Daily Devotional For Monday, May 18, 2026
Good morning and good day Southside! I have chosen a passage from the One Year Chronological Bible reading for today. That is Psalm 73:13-14:
‘Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason? I get nothing but trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain” (NLT).
Can you relate the psalmist here? Ever feel as if you are doing everything right for the Lord and God’s blessings appear to be absent or void in your life? As the psalmist looks at life and people in general, he has kept himself pure and he wonders to what avail. He seems to wonder if the futility of all his efforts to obey the Lord are worth it. Do you ever feel that way? He wrote this in Psalm 73:12, “Look at these wicked people—enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply” (NLT). He has put himself in a role of comparing his life to the wicked and in doing so, he possibly unintentionally is bringing a charge against the Lord of unfairness.
Life is unfair due to sin. God never promised us a life of fairness, but a life of faith. There is a huge difference. The first implies that God owes us something; the second implies we owe God. The first endorses a life of entitlement; the second endorses a life of experiencing God through our relationship to Him. The psalmist obviously has a little pity-party here and without realizing it, he is bringing a charge against the Lord. He believed that if he does everything right, God owes him blessings, answers to prayers, prosperity, happiness and contentment. He believed that as long as he was obedient to the Lord, God was indebted to him.
When we get to Psalm 73:16-17, the lights came on for him and he got it. We see a whole shift in his attitude. In Psalm 73:21 he realized after being in the sanctuary of the Lord that his heart was bitter against the Lord. And from Psalm 73:22-26 he is repentant, confessional, remorseful and humble. These are the results of genuine worship. If you have a daily quiet time and you do not experience repentance, confession of sin, remorse for your sin, then you have not humbled yourself before the Lord. The psalmist has almost the identical experience that Isaiah did in Isaiah 6 or the Apostle Paul in Acts 9.
Being in the Lord’s presence changes us. If you walk out the door from every worship service the way you came into it, then pride is in your heart. Worship and having a daily quiet time is never about us. We are not the subject or object of it – Jesus Christ is. We let His Holy Spirit reveal and convict us through His word what we need to confess as sin, repent from that sin due to remorse and then humbling go out and serve Him out of thanksgiving. The point of worship and a daily quiet time is not more information, but more transformation. God does not want blanks filled in on our sermon outlines or notebooks only; He wants the blanks of our hearts filled with the transforming power of His Word.
Reflection Assignment: As you have a daily quiet time or attend worship, is it just a ritual you do or a relationship you are building? Is it just information to acquire or transformation for life? Do you ever find yourself so broken before the Lord for your sin and His forgiveness that this experience radically transforms you to be more like Him? Do you ever feel God owes you or you are entitled to something from the Lord?
Scripture To Meditate On: 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. (17) For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! (18) So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever” (NLT).
Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, I need a little dose of humility. I look around at others, especially the wicked, see how their lives appear to be happy and blessed, and I get jealous and envious. My anger breeds bitterness against You. I do all the right things and I still seem to be cursed in comparison to others. I confess my sins to You by choosing to focus only on the things I can see that are temporary. Help me to focus on the unseen, the eternal. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”
I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly