Psalm 27:14
14 Wait [qavah] on the LORD [Yahovah]: be of good courage [chazaq],
and he shall strengthen ['amats] thine heart [leb]: wait [qavah], I say, on
the LORD [Yahovah]. KJV-Interlinear
14 Wait
for the Lord; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the
Lord. NASB
The word for wait, ‘qavah,’
certainly means to wait, but it means more than that. To bind together, to collect, to gather, to
expect, to demonstrate patience during a process.
Both courage and
strengthen are related. Courage, ‘chazaq,’
means to fasten upon, to seize hold, to be obstinate, to bind, to restrain, to
mend, to make stronger with poise, hence to be courageous.
Strengthen, ‘amats,’ means
to make an effort to be strong, to be alert, to fortify, to build strength
through action.
Therefore, the psalm
teaches us to pursue strength, to seize hold, to bind together that which makes
us strong in the spiritual life. And
that strength comes through doctrine and from no other source.
Human works are not a
part of the spiritual life. Only
doctrine builds up the soul. Only bible
doctrine that is learned and inculcated and assimilated into your soul and
becomes an integral part of your essence, builds up the soul, builds up
strength, builds up your courage when facing anything and everything.
For life cannot be faced
correctly and legitimately unless doctrine is a part of your inner self.
Without doctrine, you are
only fooling yourself in thinking that you are ok in your life. Look at the world around you. The World Bank publishes its estimates of the
poor in the world and they use as their standard definition, the people who
live on less than one dollar a day. By
that standard, twenty-two percent of the people in the world are poor, and that
is an absolute destitute state. When the measure is increased to five dollars a
day, then the percentage of people who are poor goes up to fifty percent.
I wonder if you could
live on five dollars a day? Most people
in developed countries, could not. I don’t
know of anyone who could, and yet the world has been in this extreme state for
a very long time.
If the rate is increased
to ten dollars a day, then eighty percent of the world is in that category.
So a thread is all that is
between you and being poor, if things really did turn against you in life. And that is what you can expect if you rely on
this world exclusively for your wellbeing.
But here we have a
command to wait, which does not mean to do nothing. It means to seize hold, to pursue, to
collect, that which God has provided for you.
And what is it that God has provided?
Doctrine, His word, which He has magnified above and beyond His very own
name, Psa. 138:2.
The most important thing
in life for you, is Bible doctrine, because that is the very thing that
connects you to God, and gives you a relationship with God through Christ, and
it is doctrine that is the source building material for the construction and
completion of your soul, which is the real you.
Therefore, wait on God, be
patient during the building process within you, while God builds you up by
means of doctrine, while you settle down and listen or read and learn doctrine
by means of your daily study.
God will not build within
you when there is no material with which to build. Therefore learn doctrine.
