Behold, God is my helper. The Lord is the upholder of my life.
– Psalm 54:4
Is that not an awesome verse? Just let this soak in for you today:
Psalm 54:4 Reminds Us of Divine Assistance in Times of Need
One, God is your helper. What a picture. And we’re talking about God, the sovereign ruler of all creation. He calls Himself in His Word, “your helper.” The omnipotent creator of all says, “I live to help you.” Just let that soak in today. What help do you need? Oh, lay down all your pride before the omnipotent God and say, “God, I need your help in this way, in that way,” in your life, in your family, in your work, in your church, in every single facet of your life to say, “God, I need your help.” Look to God continually as your helper and as the upholder of your life. Picture that right now. God is the one who’s holding up your life.
You are held by Him right now personally. You see the picture of God’s love for you in this? He upholds your life. The Lord keeps you, and not just upholds you; He protects you, guards you, guides you, provides for you. All of this is what’s involved in Him upholding your life. Just to think about this in light of all of the trials and temptations and challenges and wearying, discouraging things that might come at us in this world that maybe you’re walking through right now just to realize, wow, God is holding me up in the middle of it all and promises to hold me up.
As we trust in Him, He will help us and uphold us. Oh God, we praise you as our helper, and we confess we need your help. God, there’s nothing we can do today apart from you. We need your help in every facet of our life, and we pray that you would deliver us from pride and self-sufficiency or even a sense of self-sufficiency.
Psalm 54:4 Speaks of Finding Strength in God’s Uplifting Grace
We know that we don’t have breath if you don’t give it. There’s nothing in us that is sufficient to sustain our lives. All of this comes from you, so help us to realize it, oh God, and to live with humble dependence on your help, and to ask for your help all day long, and to know that you will provide it as we ask for it. We praise you as our helper and as the upholder of our lives.
Oh God, we praise you for how you have held us up day after day, month after month, year after year in our lives. And we pray that you would hold us up today by the mercy you promise; it’s new every morning, and that you would uphold us tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, every single day of our lives. We praise you as our upholder.
And God, we pray for people who don’t know you in this way around us. We pray that you’d help us to share the gospel with people around us. We would tell people the good news today that God is their helper, that God will save them from sin and help them in every way they need, restore them to relationship with Him and have eternal life with Him as the upholder of it all.
Praying for the Chak People
And God, we pray for people who’ve never heard that good news, for the Chak people of Myanmar, no known followers of Jesus among the Chak people. God, we pray that you would help them, that you would send the laborers to them and that they would hear the gospel and believe the disciples we made in churches we planted among the Chak people of Myanmar. Please God, bring it about. We pray. We intercede. Help them. Uphold them. Save them from eternal death. Bring them to eternal life. God, we pray this over the Chak people of Myanmar. And even as we praise you for these realities in our lives, help us to live in these realities today with you as our helper and our upholder. In Jesus’s name, we pray according to Psalm 54:4. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
