So we can be made righteous, through faith in the Righteous One.

Thankfully, we can praise the Lord for His righteousness credited to our spiritually bankrupt accounts. It’s thanks to Him that we’re justified and acceptable to Him. So He’s worthy of all our worship. 

“Yahweh Most High, how we praise You for Your righteousness which is our own through faith in Christ. Thank You for being both just and the justifier of the ungodly, for such are we. So we ask You to justify us in Jesus our Lord, amen.”

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