God Is My Refuge
“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” —PSALM 91:1
As a child of God, there is a hedge of protection that is built all the way around you. You have a protector. When the enemy comes against you, there is someone, somewhere looking out for you to protect you, and that someone is God. God is your refuge in times of trouble.
Psalm 91 was probably written by Moses as a poem or a song, and it’s broken into two stanzas. Verses 1 through 13 is the first stanza, and 14 through 16 the second.
The first two verses, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust,” serve as an affirmation that God is your refuge. It should be an affirmation to every single believer that no matter what takes place, and no matter what enemy is coming against us, we have the assurance to know that God is our refuge.
Also, in verses 1 and 2, there are four descriptions of the characteristics of God: 1) Most high. 2) Almighty. 3) Lord. 4) God. Each one signifies the power and the might of our Saviour—of our heavenly Father. They describe His supremacy. You see, you have mighty, and then you have almighty. You have powerful, but you have all powerful. This all powerful, almighty Creator is not somewhere in the distance, where we cannot get to Him, but, according to verse 2, that word LORD means we can have a covenant, personal relationship with Him right now. We can have a personal relationship with God—the all-supreme One, the all-powerful One, the almighty One.
There are millions of gods being worshiped by millions of people today. Millions. Most of these gods are made by the hands of men. They’re inanimate—they can’t move, they can’t talk, they can’t hear, and they can’t breathe—they’re just wood, stone, clay, metal or straw—no life whatsoever. However, these individuals worship these things as created beings. But as you know, the very moment that you get saved, you have the opportunity to develop a personal and real relationship with our heavenly Father. He speaks to you; He leads you; He guides you; He helps you; and He speaks to your heart and life, and shows you what you need to do. We have the assurance to know that we can have a relationship with this all-supreme, all magnificent, almighty, all-powerful being through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.
There are two words I want you to underline in your Bible: dwells and abide. We know the secret place refers to Christ: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High”—Jesus Christ is our secret place. He’s the one we can run to when we face troubles and tribulations. He is our secret place. That word dwells means “to stay.” Who stays in the secret place—those who stay in Christ.
We see in the first verse of Psalm 91 that if you want to have protection, and if you want to experience the rest of protection, then there’s only one answer and one way for you: You have to stay in Christ. “He that dwelleth (who stays) in the secret place” means how you got in, is how you stay in. You don’t have to look for something else. Once you come into Christ, you don’t have to leave Christ and the cross and look to something else. We’re not called to run to and fro after our salvation experience. We’re not called to leave the cross after our salvation experience. We’re not called to look past the cross after our salvation experience. The psalmist tells us that he who stays in Christ “shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
That word abide means “to rest.” If you want to experience the rest of protection, then you have to stay in Christ. You can’t move from Christ. The reason these false doctrines are so damnable is because they’re telling everyone, “You can discover the champion in you,” and that it’s all about you improving yourself. None of that is going to work. If you want improvement, stay in Christ. Let the Holy Spirit improve you. Don’t walk away from that which brought you in. We need improvement. I need improvement. I’m not as good as I think I am, and I can’t improve myself through the means of my own strength and ability. I want the Holy Spirit to improve me, and He does so if I stay in Christ—those who stay in the secret place of the most High. Don’t leave what got you in. Don’t ignore what got you in. Don’t reject what got you in. Keep your faith anchored in what got you in.
What did get you in? It was faith in Jesus Christ and what He did at Calvary. If that was enough to get you in, it’s enough to keep you in. It’s one thing to get saved, but it’s another thing to stay saved. There’s only one means of protection—you have to stay in Christ and what He did at Calvary. You can’t look to anything else. As soon as you look somewhere else, you put yourself outside of God’s protection. Did you get that? When you look to something other than Christ and Him crucified, you take yourself out of God’s protection. Those who stay in the secret place of the most High shall rest (abide) under the shadow of the Almighty. If you stay in Christ, you will abide, and you will rest under the shadow, which speaks of protection.
Psalm 91:2 says,_ “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge.”_ He made this personal. He didn’t say that God is a refuge; he said, “He is my refuge”; He is “my fortress”; He is “my God.” Understand this: Moses, if he was the one who did write this psalm, doesn’t have a monopoly on God; it’s not just him and him alone, but it is all of us who are saved by the blood of Christ. If we dwell in the secret place, then we know that God is our refuge; He’s our fortress; and He’s our God. He’s not only your God, but He’s my God too. He’s not only your refuge, but He’s my refuge. He’s not only your fortress, but He’s my fortress. Not only is He your protection, He’s my protection. He is the protection, and the protector of anyone who is in Christ.
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