Gene’s Daily Scriptural Postings

Safe in God’s Hands: Psalm 31:1-16

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Year of Prophecy – Episode 38: When Jesus was about to breath His last breath, He cries out a powerful statement from the Old Testament that contains within it an amazing promise for all of God’s people.

Read the transcript:

Over our past several podcast episodes, we’ve been focusing our time on Jesus hanging on the cross, and specifically on places in the Old Testament where we can see foreshadowed descriptions of the Messiah’s time on the cross. In this set of episodes, we come to the point where Jesus is ready to take His last breath.

Turning our attention onto another one of David’s psalms, we discover several verses that also point to Jesus’ time on the cross, and a cry out to God that the Messiah would ultimately make immediately before taking His last breath. Let’s read what David wrote.

Our passage for this episode is found in Psalm, number 31, and we will read it using the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, David writes:

¹ In You, O Lord, I have taken refuge;Let me never be ashamed;In Your righteousness deliver me.² Incline Your ear to me, rescue me quickly;Be to me a rock of strength,A stronghold to save me.³ For You are my rock and my fortress;For Your name’s sake You will lead me and guide me.⁴ You will pull me out of the net which they have secretly laid for me,For You are my strength.⁵ Into Your hand I commit my spirit;You have ransomed me, O Lord, God of truth.

⁶ I hate those who regard vain idols,But I trust in the Lord.⁷ I will rejoice and be glad in Your lovingkindness,Because You have seen my affliction;You have known the troubles of my soul,⁸ And You have not given me over into the hand of the enemy;You have set my feet in a large place.

⁹ Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;My eye is wasted away from grief, my soul and my body also.¹⁰ For my life is spent with sorrowAnd my years with sighing;My strength has failed because of my iniquity,And my body has wasted away.¹¹ Because of all my adversaries, I have become a reproach,Especially to my neighbors,And an object of dread to my acquaintances;Those who see me in the street flee from me.¹² I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind;I am like a broken vessel.¹³ For I have heard the slander of many,Terror is on every side;While they took counsel together against me,They schemed to take away my life.

¹⁴ But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord,I say, “You are my God.”¹⁵ My times are in Your hand;Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me.¹⁶ Make Your face to shine upon Your servant;Save me in Your lovingkindness.

Let’s stop reading the psalm here. In this psalm, we get another glimpse of the Messiah’s opposition and on how wholeheartedly the Messiah trusted in God. While hanging on the cross, Jesus was insulted from every angle, and I’m sure that Satan would have pressed feelings of abandonment and rejection onto Jesus as best as he could.

However, tucked within this psalm is a powerful phrase, and in this phrase is a promise that we can lean on when times are tough. This phrase is what Jesus cries out immediately before taking His last breath.

In Luke’s gospel, chapter 23, Luke describes the last portion of Jesus’ time on the cross. Starting in verse 44, Luke writes:

⁴⁴ It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, ⁴⁵ because the sun was obscured; and the veil of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶ And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last. ⁴⁷ Now when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God, saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.” ⁴⁸ And all the crowds who came together for this spectacle, when they observed what had happened, began to return, beating their breasts. ⁴⁹ And all His acquaintances and the women who accompanied Him from Galilee were standing at a distance, seeing these things.

At the moment of Jesus’ last breath, we discover that how Jesus died, and the extraordinary events that surrounded this death, prompt those present, including the officer in charge of Jesus’ crucifixion, to realize Jesus’ innocence.

However, stepping back a few verses in this passage to the last phrase Luke records Jesus crying out before dying, we discover an amazing promise. While Jesus quotes the psalm we read earlier when crying out the phrase, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” included in this cry that appears to end His life, we can see a promise that is kept.

When David wrote this line into his psalm, I don’t know if he was referencing something in his past, if he was being prompted by the Holy Spirit, or some of both. However, when David wrote this line, the context of this psalm is entirely trusting in God when everything in the world appears to be against you.

On the surface, this phrase might appear like a death wish, since the one crying it out is asking for God to take their spirit, which would ultimately separate it from the body. When the spirit and body separate, some would consider that death.

However, a different way of understanding this phrase is that when crying out for God to take our spirit, we are asking God to take the essence of who we are and protect it. The only reason for committing our spirit to God the Father would be because we trust that He is fully capable of keeping our spirit safe. If we didn’t trust God the Father with the essence of our life, I suspect that He would be the among the last places we would consider wanting the spirit of our lives to go.

This then means that committing our spirit to God the Father is an act of trust. In the psalm David writes, several verses after sharing this phrase, and after sharing how everything in the world appeared to be against him, we get a clear picture of where David has placed His focus. In verses 14 through 16, David writes:

¹⁴ But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord,I say, “You are my God.”¹⁵ My times are in Your hand;Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those who persecute me.¹⁶ Make Your face to shine upon Your servant;Save me in Your lovingkindness.

David acknowledges that his life is always within God’s hands, and that while He is actively placing himself within God’s will, God will keep his life safe. David trusted God’s protection, and he knew that God would not let him die before God’s time for his life to end had come.

It was the same with Jesus. While there was no shortage of life-ending events throughout Jesus’ time on earth, God kept Jesus’ life safe until Jesus reached the cross, which was the point in Jesus’ life where God would receive the glory. Any death less than the cross would not have brought God glory.

This is also the same with our lives today. When we place our lives and our spirits in God’s hands, trusting that He will keep us safe as we move forward within His will, we can know and trust that with whatever happens in this life, and whenever we ultimately take our last breath, we will have given our lives to God and we will be included in the great resurrection of God’s people when Jesus returns. When we place our spirit in God’s hands, we will be a part of the resurrection of the righteous and welcomed into eternity with Jesus.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying in one way or another, intentionally seek God first in your life. Intentionally commit your spirit into God’s hands, not because you want to die now, but that you intentionally want to trust God the Father to keep your life safe until you have accomplished everything He has placed you in this world to accomplish. While death is a challenging topic for many people, and while it seems as though some people die before they should have from our perspective, God knows eternity better than we do, and what He invites His people into is better than anything this world can offer.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself, to grow a stronger, personal relationship with God. Don’t let other people step between you and God. God wants a personal relationship with you, and the only way your relationship with Him can be personal is if you keep other people from stepping between you and God. While other people can share ideas, take these ideas to God directly, and let Him lead you to His truth through His Spirit and His Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

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