I have a heart for the “unconverted.”  By that I don’t simply mean those outside the walls of traditional Christianity—I mean those who have spent years within those walls, but have been converted to Christendom and not Jesus himself.  In a famous address on the Church in a post-everything world, Pastor and author Tim Keller suggested that for many, Christianity has become like an inoculation.  When we inoculate someone against a disease, we do so by introducing a small amount of the virus into the system.  The person’s natural immune system takes over, producing antibodies to stave off the “real” infection.  In much the same way, Keller argues, many within the walls of the church have heard just enough about Jesus to become immune—their minds and hearts produce antibodies to stave off the “real” message of the gospel—and so they become merely religious converts rather than genuine Christian disciples.

This is why the story of Luke 24 is so significant.  The story takes place after the resurrection, though before the disciples become fully aware of this good news.  What they’re feeling is only disappointment.  And so we join two hangdog travelers on the road to Emmaus:

That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us.  They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”  (Luke 24:13-24)

Though their hopes had been raised in Jesus’ life, they lay shattered in his death.  What was their hope?  Israel’s world was one of fragile harmony between Jewish custom and Roman oppression.  They hoped for a Savior who would tip the balance in their favor.  All they got was another martyr.  Jesus looks at them and says, Your dreams are too small. 

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Luke 24:25-27)

Jesus understands something quite elemental: the Bible—the whole Bible—is a story about Him.  The reason these travelers ached with disappointment is because they failed to realize that week’s events had not been a tragedy, but a divine necessity.

Lesslie Newbigin, former missionary to India, says that Western Christianity suffers for lack of story.  The way to reverse the inoculation to the gospel, he says, is to learn to see Christianity as a story that connects to every facet of life:

“The true understanding of the Bible is that it tells a story of which my life is a part, the story of God’s tireless, loving, wrathful, inexhaustible patience with the human family, and of our unbelief, blindness, disobedience.  To accept this story as the truth of the human story…commits me personally to a life of discernment and obedience in the new circumstances of each day.”

The reason that you and I often struggle through our Old Testament devotions is because we fail to see Jesus on every page.  We open the Bible for its usefulness; not its beauty.  We search its pages for solutions to our problems; not for a greater glimpse of the Savior’s face.  And when we do this, we fail to grasp the radical power of the gospel in every word.  Why would psalmists write epic poems—like Psalm 119—unless their hearts quickened to every word on the page?  Such was the experience of these early disciples, who finally recognized Jesus when He broke bread before them—symbolically reminding them of the body broken just days before.

28 So they drew near to the village to which they were going.  He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

When we see Jesus on every page, our hearts burn within our chests.  I leave you only with a video from Tim Keller, who borrows the “true and better” motif of reformed theology to show the various ways that the Bible—from beginning to end—is an extended biography of the Savior.

“Everybody serves somebody.”  So says Bob Dylan, arguably one of the greatest prophetic minds of today’s world.  God’s Word calls us to total allegiance, but let’s not forget that ultimately, all of us serve someone—or something.  To worship something is to devote your allegiance—the only question is whether this allegiance will yield delight or despair.

As we survey the scope of Psalm 119, we hear the psalmist describe the various ways that scriptural devotion yields immediate, positive results.  Mind you, it would be naïve to suggest Scripture’s truest value is found in personal blessing.  But as we grow closer to the heart of God, we naturally experience His radical goodness in the form of joy.

THE BENEFITS OF SCRIPTURE

The psalmist describes at least four specific benefits of Scripture.

• Liberation: When God is my master, “service is perfect freedom” (v. 96), and in verse 46, “liberty” is found in God’s precepts, not the absence of them. Verse 133 clarifies this by discussing the way God’s word breaks sin’s “dominion” as we learn to walk in step with God’s commands.

• Light: The psalm mentions “my feet” and “my path” (v. 105), highlighting the power of the Word to guide. In v. 130 this guidance is applies to the realm of the intellect, emphasizing a discerning power (cf. 34, 73, 125, 144, 169). The emphasis is that God’s wisdom is superior to the enlightenment of man.

• Life: This term becomes most prominent toward the psalm’s end—appear 5 times between verses 144-159. Kidner writes: “Sometimes the link between Scripture and the gift of life consists of a promise which the singer claims (25, 50, 107, 154); sometimes it is that the very keeping of God’s laws is restorative (37) and life-giving (93); since they turn one’s eyes and steps towards him.”  (Kidner, Psalms, 2:421)  Other phrases such as “revive me” (25) or “give me life” (149, 159) reflect this same idea.

• Stability: Verse 23 hints at a threatening instability—but Scripture fills an otherwise distracted mind. Verses 49-50 highlight the comfort and hope offered by God’s Word (cf. 76, 89-92, 95, 114-118, 165).

LIVING BY THE BOOK

But, you might ask, there are other ways of living outside the confines of the Bible.  Our world is an endless spiritual marketplace.  Surely we can simply draw from a variety of sources to find wisdom?

In 2008, yoga teacher Robyn Okrant undertook a project that would put this theory to the test.  She spent the entire year doing everything Oprah Winfrey suggested.  In 2011, her book—based on her experiences—was released.

