I often can be heard being goofy and saying “Greetings and salutations and jalapeños.” The apostle Paul had a signature greeting from Ephesians to Philemon in almost every start of each book he starts with this at about verse 2-3 of chapter one of each book. Philippians 2:2 “May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.” In 1 Timothy 1:2 it’s a little different. “I am writing to you Timothy, my true son in the faith. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy and peace.” He greets these people with gifts from God. We’ve been going through a series at Real Life about the power of words called Sticks and Stones and seeing Paul’s greetings it got me thinking. When you interact with people do you bring God’s grace, mercy and peace along with you? Hmm maybe we should rethink our greetings and interactions.
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Trust issues
Trust issue
There’s a line in the song Born To Be by Geoff Moore and the Distance and it says “It all comes down to a matter of trust and you don’t know what you got till ya let it all go.” Also in the song Independence Day by White Heart it says this “Freedom came when I gave it all away”. I told you recently that a lot of these blogs start with prayer and sometimes it’s a verse or a part of a song that sparks me to write. This time the verses brought the songs to mind. See I want to show you the end of Psalm 52 and show you the importance of the word trust. Trusting God changes things.
Psalm 52:8-9 “But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in your unfailing love. I will praise you forever O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.”
I don’t speak a lot about this but the first girl I ever dated lied about a lot of things and it created trust issues for me. I became afraid of women hurting me I didn’t trust that a human being could love me much less God. But over time God changed that in me. David makes a comparison here of being like an olive tree thriving in the house of God. Now think about this for a moment because the olive tree it doesn’t worry at all. The only time a tree worries is if it’s being depicted in movies like Ferngully or the blue people Avatar movies. Trees don’t worry! So that brings us back to the word trust David mentioned twice. David trusted in God’s unfailing love and his good name. Two unshakable, unchanging features of God. Now I want you to catch this because when he uses trust he becomes like the olive tree and stops doing what humans do and that’s worry. His trust issues go away. I told the readers of the blog recently one of the most important verses you need to remember is 1 Peter 5:7.
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
See we’re back to that unfailing love that David mentioned.
Another observation here. I was home schooled from fourth grade on and one thing my mom insisted on was memorizing scripture. One of the first things my sister and I had to memorize was Psalm 1. The more I thought about David’s life as shepherd, king, warrior, writer, singer, harp player and more it hit me that he was talking about an olive tree. This guy has seen a lot of trees. But I want you to look at Psalm 1:1-3 and consider other things he says about people and trees.
Psalm 1:1-3. “Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do.”
I want you to consider this as well. The verses talk about the trees or the godly being by the riverbank. Now think for a minute because years upon years later Jesus called himself the living water. Riverbank, godly person next to it, Living Water in it. Olive tree in God’s house thriving. King David being called a man after God’s own heart. I don’t know about you but some of these pieces are all connected. Pass me some more LEGOs.
Proverbs 18:10
“The name of the Lord is a strong fortress; the godly run to him and are safe.”
Here’s David’s son Solomon reminding us about God’s good name and the power it holds.
Martin Luther latched on to this years ago.
“A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.”
David in two verses shows us every reason to trust God. He even connects it to thriving. So what do you do with your trust issues. I’ll be honest when I have issues I want them to turn into subscriptions to comic books but when it’s a trust problem I want to trust God. Things go better when I trust God. Rich Mullins had something to say about the house of God and I want to leave you with this.
“And the moon is a sliver of sliver like a shaving that fell on the floor of a Carpenter’s shop, and every house must have it’s builder
And I awoke in the house of God
Where the windows are mornings and evenings
Stretched from the sun
Across the sky north to south
And on my way to early meeting
I heard the rocks crying out
I heard the rocks crying out
Be praised for all your tenderness
By these works of your hands”
|
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Each Day
Each day
Psalm 42 starts out a bit depressing and it’s a Psalm of the descendants of Korath and it says it’s for the choir director. Part of the psalm sounds like the basis of the old hymn Count your blessings. Maybe you’re having a rough day or week but the author gives us some stuff to latch on to. Verses 5-6 and then 11 are just what you need to change your perspective. They say the same thing. “Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God.” 98% of the battle of the mind is what you focus on. Like every good Psa from G.I.Joe cartoons “and knowing is half the battle.” The other 2% is refocusing. Then if you read the chapter I want you to look specifically at verse 8 because this is where you can say mic drop and walk away. Once you’re refocused you realize what a reality this verse is.
“But each day the Lord pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.”
Overflow by Shine like stars If you have never heard this song you seriously need to pay attention to the lyrics because it reminds you that everything comes from God.
Heard a song this week new to me I’m including just because of how good it is.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Where is it?
Where is it?
I find it sad to see how many people turn to things other than prayer to deal with problems. I’ve been guilty myself. I relate to Po from Kung Fu Panda. When I’m stressed I eat stuff I know better than to eat. It’s easy to do for a diabetic. I was driving to work tonight for a four hour shift knowing I needed something for the blog for this week. I was praying before reading my Bible. Psalm 33 is amazing but there were a few parts I wanted to bring to your attention. See Peter Parker aka Spider-Man has built his life around a word but most specifically a phrase. “With great power comes great responsibility.” I do a weekly Bible study blog that you the reader have given me your trust to bring you hope. I have to be responsible to acquire and present that to you. I could as some have thought I do build a whole blog around comics or anything else but I would fail you the reader. So in order to give you hope I have to present it to you from God’s Word where true hope can be found.
Complaining is easy but praising God is the hard part. But here’s reasons why you need your attention shifted.
Psalm 33:1-5. “Let the Godly sing for joy to the Lord; it is fitting for the pure to praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-stringed harp. Sing a new song to praise him; play skillfully on the harp and sing with joy. For the word of the Lord holds true, and we can trust everything he does. He loves whatever is just and good; the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth.”
Now maybe like me you can’t play an instrument or sing too well God is interested in your heart and you can still sing along to music. As I type this I have one song in mind to go with the blog. Part of the reason I leave links to music is because it is also an act of worship. Minor detail but a lot of blogs have started with a song lyric or Bible verse. I promised you hope and though we live in a broken sinful world the above verses said God’s unfailing love fills the earth. Too often we want to present scenarios and say “How could a loving God allow this or that.” We forget that he allows us to make choices and this world has been slowly going bad since sin entered the world. We have the choice to follow God or choose evil and too many people take the wrong choice. Maybe you doubt the part about unfailing love filling the earth but honestly that has been the message of the cross for over two thousand plus years. We are sinful creatures no chance of redemption but then you get to one of my life verses. Romans 5:8 “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” There is so much hope and love captured in that one verse.
To give you the reader hope I will always point you to God’s Word and to the cross.
But the last part of this chapter says it better than I can.
Psalm 33:20-22. “We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord for our hope is in you alone.”
So one of you may ask knowing all this what is the point? The point to this whole post and if this were a wrestling promo I’m going to give you your “go home line.” As Christians we have hope. In the Green Lantern comics there is a light spectrum to the power rings and they represent things. The Blue Lantern corps signifies Hope. As Christians we are to spread hope found in Christ to other believers to encourage and to non believers to show them the way to Christ. What are your spreading?
I’m going to introduce you to my all time favorite song by Sandi Patty because the entire song talks about things found In the Name of the Lord and hope is one of them.
If we’re His by Lisa Bevill New song I heard for the first time this week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)