The Right and Left Hand of God

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Putting "the Lord at my right hand" means I stand at His left.

Psalm 16:5-9 NKJV — O LORD, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance. I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. I have set the LORD always before me; Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will rest in hope.

David made God his strength.  Just like Yeshua.  

Our flesh wants tangible help.  My natural instinct is to go find any help in a crisis and call it "God's hand."

It is only God's hand when I have put myself at His left... Not telling Him what needs to be done, not telling anyone else what I need unless He instructs me to, but letting Him lead me.  I take the low place next to God and He saves me.

This is how God is glorified in my life. 

God's people have always struggled with idolatry, which is to put tangible help before faith.  Faith is what pleases God.

Searching out my own help then putting the name of God on it is a deception that just leads to less faith, not more.

Listen to how David begins Psalm 16:

Psalm 16:1-4 NKJV — A Michtam of David. Preserve me, O God, for in You I put my trust. O my soul, you have said to the LORD, “You are my Lord, My goodness is nothing apart from You.” As for the saints who are on the earth, “They are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight.” Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another god; Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, Nor take up their names on my lips.

David is in need!  He is in a very hard place. Knowing the cup of God overflowed to him... That God had appointed everything he needed before he even existed... This positioned David next to God.  Though he felt like he was in hell, he knows God would not leave him there.

Look at how David ends this glorious testimony of trusting God over any other help:

Psalm 16:10-11 NKJV — For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Notice where David sees himself at the end of the Psalm... At the right hand of God! 

When we make God our strength and refuse any other savior, then God makes us His witnesses of His pleasure, glory and power.

This is the only faith the Bible offers us: faith that God is God and everything else is not.  Is that the faith I am resting in today, even though my needs are real?

Hebrews 11:32-40 NKJV — And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

The writer of Hebrews continues:

Hebrews 12:1-2 NKJV — Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Notice where our Savior is seated! He said, "follow me." If we truly follow His way of trusting God over man, that is where we will be, too!

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