Psalm 127:3-5

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!"

Be Filled With the Spirit

"...be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." Ephesians 5:18-20

I've been reading David Powlison's "Seeing With New Eyes: Counseling and the Human Condition Through the Lens of Scripture." On these verses he says:

"To be 'filled with the Spirit' is to have your language alive to God, both your daily conversations with others and the inward conversation within your heart. Your cognitive stream-of-consciousness and your social interactions are meant to be psalm-like and psalm-informed. That includes the ability to quote a psalm in a timely and relevant way, but it is something much more. Paul calls you to a lifestyle of joyous dependence on Christ, to live in faith like the Psalms.

A videotape of your outward speech and inward thoughts would look like a continuously updated and personalized psalm. The realities of a living relationship with Christ infuse the way you process the specifics of your daily life. You speak and think new-minted re-creations and applications of Scripture into the exigencies of the moment, updated at every point by Jesus Christ. Examples of the Spirit filling people for psalm-like and psalm-informed words appear in Elizabeth, Mary, and Zechariah (Luke 1); in the teachings and prayers of Jesus (Luke 6; 11); in the speeches of Peter (Acts 2; 4); in the praying of believers (Acts 4); in the praises, prayers, and exhortations of Paul's entire letter to the Ephesians; in the times you speak the Word of God with boldness, clarity, and faith; in the times you bless the Lord with all that is within you. Paul has pointed you to Psalms with a radical new application: go and live like the psalms do, seeing the Lord Jesus Christ." pgs. 24-25 (Emphasis mine)

Wow! What a high calling!!! I was so grasped and convicted by this thought. My thoughts and actions are to be done as if I were living out a personalized psalm to my King. I am to have a joyous dependence on Christ and to live a life of faith like the Psalmists. This theory is not new to me, but the idea of living my life as a psalm is... how beautiful!!! :-)

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