In an interview with Forbes magazine, she comments:

 [The experience] was incredibly draining, and it made me really sad. It made me sad to think of how many hours I’ve lost–even when I wasn’t doing the project–to blindly following advice and listening to what other people tell me I should be doing to create my own happiness. I wondered how many hours other women have lost in the course of their lives to that.

Contrast this experience with that of A.J. Jacobs, who chose to spend a year seeking to obey every command of the Bible.  While culturally Jewish, Jacobs claims to be an agnostic regarding his spirituality. Yet when he published his book My Year of Living Biblically, he writes that the experience changed his view of the Bible:

 It was an amazing, enlightening and life-changing year. It was a spiritual journey that moved from irreverence to reverence. You see, I grew up in a totally secular home. No religion at all. I’m officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the way the Olive Garden is Italian. Which is to say, not very. But in recent years, I decided I needed to see what I was missing. Was I neglecting something crucial to being human, like someone who goes through life without ever hearing Beethoven or falling in love? I dived into the Bible headfirst. And lo, it was awesome. I was surprised by how relevant much of the Bible’s ancient wisdom was to my 21st-century life. I was surprised by how baffled I was by other passages. I was surprised by how a lifelong agnostic like I am could find solace in prayer. I was surprised by how the Bible revealed my flaws and challenged me to be a better person. (from an article appearing in Relevant magazine http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/deeper-walk/features/1454-my-biblical-year)

You may dismiss the Bible as a product of a primitive, superstitious era.  Yet these experiences only testify to the timeless truth contained in its pages.  Live life for yourself, and you will find only misery.  Live life by the Book, and you will find electrifying joy.

If we survey the entirety of worldwide literature, we find few books like the Bible.  Yes, there are many great literary masterpieces, many complex tomes of philosophy, but few books have had as lasting impact on the history of civilization than the Bible.  And there’s a good reason: the Bible is the only book that reads us.  Yes, other books offer wisdom and insight into the human condition, but only the Bible has a unique way of penetrating the human soul.  It’s no wonder that the writer of Hebrews described the Bible as something “living and active…piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

As we read Psalm 119 together, what are some of the ways that the psalmist describes the effects of scripture on the human heart?  In his commentary on psalms, Derek Kidner suggests that three distinct experiences emerge:

• DELIGHT

We see this first described in verses 14 and 16:

In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. (Psalm 119:14)

 

I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. (Psalm 119:16)

Yet this quality emerges throughout the psalm (cf. vv 24, 47, 70, 77, 92, 143, 162, 174).   The psalm’s tone is one of scholarly pursuit, yet it is simultaneously more.  Every word is deeply personal, and echoes a devotion and relational quality not found ascribed to other forms of literature.

• LOVE

The love of the psalmist runs deeper than the text itself: the love is a devotion not to the Words but to the Speaker—God.  This is why the psalmist can write that the words are “sweeter than honey” (103), and make him “pant” (131) (cf. 47, 48, 97, 113, 119, 127, 132, 140, 159, 163, 165, 167).

• AWE

God’s Word makes the psalmist “stand in awe” (161)—but he also says that “the fear of you makes my flesh creep” (120).  Related to this is the fact that God is righteous (7, 75, 123, 138, 144. 172), dependable (43, 142), and as unshakeable as heaven and earth (89-91).  Scripture itself reflects this character, meaning that it is inexhaustible (18, 27, 129).

MERE WORDS?

Today’s world has come to drive a wedge between truth and personal experience.  For instance, in the last century Ludwig Wittgenstein observed that human language is inadequate to describe the taste and aroma of coffee.  Therefore, how can language ever capture the nature of God?  Now, in a very real sense, this is true.  I remember sharing this while speaking at an event a few years ago—and one of the audience members raised his cup in the air to voice a hearty Amen.  It’s true, isn’t it?  If a picture is worth a thousand words, then experience is infinitely greater.  But even if language proves inadequate to describe the nature of coffee, it remains adequate for giving you directions to Starbucks.  Similarly, human language may be equally adequate for pointing people to God, that they can “taste and see that the Lord is good.”  Doctrine can never replace experience, but it categorizes it, offers it a framework so that we can better understand and navigate the world around us.

Christianity’s most shocking claim isn’t that God exists; it’s that He communicates.  The Bible begins with the story of creation, where God created “the heavens and the earth” with a Word from His mouth (cf. Ps 33:6).  In theology, we know this as revelation—the means by which God “reveals” His nature and purpose.  And while “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1), it is in Scripture that God’s Word is most specifically articulated.

So when we come to Psalm 119, we find the unnamed psalmist singing a song of praise about the very nature of this inspired Word.  As we observed yesterday, the psalm is an “acrostic” poem of 22 sections of 8 lines each—each of the 22 sections corresponding to a sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  In his study of this psalm, David Noel Freedman calls it“endlessly inventive,” though says there is “no more order than in a kaleidoscope.” (Freedman, Psalm 119, p. 87).  And this is true.  But our aim this week is to surface some of the features of this poem so that we can gain a better understanding of God’s Word.  Today we start by examining the terms that the psalmist uses to describe the Bible itself.

