Psalm 27:1-6 - Fear or Faith

“The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me To eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, They stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear; Though war should rise against me, In this I will be confident." Today, we live in a world full of fear! In a couple of days, we enter a new year, and we are facing new challenges. We have no idea what the future holds for us. Proverbs 27:1 tells us: “Boast not yourself of tomorrow for you know not what a day may bring forth.” Fear is a good thing but it can also be a bad thing. I’m convinced that the two greatest motivations in our lives are love and fear. Both of these emotions can spring us into action to do something we might not ordinarily do. But fear can also paralyze us and keep us from doing anything. We can make the choice every day to either live in faith or to live in fear. One of the signs of the “last days”, will be that “men’s hearts will fail them because of fear” (Luke 21:26). David ends this chapter by saying that he would have given up hope in his fear of the violent and wicked people who were trying to kill him unless he by faith believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). According to the title of this psalm, as recorded in the Septuagint, David wrote it "before he was anointed."  This means it was probably written when he was exiled from home and being hunted by King Saul and his men. The psalm does reveal that David was in great danger from violent evildoers (v. 2) who were lying about him (v. 12) and wanting to kill him (vv. 2 and 12), and Saul and his men qualified. But in spite of this difficult and dangerous situation, David was confident (v. 3), he was courageous (v. 14), and he was unafraid (v. 1). In this psalm, David teaches us that when we know the LORD and trust Him, He helps us overcome the fears that can paralyze our lives. We can face the fears of our circumstances (Psalm 27:1-6), because we can be sure that the LORD will help us. We can deal with the fears of failure (vv. 7-10), because the LORD will care for us. And we can confront the fears of the future (vv. 11-14), because the LORD will guide us and “strengthen our hearts”. In verse 1, we see that David didn't close his eyes to the circumstances around him; rather, he looked by faith to the Lord and examined his circumstances from heaven's point of view (Heb. 12:1-3). The Lord was everything he needed just as He is everything we need today. David proclaimed that, “The LORD is my light and salvation”. Jesus is our light, so we need not fear because of darkness. Jesus is our salvation, so the victory is sure. David said, “The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid”. Jesus is our strength (or stronghold; see Psalms 18:2; 31:2-3), so we need not fear because of our weakness. We might not know what the New Year 2023 holds for us, but we can be assured that the LORD holds us, and He will be with us every step of the way! We can either choose to live in fear or we can live in faith! And our faith can be strengthened if we spend time feeding it every day with God’s Word! God bless!