Let Him Touch Your Heart

Good morning. Thank you for your prayers the past few days.

We have posted the whole of Psalm 22 (GNB) yesterday. If you haven’t read that posting yet, I’d encourage you to read the whole Psalm before reading this.

This Psalm is an account of how the Lord Jesus felt before and during His crucifixion. It’s not about David. Hundreds of years before the actual crucifixion, Jesus considered it so important for His followers to understand His heart and feelings, that He revealed how he felt about the crucifixion to the prophet David, who recorded it in this Psalm. How do I know it? It is evident in a couple of verses in the Psalm. In verse 8 we read: “‘You relied on the LORD,’ they say. ‘He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him (ESV)!’” We find very similar words in Matthew 27:43 where the chief priests and scribes mocked Him during His crucifixion: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” We also read in Psalm 22:18: “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots (ESV).” We read in Matthew 27:35: “And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots.”

There is more evidence in this Psalm that it is about Jesus that David is prophesying, but we’ll get to that as we proceed. To me the importance of this Psalm is that Jesus wanted His followers to know what He felt like when He paid the price for their salvation.

You may or may not agree with me, but the core nature of man is to be selfish. Even Christians are often selfish, which is why we love to remember those promises of God that make us feel good and comfortable. The Lord, however, expects of us to put ourselves in other people’s position, to try and understand what others feel like, what they go through and what they suffer with so we can do something about it. Christians are meant to focus outward, away from our own problems and concerns and meet the needs of others. The Lord promised to take care of our concerns.

Jesus was the first Christian, so to speak, so He had this prophesy written to make us appreciate that He understands when we go through tough times, when “many bulls encompass us; strong bulls of Bashan surround us (Psalm 22:12).” Remember, when He died on the cross all our sins were put on Him and during His lifetime he was tempted just like us. He knows what it’s like when we seem to find no escape and when everything seems to come down on us. His time on the cross was the ultimate of His paying the price on our behalf, the price that we were supposed to pay, which is why He understands and why He wanted us to know it through this Psalm.

We sometimes tend to see Jesus as God far away and untouchable. As we go through this Psalm in the next few days, try and get a feel of how Jesus feels in His heart and how human He was during His time on earth. Allow him to touch your heart as you realise what He went through for you.

Lord, please help me to see you.

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