IN A WORD

The psalmist uses a total of eight precise words to describe God’s Word:

• “Law” (Hebrew: tora): This is probably the most familiar term—used about 25 times (vv. 1, 18, 29, 34, 44, 51, 53, 55, 61, 70, 72, 77, 85, 92, 97, 109, 113, 126, 136, 142, 150, 153, 163, 165, 174). The connection to “teach” (119:33) emphasizes the connection to God.  The Law is meant for obeying God—not merely intellectual satisfaction.  The Law may be used to refer to God’s specific statutes, to the Pentateuch, or to Scripture as a whole (in John 10:34, Jesus uses Law in to refer to the entire OT).

• “Word,” sometimes “Promise” (dabar, also imra): This is the preferred term to refer to the commandments of God. The word “Word” appears roughly 39 times (vv. 4, 5, 8, 17, 34, 44, 56, 57, 60, 67, 88, 100, 101, 129, 134, 136, 145, 158, 167, 168).  The term is general, but it elicits a variety of responses.

• “Testimonies” (‘edot): This term occurs 23 times, always plural with the exception of v. 88 (vv. 2, 14, 22, 24, 31, 36, 46, 59, 79, 88, 95, 99,111, 119, 125, 129, 138, 144, 146, 152, 157, 167, 168). This was a legal term that had both positive and negative connotations. Negatively, Israel was commanded to place the book of the law next to the Ark of the Covenant, ‘that it may be there as a witness against you’ (Dt 31:26).  Positively, the idea of “testimony” suggests the reliability of God’s Word.

• “Precepts” (piqqudim): This term appears 21 times (vv. 4, 15, 27, 40, 45, 56, 63, 69, 78, 87, 93, 94, 100, 104, 110, 128, 134, 141, 159, 168, 173)—always in the plural. This is a word used to refer to some type of officer or overseer.  Jeremiah 23:2 describes that God will “attend to [poqed]” the wayward shepherds.  This means that God’s Word impacts every detail of our lives.

• “Statutes” (huqqim): This term appears 21 times (vv. 5, 8, 12, 23, 26, 33, 48, 54, 64, 68, 71, 80, 83, 112, 117, 118, 124, 135, 145, 155, 171). This term speaks of the binding force of scripture and its durative character—Isaiah 30:8 speaks of God’s Word enduring forever.

• “Commandments” (miswot): Occurs 22 times (vv. 6, 10, 19, 21, 32, 35, 47, 48, 60, 66, 73, 86, 96, 98, 115, 127, 131, 143, 151, 166, 172, 176). This term simply refers to the Bible’s ability to give direct orders.

• “Judgments” or “Ordinances” (mispatim): Occurs 23 times in the plural (vv. 7, 13, 20, 30, 39, 43, 52, 62, 75, 91, 102, 106, 108, 120, 137, 156, 160, 164, 175) and four times in the singular (84, 121, 132, 149)—though in verse 84 the term is not used of the Word of God. These are most often used in a civil/legal sense—that of a wise judge presiding over His people (cf. Ex 21:1; Dt 17:8-9).  Scripture offers a glimpse of the fair dealings between God and man.

• “Way” (derek): Used 13 times (vv. 1, 3, 5, 14, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 59, 168). This term describes a pattern of life that God lays out.

THE TRUE AND BETTER WORD

In the  New Testament, John begins his biography of Jesus by cribbing the opening lines of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).  What is John saying?  John is saying that Jesus is the exact revelation of God.  This is why the unnamed writer of Hebrews would later say that “Long ago…God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).  What the Bible reveals in text, Jesus reveals in flesh and blood and sinew.

In his excellent book A Clear and Present Word, Mark A. Thompson adopts a scholarly approach to the subject of language and communication.  God’s Word, he says, can never be separated from God’s redemptive work in history.  But this also means something significant: if Jesus is the embodiment of this Word, then it changes the way the Bible is seen culturally.  How?  In today’s post-everything world, our greatest prophets insist that there are no absolutes, only perceptions.  Language, whether in a sacred book or otherwise, is always colored by the agenda of its culture of origin.  We can only read the Bible as reflective of a primitive, pre-scientific era.  It’s poetry may be moving, it’s stories beautiful, but we can’t possibly apply it to everyday life.  But if Jesus is the exact embodiment of the Bible, then this changes everything.  I can “deconstruct” a text; I can’t deconstruct a person.  So even if I remain skeptical regarding God’s Word embedded in Scripture, I remain confronted by God’s Word embodied in Jesus.

For Christ’s followers, this provides added reason for celebration and worship, because the Bible bursts free from being merely a collection of precepts, but a love song that’s been playing before the needle ever dropped.

In tomorrow’s post, we’ll examine more thoroughly the ways the Bible has an impact on the lives of those who trust in its Author.

If you seek to follow Jesus, you know what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange land.  Today we live in what’s often called a “post-Christian” America.  Though the western world has never had an official religion, a generation or so ago we inhabited a society whose arts and ethics were largely shaped by Christian values.  No more.  Now, Christianity is seen as quaint, outdated—the relic of a “Leave-it-to-Beaver” style America, where women were relegated to the kitchen and blacks to the back of the bus.  We’ve moved past this era; why would anyone wish to go back again?

So it’s only understandable that those who pursue the values of the Bible would be looked down on—at best as religious fanatics; at worst as repressive bigots.

Perhaps it’s surprising, but one of the most beloved psalms of the Bible arose out of a culture not entirely unlike our own.  Psalm 119 is a famously lengthy psalm, one that has fascinated scholars and preachers alike.  Yet no one felt they could ever do justice to its rich depth.  As early as the fourth century, Augustine shied away from commenting on this psalm, feeling it required not “an expositor, but only a reader and a listener.”

Structurally, the psalm follows a basic pattern.  The psalm contains a total of 22 sections of 8 lines each.  It’s also an acrostic poem.  If you were to read the psalm in the original Hebrew, you’d notice that each of the 22 sections begins with a sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  So we can actually think of this psalm as forming something of the “A to Z” of scripture’s impact in our life.

And yes, the subject of the psalm is the Bible itself.  It is the lengthiest and most renowned example of the “Torah” psalms—songs sung in celebration of God’s revealed truth in His Word.  In his commentary on psalms, Walter Brueggeman writes:

“Clearly this psalm probes beyond the simplistic formulation of Psalm 1. A life of full obedience is not a conclusion of faith. It is a beginning point and an access to a life filled with many-sided communion with God.” (Walter Brueggeman, Psalms, p. 41)

But what do we know about the man that wrote this song?  Almost nothing.  This isn’t a song written by David; the author remains a mystery.  Still, the psalm hints at the life situation of the author—and the way he seemed to inhabit a hostile world, one where God’s truth was increasingly being dismissed as irrelevant.

In our week-long exploration of this magnificent psalm, we’ll be using Derek Kidner’s excellent commentary as something of a guide.  In his commentary, Kidner identifies three specific things we can learn about the psalmist’s situation:

1.)    AN ALIEN WORLD SHOULD SADDEN US, NOT SURPRISE US

Indeed, we are strangers in a strange land.  “It is time for the Lord to act,” he laments, “for your law has been broken” (Ps 119:126).  Clearly there was more than skepticism at work.  The psalmist’s neighbors seemed literally hell-bent on living their own way.  The psalmist calls them “double-minded” (Ps 119:113), meaning they lacked the singular commitment of God’s people.  They lay in wait “to destroy me” (Ps 119:95), and may have even been rooted in derision and slander (Ps 119:22, 23, 69, 85).  The psalmist’s reaction is simple, yet relatable:

My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. (Ps 119:136)

As God’s people, we will find ourselves surrounded by men and women who live by their own set of rules—surely not God’s.  If we’re not careful, this can lead to a sense of moral alarm and outrage.  “Can you believe what the kids are doing these days?”  “I can’t believe that the government would allow ________________!”  And you can fill in the blank yourself.  The psalmist lived in far more threatening world than ours.  Yet his hands never clenched into fists.  Instead his eyes shed tears of compassion.  In his book The Next Christians, Gabe Lyons calls Christians to be “provoked, not offended,” meaning that we react to the moral decline of our world with love.  Yes, we must remain discerning.  But we also must remember that Jesus promised that the world we live in will get worse, not better (Matthew 24).

2.)    GOD’S PEOPLE LIVE IN AN ONGOING BATTLE

The psalmist laments that “the cords of the wicked ensare” him (Ps 119:61ff).  In verse 36, he asks:

 “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” (Ps 119:36)

And while the psalmist knows God’s commands (Ps 119:110), he later admits that they are hard to keep:

 “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” (Ps 119:176)

God made the world so, so good.  Yet there is nothing good that man can’t bend toward his own selfish gain.  In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis suggests that the devil has no power to create—only pervert.  The reason temptation is so overwhelming is because Satan is a master of taking God’s good gifts and enticing us with them in ways or degrees that are inappropriate.  Sex, for example, is a beautiful gift meant to be shared by those who have committed their lives to one another in marriage.  Yet statistics show that this boundary has been repeatedly broken by those outside and inside the walls of traditional church.

We should therefore recognize the profound pull that sin has—even in the Godliest of people.  And we should similarly learn from this writer’s own brokenness, that there will be many battles for our hearts—battles that we often lose and give in to fleshly desire.  Though it’s a lifelong struggle, we can remain confident that at the cross, Jesus won the war—and His victory is credited to our account before God.

3.)    GOD’S PEOPLE PERSEVERE

Kidner characterizes the psalmist’s prevailing attitude as one of “quiet steadfastness.” In verse 44 the psalmist uses such words as “continually, forever and ever.” He presses on, still eager to learn (“give me understanding”) and to grow (“give me life”).   For many outside the church, Christianity must seem a beautiful dream.  It grants people hope, grants them courage in the face of suffering.  But it can be nothing more than that—a dream, a wishful story meant only to numb us to the harshness of our world.  It’s no wonder Marx so famously called religion the “opiate of the people”—implant people with false hope, he said, and they will come to tolerate even the vilest oppression.

But if the gospel is true, if Jesus truly rose from the dead, then Christianity moves from the realm of fantasy into the light of certainty.  The Bible is a story of how we can experience this same victory in our lives, that this harsh world we currently reside in will eventually be transformed into God’s paradise, where we can all experience God’s kingdom like never before.

So don’t lose hope.  Don’t be discouraged by the fact that you live in a world wholly opposed to God’s truth.  Because Jesus is the true and better psalmist.  He chose to leave the security of heaven where he—like the psalmist describes—would experience rejection, ridicule, and death.  But Jesus rose again, so that we might persevere with a new identity and a new hope.

In the next few days, we’ll unpack further the truths of this psalm, and explore the ways we can see the gospel in every letter of this beautiful piece.

Any of us who have gone on a vacation with our children remember the most famous travel question of them all:  “Are we there yet?”

One of my favorite scenes in all of filmmaking is from the Shrek 2 movie when Donkey says to Shrek, “Are we there yet?” … “Are we there yet?” … “Are we there yet?”

To which Shrek responds, “The Kingdom of Far, Far Away is far, far away!”

And Donkey moans, “I’m just so darned bored; there’s no in-flight movie or nothing!”

Finally, Donkey’s “pop, pop, pop (sounds)” leads Shrek to yell “DONKEY, can you just stop being yourself?”

Vacation and travel is supposed to be a fun time for a family – an adventure. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it creates new stresses not seen at home. Everyone is living together in a packed hotel room, or, as in the case of some of my own family’s epic vacation disasters, in a tent.

Living in a tent is not always the greatest of fun—in my humble opinion. My family of origin didn’t go camping; we had the good sense of living in a vacation house or hotel. Diana’s family camped … a lot … even for an entire summer one time – touring the whole USA. So when I married Diana, I knew some camping was part of the deal; we even did it on our honeymoon … bet y’all can’t top that!

Well, we camped a lot with our boys as they grew up. No, it was not always awful, but, there were more than a couple of epic trials, especially with the weather. But it was cheap, and that was the driving motivation for doing it.

So, eight years ago we were in a tent at Yellowstone … in June. And it was so cold that there was ice on the inside of the tent walls. Nobody could sleep … in June! About 3:00 in the morning, I looked at Diana through the darkness and said, “Diana, I have something to confess to you that I’ve kept a secret from you for all of these 30 years that I’ve known you. And I want to tell you what it is … I HATE CAMPING; I’VE ALWAYS HATED CAMPING, and I only ever tolerated it because I love you. But this is the end. NO MORE CAMPING!”

Notice that our short three-verse Psalm for today has the following superscription (and remember that these words are divinely inspired, just like the verses) …

Psalm 133

A song of ascents. Of David.

Again, a Psalm of ascent was one that was sung by Jewish pilgrims at the time of the three festivals in Jerusalem when thousands of people flocked to the city for the holy days. There was no place to house them all in town . They were encamped around the hillsides ascending to Jerusalem by the thousands, living in all sorts of make-shift shelters.

Do you suppose there was some need for them to be reminded about unity? Verse one says:

1 How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!

These festivals were a time in the calendar for the whole nation to gather together as one people … one family … which they were – all of them descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

There are two illustrations given as to what this should be like.

The first illustration is about the oil poured over the head of Aaron, the High Priest …

2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.

This verse looks back to an event described in Exodus 30 …

22 Then the Lord said to Moses, 23 “Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant calamus, 24 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin of olive oil. 25 Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. 

30 “Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests. 31 Say to the Israelites, ‘This is to be my sacred anointing oil for the generations to come.

So this was a very special and expensive anointing that spoke of the unique relationship of God to his people, and of his people to one another.

The second illustration is about Mount Hermon …

3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

Much of Palestine is a rather arid and dry land. Mount Herman in the north is the source of moisture for four tributaries that create the Jordan River. Life flows down from Mount Herman with the heavy dews that give vitality for the entire region.

Likewise, life and vitality comes from the unity of God’s people with one another.

In the 1970s, I fell in love twice. Yes, once was with my life-long camping partner mentioned above. The other time was with the institution and family known as the Church of Jesus Christ. My local church family meant so much to me through my high school and college years; I was so blessed by so many people who cared for me and encouraged me in untold ways. They were my family, more than my family was my family. I was never tempted by the allurement of the world and the partying culture of my public high school. I had a family of friends in a youth ministry that was different and so much healthier in every way.

And so, I knew my life was going to be invested in the local church. More times than not, it has been a great blessing. Where it has not been is related to the very theme of this little Psalm. Unity makes for rich experiences; disunity makes for extreme pain and disappointment.

When we come together on Sunday, we are like pilgrims who are all a part of the same family. We have come from our homes to spend time together in our worship of the Lord – the patriarch of our family. His sacrifices for us are so great, that, when you think about it, it is really silly that we not spend our time together in harmony and unity.

Jesus cares about this; he prayed for it in his final intercessory prayer in John 17. We should care about it also.

One does not much think of Solomon when pondering the writers of the Psalms. But here is a psalm of Solomon that has the sound and feel of the book of Ecclesiastes—a late-in-life reflection upon wise living.

Though Psalm 127 is only five verses in length, it talks about the big categories of all our lives: laboring for our daily needs, living in family life, and sleeping! That pretty much sums it up.

The point is this: God is nearby in everything that we do. All of life is dependent upon his blessing.

Psalm 127

A song of ascents. Of Solomon.

1 Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t sleep well when I’m worried about something. Often it relates to church and church people and circumstances. For some reason, it will often hit me out of the blue about 3:00 in the morning that I have not seen someone in a while, and I begin to worry about them and what troubling thing might be oppressing them and taking them away from the church family. It is the dark side of being a shepherd. And I need to pause and settle myself in trusting God, because honestly there is nothing I can do about it in the wee hours of the morning.

Laboring and working in our own strength does not accomplish anything. Our need is to trust God for today and tomorrow.

There is a book called “Sleeping with Bread” by Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn. During the bombing raids of World War 2, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. Many were placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night, the bread reminded them, “Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow. All is well.”

We have the bread of God’s Word and the promise of his presence. As we hold it in our hearts and minds, we are fed by the peace it gives that God is near in every circumstance. Our labors and worries are futile apart from God’s blessing and our daily trust in him.

3 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.

When I moved back East from my grad school years in Dallas (1983), my oldest son was a week short of his first birthday. We bought land within sight of the elementary school in the country township where I had grown up and began to build a house. My father-in-law and I did most of the work. It was a large house for a little family of three. My church people wondered why we wanted a place so big (2500 square feet, with four bedrooms). But then Benjamin was born the week we moved in, and 17 months later Aaron came along … three kids in 3.5 years. Two more came later – all boys, as you know. People stopped asking about the size of the house and began to ask about the size of the food budget.

Family is a blessing from God. In ancient culture, sons were a great blessing because of protection from enemies. There was the support that came along with it in civil proceedings. If I lived in those days and had a land dispute to be adjudicated at the city gate, there was an advantage I would have by showing up with five big boys surrounding me.

The point is this: God is necessary in all things of life for them to have blessing and value. Otherwise it is much in vain. The funny thing is that Solomon was something of a disaster at all of these elements of life. He depended upon riches and labor and the pleasures of a thousand wives, etc. But he had learned that all was in vain unless God was with it and blessing it.

It makes sense for us to listen to the wisest and most materially-blessed man of all time say that we need God’s blessing on anything to make it truly soul satisfying. But it is our nature to seek to hang onto it ourselves, to try to make it all work out in our own power and wisdom. It is our “family dysfunction” to attempt to make it happen ourselves, when rather we should see that trust in God, along with reasonable responsibility for the simple task immediately at hand, is what we need to find success for our labors and our lives.

Today’s Psalm 112 comes to me personally as both a thankful reflection upon the past and a life challenge for the purpose driving the remaining days of my life. It is the difference between living to gain, versus living to give. It is the difference between an absorbed focus upon self, or a determination to look to the needs of others.

My several readings of this Psalm brought back to my mind a flood of varied songs and biblical life maxims I heard from the earliest days of my childhood. The old hymn “Trust and Obey” went through the jukebox of my mind.

“But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay; for the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows, are for them who will trust and obey.”

And going back farther than that, to the earliest of childhood songs called “Jesus and Others and You – Joy” … where the words included: “J” is for Jesus for He has first place, “O” is for others you meet face to face, “Y” is for you, in whatever you do, Put yourself third and spell JOY.”

Trite, yes. But true? Yes, indeed.

Do you want to have success in life? Put God first by knowing, honoring and obeying his Word. Then make your life focus away from merely yourself and upon impacting the rising generations of your family and others – promoting the stuff of eternal value, and you cannot lose.

When I think back to the Christian people that I have known in family and churches over the years, the finest folks who come to mind have the common denominator of seeing their resources as God’s possession to be used in a wise stewardship as a blessing to others and the building of His kingdom, not their own. Often however, these folk’s own kingdoms were built along the way, and their families prospered also in generations of faith, service, and dependence upon God.

Tri-State is my second church as a Lead Pastor. Though very, very different in style of ministry, and people composition and history, both have adopted the same basic purpose statement: to love God, serve one another, and reach the world. TSF has added the valuable component of talking about generations … handing down the blessing of God’s truth to those coming along.

The reason this formula works is because of this timeless truth: Trust. When we really trust God, we are obeying; we are seeing all we have as from him; we are not fearing anything because we know it has all gone past God before whatever it is has gotten to us. Even the bad stuff of life we look to see how God will prosper for good in the lives of others, and likely by consequence in our own life as well.

It is timeless truth: we gain by giving, our “self” finds joy in focus upon others, and peace comes from every circumstance seen as in the hands of a faithful God and Father. That is a life of a legacy that can be passed along.

Psalm 112

1 Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands.

2 Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.
5 Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.

6 Surely the righteous will never be shaken; they will be remembered forever.
7 They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
8 Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear; in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
9 They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor.

10 The wicked will see and be vexed, they will gnash their teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

(This devotional today is an article that I wrote in the late 90s for a magazine about a health crisis situation in our family in 1996.)

When your doctor takes it upon himself to personally call you first thing in the morning, you know it marks the beginning of a really bad day. “I hate making calls like this,” he began. “The X-rays picture a large abnormality in your son’s leg – possibly an aggressive benign tumor, but I must honestly tell you it looks to me like a malignancy called Ewing’s Sarcoma.”

How does one absorb such a call? You simply do not expect to hear such a thing about yourself, let alone your 14-year-old son. Just the day before, Nathan had begun his freshman year in high school. Having been homeschooled all his life, entering high school was to be the launch into a great new adventure.

An adventure, indeed! But not one of our choosing!

An occasional sharp pain in his leg and knee had consistently increased in intensity. Originally written off by the family physician as “typical growing pains,” successive tests tended toward a confirmation of the worst. The “C” word – “cancer” – crept almost innocently into the naturally flowing discussions of the specialists.

The most brutal test to observe was the bone scan. One of my elders – a nuclear medicine technologist – sat with us as the radiographic dye pulsated quickly through Nathan’s system. The problem area was painfully obvious on the screen. Even a three-year-old could have pointed to the large, bright, radiating spot of concern. My elder friend displayed a wonderful pastoral presence, but I noted how infrequently he looked at the screen, and how much he gazed distantly at the floor.

I pressed for numbers. I wanted to hear percentages and know what we were facing. “Only a biopsy will determine the nature of this with certainty,” they said. “But we feel there is sufficient clarity in the MRI and other tests to identify it as Ewing’s Sarcoma. We honestly don’t expect to hear something different.” Sounded like 99% to me!

I pressed for more numbers – survival rate figures. “About 50% survive past five years, some with amputations, and some able to salvage the leg.”  I secretly embarked on an Internet research crusade on the subject. The results were so discouraging that I chose to not tell my wife what I discovered, nor even that I had done it. I had reason for special concern for Diana. Just two weeks earlier, she sat with her sister as she died from cancer – leaving eight children behind.

Ewing’s is a rather rare form of cancer, and we were referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Regarded often as the foremost medical facility in the world, gaining an appointment is very difficult. We would have to wait a month – a month to live in a condition one author has aptly entitled, “God’s Waiting Room.”

Our family attempted to live a normal life as we waited. One night we attended the local minor league baseball game in our city – a favorite outing for us. There I saw a man whom I’d noticed at the ballpark practically every time we’d been there. He was a very loud, foul-speaking, verbally obnoxious person of about age 65; a man who had quite obviously lived a foolish life of hard drink and personal abuse. Yet there he stood, basically healthy, out in public enjoying a recreational event, while my eight nieces and nephews mourned the loss of their godly mother and my son wrestled with the issues of a deadly cancer. It didn’t just seem unfair; IT WAS UNFAIR!

I was driven into the Scriptures for any hint of perspective. My reading soon brought me to the 73^rd Psalm, which served as the anchor for my soul in the weeks to follow.

The Psalmist wrestles with the age-old question of the prosperity of the wicked. He writes, “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills” (Ps. 73:4-5). This sure sounded like a description of the guy at the stadium! And the following verses roared even more graphically, “From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff and speak with malice. They say, `How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’” (Ps. 73:7,8,11)

The horrific injustices of this world may sometimes cause us to ponder the benefit of our efforts at righteous living. The Psalmist verbalized this sentiment by stating, “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence (Ps. 73:13).” Why do we bother to live for God when the gunk of this world finds its way to our door as indiscriminately as to the home of our wicked neighbor? Do we, as Christians, possess any real advantage?

But suddenly in the Psalm, perspective comes crashing upon the scene. Yes, there does exist an advantage in being numbered among the people of God! In fact, the Psalm writer speaks of three great perspectives for those days when the inevitable sorrows of this world claim squatter’s rights on our turf of our soul.

1. God is really, really good at keeping score!

The Psalmist says, “I entered the Sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.  You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly they are destroyed. Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you” (Ps. 73:18,19,27). The perspective is this: God is a good scorekeeper, and in the end the righteous always win.

Vince Lombardi, the famous Green Bay Packers football coach, said, “Sometimes the clock runs out, but in the end, we will win.” Even championship teams suffer some regular-season defeats. The ultimate goal is to win the playoffs, and such becomes our guarantee as believers. That really is an incredible knowledge to possess! How much else in life are we able to know with such certainty? We know the final score before the game concludes, and we know we win and the wicked lose.

2. When sorrows move in, God doesn’t move out!

The Psalm writer pens a second great perspective as he considers the nature of his relationship with God, “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:23,24,26).

God pledges to us His constant presence, counsel and strength extending into eternity. The weight and pain of the sorrows we experience may seem to suggest that God has vacated and an ugly stranger taken up residence, but such is far from reality. Amidst such times of frail incapability, God often reveals his most real presence – at a time when there is absolutely nothing we can do but rest in Him.

3. We just plain don’t have anyone else to turn to!

The pinnacle of the Psalm is scaled in verse 25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” The fact of the matter is that we ultimately have no other options as a refuge for inclement times. But the great truth is this: we don’t need anybody else! Doctors may help, loved ones may support, but only God will pour an eternal peace into our empty and hurting souls.

My month in God’s waiting room provided the opportunity to uniquely experience the reality of His sufficient peace. I also gained a new appreciation for the incredible blessing and assistance of the prayers of God’s people. Reports of prayer support came to us from as far as Kazakhstan. Heaven surely resonated with the supplications of friends and family.

The orthopedic specialist at Johns Hopkins looked at the various magnetic images and X-rays and said, “Could be Ewing’s Sarcoma – it would look like this. But let’s not cross that bridge until we have to.” “Too late,” I thought. I was already across that bridge and well up the other side! “My gut feeling is that this is an infection rather than cancer,” he said. “A biopsy will tell us immediately what we are dealing with. If it is cancer, we’ll close it up and come back to fight another day. If it is an infection, we’ll begin cleaning it out immediately.”

An excruciating pain wracked Nathan’s leg the last several days before surgery. But an hour after sending him off, the doctor announced it was indeed an infection. The news dropped us into a limp emotional heap. It caused great excitement and rejoicing for friends and family, and left our local medical community stunned. The hospital radiology technicians posted some of the images and ultimate results on a bulletin board with a label that said, “Can You Believe This?”

Some folks have suggested we were on the receiving end of a miracle. I don’t know. Such is surely possible. The worst thing that could be said is that we received a huge answer to prayer. The greatest knowledge, however, was the experience of knowing God’s sufficient grace in some very dark days of life. He is all we have, and He is all we need!

Psalm 73

A psalm of Asaph.

¹ Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.
³ For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.
⁵ They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.
⁷ From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.
⁸ They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.
⁹ Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.
¹¹ They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”

¹² This is what the wicked are like—always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

¹³ Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.

¹⁵ If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children.
¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply
¹⁷ till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

¹⁸ Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
¹⁹ How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!
²⁰ They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

²¹ When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, ²² I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

²³ Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

²⁷ Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

Several years ago there was a cover article in Time Magazine entitled, “Why we worry about the wrong things: the perils of risk.”

It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren’t so many things trying to kill you every day.

The problems start even before you’re fully awake. There’s the fall out of bed that kills 600 Americans each year. There’s the early-morning heart attack, which is 40 percent more common than those that strike later in the day.

There’s the fatal plunge down the stairs, the bite of sausage that gets lodged in your throat, the tumble on the slippery sidewalk as you leave the house, the high-speed automotive pinball game that is your daily commute.

Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we’d get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong.

We agonize over avian flu, which to date has killed precisely no one in the United States, but have to be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which contributes to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year.

We wring our hands over the mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn’t) in our hamburger and worry far less about the cholesterol that contributes to the heart disease that kills 700,000 of us annually.

We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones.

All in all, we need to live as wisely as we know how, and trust God for the rest. The Scriptures contain quite a bit of material about how we as mankind need to be mindful of the provision and care of the Lord, and today we go to one of those places – Psalm 34.

Though there is a good bit to be distressed about in life, on the whole, there is more about which to be thankful. Now that is good; that is biblical perspective. Life here is always going to be a mixed bag of stuff on this side.

We live under the curse of sin, which makes our daily lives difficult and our bodies ultimately subject to the curse of death. Yet at the same time we live under the promise of God to meet our genuine needs. Not all our needs, as not every need will ever be met; but the biggest one will be – the redemption of our bodies at death.

As we look at Psalm 34, we see this same balance in the writing of David. He is resoundingly thankful, yet it is clear that his circumstances are far from perfect, as seen in the superscription …

Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.

This story is from 1 Samuel 21… That day, David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances: `Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?

David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him.

The Psalm is not teaching that this is the way to extricate yourself from a problem. Rather, it sets up the degree of problem David faced, and then he extols God as the real source of his deliverance. It sets up the fact that David was a guy facing real problems, and long odds… and out of that, he was able to praise God.

This poem of David (an acrostic) can be divided into two major sections…

1. David’s TESTIMONY of Thanksgiving …1-10
2. David’s TEACHING on the fear of God …11-22
3. David’s Vow to bless the Lord at all times, 1-3

34:1 – I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.

Notice this is “at all times” – not just when the circumstances are pleasant.

34:2 – My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

34:3 – Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.

1. David’s Experience, 4-6

34:4 – I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

34:5 – Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

This is written in a tense called the gnomic aorist, which simply means that it speaks of something that gives the summation of a common story – like a moral of a fable … a general truth you can count upon.

34:6 – This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.

1. David’s Exhortation to Others, 7-10

34:7 – The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

Here you have a picture of a military encampment with a guard around it; the wise person stays within the perimeter.

34:8 – Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

34:9 – Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

Here is the real answer, the real deliverance, to fear the Lord… which means to honor, respect, and fully trust God. This will be the theme he develops in the 2nd half of the Psalm, but first an illustration from David

34:10 – The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

The actual text indicates that the lions are “young lions,” as compared to an old one. An elderly lion is often stuck with a carcass someone else has caught, but the young lions are healthy, fully sufficient in themselves. They are the King of the Beasts – at the top of the food chain, but even they go to bed hungry sometimes. But God’s provision is better than this.

David’s Teaching of the Fear of the Lord… 11-22

Introduction to his lesson… 11-12

34:11-12 – Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days,

Three Basic Principles of Successful Living… 13-14

34:13 – keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.

1 – Control your tongue, because trouble devolves more often from what we say versus what we do.

34:14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

2 – Do what is right – oh wow, deep stuff!

3 – Pursue peace (The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace). How do you hate a peacemaker?

The Contrast between the Way of the Wicked, and the Way of the Righteous …15-21

34:15-21 – The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

The Final Conclusion … verse 22

34:22 The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.

Yes, God redeems his servants; we win in the end. We don’t win every day, nor on every play in the game of life.

To use a football illustration, we expect life to be like the guy who runs the ball back on the opening kickoff – behind a wall of blockers, never touched. But life is more like an 8-minute long sustained drive – full of hard tackles, running plays into the heart of the defensive line, face mask penalties that don’t get called, and 4th-down-and-15-yards-to-go plays.

This is all so basic, but is the challenge of the sort we often forget. We are creatures = dependent; God is the creator = provider. We should therefore trust Him in thanks and honor Him with our obedience. That is the way to be blessed.