Year 8, Day 257: John 9

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John 9 gives us more conflict to analyze.  It appears that Jesus initiates the conflict.  After all, He is the one who heals on the Sabbath.  Couldn’t He have healed the man a day earlier or a day later if He wanted?  Did He have to aggravate an already acerbic situation?

On the other hand, is Jesus really to blame?  Is Jesus trying to irritate the Jewish leaders or is He simply trying to let God’s love for the world be seen?

This is a great debate to have and a wonderful place to do a little self-analysis.  How do I react when God’s love is shown?  Do I celebrate?  Do I embrace it?  Or am I critical?  Do I judge that it isn’t done in a way that I think is appropriate?  Is it right to judge?  Is it dangerous to never judge?  These are powerful questions.

In the end, Jesus is consistent with His message in other Gospels.  We will know those who are from God by their works.  When God’s love is shown, it should be obvious.  When we see God’s love at work in the world we should be prepared to recognize it. 

The issue is that we aren’t skilled to see God’s love at first.  This like jealousy and anger get in the way.  Being judgmental and fearing error stop us from experiencing the grand power of His love.  Wanting to be in control means that we miss out on where He is working.  This is why Jesus tells the religious leaders at the end of the passage that He came so those who do not see may see.  God knows that we don’t get it naturally and we need help.

In the end, Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath gives us an awesome opportunity to look at our own humbleness.  Am I willing to acknowledge my growth areas and embrace God’s attempts to get me to grow?  Will I be interested in seeing God’s love wherever it shows up or will I always expect it to happen in a manner that I deem right?  Am I like the man who was blind and asks to meet the Son of Man so that I can believe or am I like the Pharisees who are so convinced I know what the Son of Man looks like that I never ask to see Him?

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Year 8, Day 256: John 8

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John 8 opens with a great story.  Here a woman comes before Jesus, accused.  Jesus teaches the religious leaders a great saying.  The one who has no sin in his life is welcome to cast the first judgment.  The religious leaders go away, because they get the point.

While that is a great message, that is only a small portion of the story.  Keep in mind the broad context.  The religious leaders are looking for a way to kill Jesus.

That leads to a really interesting question.  The religious leaders leave because they get the point.  But what is the point that they get?  Do they really understand what Jesus is teaching?  Do they leave because they are convicted of the sin in their heart?  To be honest, with all the arguments that have come before and after this story, I would honestly find it hard to believe that they leave because of their guilt over Jesus’ conviction of the sin in their heart.

Could it be that they leave because they aren’t going to get what they want out of this scenario?  Remember, they bring the woman before Jesus to force him into a position.  Does he side with them and risk alienating the crowd?  Does he side with the woman and give the religious leaders an opportunity to show how Jesus doesn’t take sins like adultery seriously?  They want to force Jesus into a position, knowing that as soon as Jesus takes a side they have an angle against Him.  They leave, then, because by taking no overt side in the debate He gives them no angle against them.

Jesus’ teaching is masterful, and it teaches us much about sin and judgment.  But the greater context of this story is about Jesus, not the woman.  This is why we continue to read in the story that the religious leaders come again and again to argue with Jesus.  They are after His death.

What’s really interesting is what Jesus focuses on inside the trap of the religious leaders.  Jesus teaches us that the truth will set us free.  The truth of the presence of sin set the woman free in the beginning of this chapter.  The truth of each of our sins sets us free as we turn to God, confess them, and allow Him to work on freeing us from that bondage.  When we live in sin, we are in bondage.  When we turn to God and confess our sin, the Son can set us free.

I love that even when Jesus is threatened, He continues to teach about freedom.  Instead of defending Himself, Jesus focuses upon what God has sent Him to do.  It nearly gets Him stoned, but I am willing to bet that He knew that possibility existed.  He knew that the message of truth was worth the trouble it would bring to Him.

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Year 8, Day 255: John 7

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John 7 picks up where the last chapter left off.  The people are still figuring out who Jesus is.  Is He a fraud?  Is He really the Son of God?  Is He a curiosity that is worth being paid attention to for a little while and then forgotten once the newness wears off?  It seems like we can find people of each of these categories in this chapter.

Jesus gives us the great test for this debate.  In John 7:18, Jesus tells us that the person who is not from God is going to eventually focus on his own glory.  The person who is from God, however, will focus on giving the glory to God.  After all, if a person is truly from God, why wouldn’t he want the glory of the one who sent him?  If a person is truly from God, why wouldn’t he want the one who can bring Him into eternal life to receive the glory?  The person who is from God points us to God.

Naturally, there is more debate to follow.  Some people think Jesus has a demon.  Other people seem to think that He should be believed because nobody else could do the kind of deeds that Jesus has already done.  Other people want to see Him arrested and brought before the authorities.  It seems like there always was, and always will be, debate about the identity of Jesus.

I love the opinion of Nicodemus at the end of this chapter.  Nicodemus is one of the few people who have the courage to stand up to the religious leader’s opinion.  The religious leaders are seeking to kill Jesus.  After the debate among the people, they feel even more confident in their ability to expose and get rid of Jesus.  In this context, Nicodemus has the courage to stand up and speak.  Nicodemus wants the truth.  He speaks about Jesus’ right to a fair trial.  At this point in the story, Nicodemus may not yet be decided about who Jesus is.  He does want to find out the truth, however.

What is neat in this story is the religious leader’s reaction to Nicodemus.  They immediately discount his voice.  They discount his voice because he disagrees with them, he challenges them, and he isn’t pursuing their goals anymore.  They tell Nicodemus that they already know the truth.  They think that a prophet can’t come from and do what Jesus has done.  Nicodemus is discounted because of the closed minds of the religious leaders.

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Year 8, Day 254: John 6

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It’s true what they say.  No good deed ever goes unpunished.  You can have the best motivations.  You can even have a plan that succeeds.  Even with the best plan that succeeds, someone will get upset and they will misunderstand or manipulate things until the good deed suddenly looks worse.

For example, take the feeding of the 5,000.  What an incredible miracle!  How many thousands of people eat their fill on a miraculous dinner made from five loaves of bread and two fish!  It should have been a miracle remembered for the ages.  It should have been an inspiration for people to turn to God and worship Him.  Unfortunately, neither of those things happened.

Look at the recipients.  Jesus leaves, and they continue to look for them.  We don’t know how, but Jesus Himself tells us why.  They come because they ate their fill.  They come because they got hungry again.  They come because Jesus was a cheap meal ticket.  What should have led to awe and worship leads to greed and self-centeredness.  Jesus’ good deed is misunderstood, misconstrued, and misrepresented.  They make Jesus out to be a means to a physical end rather than a spiritual model for godly living.

Furthermore, take the religious leaders.  They could have celebrated at the miracle of God.  They could have used it as a springboard to talk about the greatness of God’s provision.  It could have been an incredible moment of spiritual community.  Instead, it is the means to religious argument.  The Jewish leaders get upset at Jesus’ teaching.  They don’t want Jesus to be from God.  They don’t want Him to be from heaven.  They deny the greatness of the miracle because it doesn’t fit into their box.  What should have been a great moment mutates into the worst kind of alternate: angry spiritual debate.

This angry spiritual debate has more communal consequences.  Many of Jesus’ own followers grumble against Jesus about His teaching.  Instead of being a moment when people turn to God and His incredible provision, the argument turns the miracle into a time and place where Jesus actually loses followers! Many people turn aside from Jesus and no longer follow.

Good deeds, indeed.  It should be a great moment.  It turned out quite the opposite.  Don’t get me wrong, Jesus still uses the moment to teach and train His disciples.  God still is in control and He still uses the moment.  Yet the people don’t see God at work.  They turn away.  The seeds of confusion and anger are sown in the presence of the greatness of God’s provision.  It is all too often the way of humanity.

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Year 8, Day 253: John 5

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John 5 is once more about focus.  Jesus heals a lame man on the Sabbath.  Instead of being awed by the miracle – how many modern day Christians would give anything to genuinely see a healing miracle like this – the Jews get upset.  They get upset because Jesus healed on the Sabbath.  Could it be that they are jealous?  Sure.  Could it be that they were religious snobs stuck inside a box of their own thinking?  Sure.  Could it be that they were afraid?  Sure.  We don’t know why the Jews persecuted Jesus because of His compassion.  The reality is that they did and their focus was off.

Then, Jesus goes about showing the Jewish leaders what their focus should be like.  There is something He says to them that really caught my attention today and I don’t remember it catching my attention in the past.  Jesus says to them, “You search the scriptures because you think that you have eternal life in them.”  Whoa.  Those are some serious words that caused me to do a double-take.  I need to flesh that out a bit.

First of all, remember how the Jews of Jesus’ day decided upon salvation.  They were saved because they were the biological offspring of Abraham.  They were the people to whom the Torah was given.  Their mindset was that salvation belonged to them because they were who they were.  Their focus was on biology and genealogy, not their heart.  That’s Jesus’ point here.

What we must be careful to not get from this passage is that it is wrong to study scripture.  Of course, it is good to study scripture!  Jesus encourages the study of scripture.  Even in this chapter Jesus tells the Jewish leaders that the study of scripture should have pointed them to Jesus!  Jesus is all about studying the Word of God.

That being said, though, we should still be careful.  Our knowledge of scripture will not save us.  Our ability to recite scripture from memory will not save us.  Our ability to speak meaningfully about scripture will not save us.  In fact, Jesus is correct with what He tells the Jews.  Eternal life does not come from the study of scripture.

Scripture points us to Jesus.  Scripture helps us to understand God’s work in Jesus.  Scripture does not save us, it points us to the one being from whom our salvation comes: Jesus.  We can learn the lesson well from the Jewish leaders.  When we are looking for salvation, we should always turn our eyes upon Jesus.  Our salvation comes through Him by the grace of God the Father.

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Year 8, Day 252: John 4

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I love this chapter.  John 4 is hands down one of my favorite chapters in the whole of God’s Word.  Here we see Jesus teaching in a manner that is near and dear to my heart.  Again and again Jesus sets up the person to whom He is talking so that they are going to have a mind-blowing, life-altering moment.  Jesus doesn’t just want to give them new information, He wants their perspective to change, too.  He isn’t just a conveyor of information like some dry, boring, lecturing professor.  Jesus is shattering the way that people construct their life to provide space for a new framework.

For example, take the woman at the well.  When Jesus asks her for a drink she reminds Him that as a Samaritan she isn’t qualified to give Him a drink.  Jesus seizes the opportunity and tells her that she needs the living water that He is offering.  She immediately is interested, and it gives Jesus the opportunity to draw her out of her focus on the physical realm and look into the spiritual realm.  She wants to end her thirst; Jesus takes the opportunity to show her a new level of thirst that she never knew existed.  He then shows her how to satisfy such thirst.

The next thing that Jesus does is to take her confession about not having a husband and shatter her perspective once more.  Jesus tells her that she doesn’t have a current husband but has been many several times prior.  The fact that Jesus knows this amazes the woman.  It is this conversation that forces the woman to no longer see Jesus as a Jew with whom she cannot interact and instead see Jesus as a spiritual prophet with whom she wants to interact.

Next, the disciples come.  They are startled to see Jesus speaking to this Samaritan woman but to their credit they say nothing.  The woman leaves and the disciples invite Jesus to eat.  In turn, Jesus questions them about food.  Jesus sees an opportunity to shatter their perspective.  The disciples are hungry and thinking about eternal food, but Jesus gets them thinking about the eternal and spiritual food.  In doing so, He teaches the disciples to see the Samaritans as a potential harvest instead of a people to be scorned.

In this chapter, Jesus really does show us what a master teacher looks like.  Jesus is all about using what seems like an outrageous claim to change the perspective of His disciples.  He knows that often the easiest way to open up people’s minds is to make a comment that takes them out of their comfort zone and then show them how a change in perspective and cause the knew thought to actually be within their comfort zone.  This is what great teachers do all the time.

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Year 8, Day 251: John 3

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Today I’m not going to focus on the typical things that come out of this chapter.  The world’s most understood verse is here.  The beginning of Nicodemus’ walk in faith is here.  These are great things upon which we can focus, but that isn’t where I am going to go today.

Instead, there is a dynamic in this chapter that is often overlooked.  This entire chapter is built upon a single thought: how do people figure out who Jesus is and how they are going to respond.  This chapter is about people getting a grip on what God is doing through Jesus.

For example, take Nicodemus.  He wants to know what he doesn’t understand.  Nicodemus chooses to come at night when he won’t be spotted and when Jesus won’t be quite as busy.  Its not likely that Nicodemus is doing official work for the Pharisees or he would have come with the crowds.  Nicodemus wants to know, so he goes to the horse’s mouth.  Nicodemus goes straight to the source.  Notice that he gets his answer, too.  There’s something to be said about the direct approach.

Then we hear about John’s disciples.  They see that many people are going to Jesus instead of John.  Whether out of confusion or jealousy – we can’t be completely sure – they go to John and ask him what is going on.  It might be easy to be critical of them, but resist that temptation.  The reality is that they are going to their mentor.  They are going to the place where God has shown He can speak.  They also take the direct method, it’s just that they are going direct to God speaking through John instead of direct to God speaking in Jesus.  Note, also, that they get their answer.

There is a very important message in this chapter.  We all need to figure out for ourselves who Jesus is.  As Jesus says, those who believe in Him are made to be the children of God in the Spirit.  Those who deny Jesus are already condemned.  We need to figure out Jesus.  The question that this chapter asks is where we will go.  Will we God directly to God?  Will we go to places that we know God uses to speak truth?  Or will we go elsewhere and get whatever we should find there?

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Year 8, Day 250: John 2

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I think the theme for me when I read John 2 is best given in the last words of the chapter.  “Jesus did not entrust Himself to them … for He Himself knew what was in man.”  Jesus knows where our hearts focus.  He knows our passion.  He knows how we can be misguided, even when we’re trying to help.

For example, take a look at the wedding in Cana.  Yes, Jesus performs a great miracle.  Don’t miss the point that what Jesus makes is finer than our greatest accomplishment!  That being said, the reality is the Jesus’ mother puts Him in a position He doesn’t want to be in.  His time has not come.  Even after He makes His point, His mother continues to insist.  To be honest, she doesn’t even acknowledge His objection!  She turns to the servants and tells them to obey Jesus.  Jesus’ mother means well, but her heart is in making the wedding better and not listening to God’s plan.

In a far more direct example, we have the temple story.  The religious leaders have turned the worship of God into a means for making money.  They are preying upon the people and using God as the element of fear!  They are behaving unjustly and their focus is clearly upon material gain and not upon their relationship with God.

This is why even when many people believe in Him, He doesn’t put His trust in them.  It seems like so many people are simply looking to use Jesus to accomplish their own agendas.  That’s still true today.  So-called religious leaders get rich off of people who are just trying to relate to God.  Other religious leaders guilt people into doing what they want.  Others use Jesus’ own words to convince people of their obligations.  Unfortunately, Jesus knew the truth.  He knows what is in the heart of man.

What I find really neat in this is that although Jesus knows what is in the heart of mankind, He still came for us.  He still died for us.  He still invites us into relationship with Him.  He knows what is in our heart and knows that we will occasionally fail Him.  Yet He still wants to be with us.  That’s God.

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Year 8, Day 249: John 1

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John 1 starts off anything but practical. Unlike Matthew and Luke, John gives no birth narrative.  In fact, John takes us directly from the creation of the world through Jesus Christ to the baptism of John and the ministry of Jesus.  In this, John makes a very theological point.  The start of the story of Christ is not a night in the manger – as important as that story might be to the story of Jesus’ fleshly existence.  The reality is that Jesus’ story reaches back into creation.  Jesus’ story starts before we are even on the scene.

What this shows us is that the story of the light of the world – Jesus Christ – is an eternal story.  What this means, then, is that the world’s struggle against the light is also eternal.  John tells us that the world did not know Him.  Those who were made through Him did not recognize Him.  Even the Hebrew people, who worship God, did not know Him when He came.

However, all is not lost.  While the world in general did not recognize the light, there are some who did – and still do.  These people are given the privilege of being the children of God.  Such people are not born of flesh and blood but born of God.  The story that John is telling comes full circle.  The story of Jesus doesn’t begin with a human birth, it begins with a spiritual creation.  Our story – the story of the children of God – does not begin with a physical birth either.  Our flesh and blood birth pales in comparison to our true birth in and through God’s Spirit.

This is why John says to make straight the paths of the Lord.  Our perspective is often skewed.  We focus on the wrong things.  We tend to focus on the things of this world and how they happen instead of focusing on God’s ways and what He has done through us.

In fact, we see this in the story of Nathaniel, too.  Nathaniel comes to Jesus and tells him the story about when he heard about Jesus.  Nathaniel was amazed at Jesus’ ability to know how it happened.  Jesus, however, refocuses Nathaniel.  He tells him that he will see bigger things with a shift in perspective.  Nathaniel will see heaven opened and the angels coming down to the Son of Man.  Arguments can be made about this happening several times in Jesus’ life: His birth, His temptation in the desert, and the transfiguration are some of the top of the list.

I think that the death and resurrection are the greatest fulfillment.  When Jesus dies, the heavens are opened and the curtain is torn.  When Jesus is raised, angels come to human beings and tell them that Jesus is no longer dead.  What greater thing to see than God’s redemption of creation!  What greater thing to see than God’s embrace of His people!  In the moment, Nathaniel is content with something small and reasonably insignificant.  Jesus refocuses him to look to the eternal and foreshadows that if he continues to walk with God then he will see the salvation of mankind.

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Year 8, Day 248: Psalms 120-121

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These two psalms naturally go hand in hand.  So much of human existence is spent dealing with the consequences of sinfulness.  We deal with our sinfulness.  We deal with other people’s sinfulness.  So often the things that we worry about are rooted in the parts of our lives and the lives of others than run contrary to God’s ways.

Because of this, we have times like the psalmist experiences in Psalm 120.  He is in distress.  He calls out to the Lord.  People around him are lying.  People around him don’t want peace.  They desire to bring him down in their midst.  They want to see him stumble and fall.  What they really want is a war.

This is why the psalmist turn to the Lord.  Notice the psalmist’s tone, though.  The psalmist doesn’t call for the destruction of his enemies.  He doesn’t ask God to rain down wrath upon him.  He merely asks to be delivered.  He wants to be freed from their scheming.

This brings us to psalm 121.  The Lord is our keeper.  He watches over us.  He will keep us from evil.  We can call upon the Lord and He will know our going in and our going out.

Again, though, we can pay attention to what the psalmist doesn’t say.  The Lord will protect us from evil, but He will not do evil.  The psalmist does not presume that the Lord will punish others unfairly while protecting us.  We know that scripture says that vengeance is the Lord’s, but it is also the Lord’s to decide when and where His vengeance is put on display.

I think this a great point to bring out.  It is one thing to ask the Lord to protect and deliver us.  It is acceptable to remember that the Lord has a covenant with us.  But we must not be presumptuous and tell the Lord how He is to protect us.  He will protect us in His own righteous way, which is far better than any way we could dream up anyways.

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Year 8, Day 247: Psalms 119

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Psalm 119 is a teaching psalm, designed to use the Hebrew alphabet as a means to remembering the psalm.  Being a teaching psalm, it makes sense to ask about the point.  What exactly does this psalm teach?  Without going into every stanza, what are the main points of the psalm?

As a teaching psalm, its main point is living according to the ways of the Lord.  We can tell this by examining the first and the last stanzas.  After all, the psalmist wants to put the most memorable in the easiest positions to remember.  If the psalmist starts greatly and ends greatly, the long psalm will be remembered as a great psalm.

We begin with a discussion on what it means to have the Lord’s blessing.  Those who are blessed walk in the ways of the Lord.  The psalmist is interested in steadfastness and determination when keeping the Lord’s statutes.  It is hard to make the right decision time and time again.  It is hard to consistently chase away the temptation to pursue selfish thought.  As a teaching psalm, the psalmist tackles on of the biggest areas of human weakness.  We are good in the moment, but sometimes we falter when it comes to the long haul.  If we are the Lord’s, we need to be the Lord’s at all times.  That needs to be our persistent focus.

The stanzas continue to pass throughout the psalm, but again and again the focus is upon the ways of the Lord.  We approach the idea that the ways of the Lord lead us to praise.  The ways of the Lord keep us from harm.  The ways of the Lord allow us to escape danger.  The ways of the Lord have many applications and genuinely leads to a better life lived.

This brings us to the last psalm.  It begins no different than we would expect: Give me an understanding according to your word!  Once more the ways of the Lord are cast before us, even as we close out this psalm.  His law is our delight.  His statutes are worth leaning.  His commandments are right.  His rules help us.  The last stanza is one of the most forceful in its focus on the ways of the Lord.

I love how this psalm ends.  “I have gone astray like a lost sheep.  Seek out your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.”  I could write another entire blog post about this line alone.  Clearly it is putting a great stamp on the idea that the ways of the Lord are important to our life.  It does more than that, however.  It is a confession.  Even knowing that the ways of the Lord should be our focus, we still go astray.  We still need the Lord to seek us out. 

There is still more.  Just because I stray into sin does not mean that I have forgotten the Lord.  The psalmist is drawing out the fact that we can have a life genuinely focused upon the Lord yet have moments of sin. Just because I have gone astray and I need the Lord to seek me out does not mean that I have lost my salvation or risk mortal peril.  It is human to have lapses of judgment.  Yes, we must also deal with the consequences of such actions.  Yet, the psalmist knows that God does not abandon us for a single moment of sin.  Our perfection is marred, but our relationship with God need not be.

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Year 8, Day 246: Psalms 118

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There is a verse buried in this psalm that I simply adore.  “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humankind.  There is both breadth and depth in this verse alone, which the rest of the psalm bears.

First of all, there is the truth in the moment of life.  The one thing that we can count on is that we will eventually be surrounded.  Life will oppose us.  People in life will oppose us.  We will be threatened; we will be attacked.  Who will come and save us?  Is there much reason to believe that when we are kicked, orphaned, and left for dead that we will be rescued by humankind?  Do human beings really have a great track record of caring for those who are in the lowest of social positions?  Why trust in humankind at all?  I’d rather trust in God.

Then there are the high points of life.  When I am elated, it isn’t because I have done something with finite success.  The true highs in life are when I’ve been able to reach into the eternal and make a difference.  The moment when God uses me to shows unexpected love to another person is a high.  The moment when God uses me to speak a profound truth that I’d have no hope of coming up with myself is a high.  The moment when God uses me to befriend the oppressed is a genuine high.  If I genuinely consider the grand high points of my life, they all have more to do with times I am walking with the Lord than accomplishing worldly goals.

Naturally, there is the truly spiritual perspective.  In the end, no human medicine or science will be able to save me.  These bones will wear out.  My muscles will become weak.  The cosmic rays coming from the sun will damage my genetics beyond repair and I will suffer mutation, cancer, and the like.  It is better to take eternal refuge in the world where I have a hope of eternal life than to live in a world where my only hoe is to simply stop existing.

Indeed, it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put my trust in humankind.

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Year 8, Day 245: Psalms 116-117

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It is easy to determine the theme of these two psalms today.  We should praise the Lord.  We should return to the Lord what is His.  We should lift up the cup of His salvation and remember His glory.  We should honor and fulfill our vows to Him.

Why should we do this?  The psalmist gives us a plethora of reasons.  Perhaps the greatest of these reasons is that He remembers us.  When we are in our darkest pit, He is there to rescue us.  When we stumble and fall, He is there to pick us up.  He does not abandon us when we are down, He picks us up and carries us on when we are unable to do so ourselves.

He also brings our soul to His rest.  This expression can be taken on multiple levels.  Naturally, this means that we can know His peace.  In a turbulent world, He shows us rest.  He calms the world around us through His incredible omnipotence.  This also can be seen in the light of the eternal.  At the end of this age, he will bring us to Him and give us rest from this life.  We will know true peace at the end of the age.

There is another reason to bestow honor unto His name.  He still knows us when we are simple and humble.  God is not just the God of the wealthy, popular, strong, or important.  He is the God of the orphan, the widow, and the simple.  He loves us all regardless of our actual station in life.

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Year 8, Day 244: Psalms 115

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Psalm 115 poses an interesting debate.  It begins by attesting to the glory and praise of the Lord.  This is as it should be.  Then, the psalm asks God why the nations should wonder where the hand of the Lord is.  In other words, the psalmist is feeling that God could show Himself a little bit more than He is.

In this context, the psalmist begins to talk about the gods of the other nations.  They are wooden, made from clay, or other natural materials.  The psalmist wonders how anyone could think that they are gods.  After all, how on earth can flawed human beings make things that have any power over creation?  Their manmade gods may have eyes, ears, hands, and feet but they cannot see, hear, act, or move.  It doesn’t make sense.

That being said, it doesn’t really resolve the issue at hand.  All it does is bring the point even more to the forefront.  The nations of the world have fake gods whose actions cannot be seen in spite of the gods’ ability to be seen, held, and worshipped.  The God of the Hebrew people cannot be seen.  The psalmist therefore is asserting that because God cannot be seen, He should be seen through His actions.  If we cannot see God, then we should be able to see Him through His actions.

He is our help.  He is our shield.  He is the one who blesses us.  He is the one in which we put our faith.  There is the crux of the issue.  Faith is hope in that which we cannot prove.  We cannot see God, yet we continue to put our faith in Him.

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Year 8, Day 243: Psalms 113-114

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Psalm 113 asks a brilliant question.  Who is like the Lord?  Naturally, we hear this question and see it as a pretty obvious one.  After all, He is the creator.  He is eternal.  He knows all.  From that perspective, who is like Him indeed.

However, I think there is a more profound angle to this question.  We can see this angle by reading the psalm rather than bringing our own thoughts to the psalm.  What is the evidence that the psalmist gives for the Lord’s uniqueness?  The Lord raises up the poor from the dust.  The Lord lifts up the needy out of the ashes.  The Lord makes the barren into the mother of children.  What makes the Lord unique is that he finds value in the people in the world who seem valueless.  Who is like the Lord, indeed!

Psalm 114 brings us back to being in awe of the Lord because of His awesome power.  This psalm reminds us of the true impressive power of the Lord through the story of the exodus.  The Lord brought His people out of bondage in Egypt.  In doing so, the Lord did many powerful things.  He planted the people in a land that was not theirs.  He forced the sea apart.  He brought water out of a rock.  He did other things that the psalm doesn’t talk about.

This is an important point to remember.  Psalm 113 reminds us that God is impressive because of His perspective: He cares about those the world does not.  Psalm 114 reminds us that God is impressive because of His power: He can do things the rest of us can’t.  Who can bring water out of a rock except a God who knows the secrets of the universe?

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Year 8, Day 242: Psalms 112

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Psalm 112 speaks about the righteous and the benefits of being righteous.  There is something that is important to get right above all else.  It is the man who fears the Lord who will be blessed.  It is possible to extrapolate, then, that the one who fears the Lord is the righteous one.  In other words, when we live through fear of the Lord – respecting His ways -we are righteous.

So, what are the benefits of living a life in the fear of the Lord?  The generations of the upright will be blessed.  In other words, the people will have a bright future.  That’s pretty clear.  Righteousness breeds hope.  Righteous breeds a community that has a future together.

There are other deep benefits.  Living a life of being upright means living in the light.  This means learning to be gracious and merciful.  Living through a fear of the Lord makes us people who are good community members – even mentors.  We are filled with grace and mercy towards one another.

The righteous also lives in companionship with the Lord.  They are not afraid of bad news.  They are firm and steady, as unshakable as the Lord in whom they are in awe.  They live in confidence, knowing that the Lord is with them.

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Year 8, Day 241: Psalms 110-111

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Psalm 110 is a psalm that speaks of the order of Melchizedek.  This is an odd term, reaching the whole way back to Genesis 14:18.  In that passage, we meet the king of Salem, the town that under David would become Jerusalem.  In Genesis, we see that the king of Salem is actually a priest of God.  This is a cool connection.  It tells us that the king of Jerusalem can also be a high priest outside of the genealogy of Aaron.

Naturally, this history points us to Christ.  He is of the genealogy of David, not Aaron.  But, as king in the line of David, he is a high priest.  Jesus is both our king and our high priest.  We don’t need a human representative; He does it all for us.

We also know that this psalm is pointing us to Jesus because of the future tone of the words.  In the day of wrath, He will rule.  He will execute judgment on the nations.  He will fill the nations with corpses and overthrow their chiefs.  Jesus will rule in the end, and His rule will be complete.

Turning to Psalm 111, we see a psalm that seems in line with Psalm 110 but pointing in an opposite direction.  Certainly, the focus is still on the greatness of God and His ability to rule.  In this psalm, though, we see a focus on God’s splendor, glory, and salvation.

The psalmist reminds us that the Lord is merciful.  He is gracious.  He is marvelous.  He does provide for us.  He is faithful.  He is trustworthy.  He is just.  He redeems us.  He upholds His own covenant.

All of this being said, I love where this psalm ends.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Look at all that God can do.  Look at what He does for all of us.  What about Him does not cause us to be in awe of Him?

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Year 8, Day 240: Psalm 109

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Upon reading this psalm, I felt a great wrestle within me.  I don’t really care for it.  I know it is a part of God’s Word and therefore it should be respected as such.  Yet at the same time I am not sure how I feel about an author of God’s Word actively calling upon God’s wrath against His opponents.

Don’t get me wrong.  I understand the human emotion.  There is a lesson to be learned here.  David gets it.  God gets it.  Sometimes humans find themselves persecuted and we want those who persecute us to get what they deserve.  That’s human.  It’s part of who we are.

I also believe that God calls us above it.  God is a God of forgiveness.  God is a God of repentance.  He is a God of turning the other cheek.  He is a God of giving a second tunic the person who takes our first one.  God is grace, love, and mercy.  That’s God; that’s what makes Him different than us.

If there is any saving grace here, it is that the psalmist does call upon God to act and doesn’t take it upon himself.  While the psalmist does expose his darker inner being, at least he doesn’t act upon it.  He does call upon God to act, but He lets the action be up to God. It’s not, much, but it may also be the most important part.  We can’t help the humanity that we feel inside, but we can help how that humanity comes out.  Maybe the psalmist has it figured out after all.

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Year 8, Day 239: Psalm 108

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I believe that this psalm is two-fold. 

The vast majority of this psalm speaks about giving glory to God.  How many times in the opening verses do we hear about giving thanks to God, praising His name, exalting Him, and giving Him glory?  God is great; He deserves to have that remembered.

What truly strikes me about the bulk of this psalm is where God dwells.  Naturally, we think of God as dwelling in Shechem, Succoth, Ephraim, Gilead, Manasseh, and Judah.  Those are places where Hebrew people dwell, why shouldn’t they be where God dwells?  However, we also hear about Moab and Edom.  Those aren’t Hebrew lands, but they are lands that are settled by some of Abraham’s offspring through the likes of people such as Esau.  Even they make a bit of sense.  But then we hear about Philistia.  That is the place of the Philistines.  Those are people that God told the Hebrews to drive out.  They were opposed to God and rebelling against His ways.

What this reminds us is that God dwells everywhere.  This is His creation, He has a right to all of it.  Even the darkest places filled with the greatest of evil are places where the Lord has the right to tread.  God may not inspire the people who live there, He might not be pleased with the life of the people living there, and He might not even be welcome there.  Even so, the whole creation is still His.  That’s powerful to remember.

Finally, we end up at the last stanza of verses.  Here the psalmist turns the tone on its head.  We see the psalmist appear to ask where God is?  The psalmist wonders why the Lord can be everywhere yet not go out with the Hebrew people.

This is an important question to ask.  What does it mean when we don’t feel the blessing of His hand?  There are a couple of possible answers, but one thing that we can say is that when the blessing of the Lord is not felt something is wrong.  It could be that God’s people are doing something that the Lord hasn’t blessed.  It could be that the action is blessed but the people are doing something that is interfering with God’s blessing.  The important thing to understand is that the absence of feeling the blessing of God is an opportunity for us to examine the world around us.

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Year 8, Day 238: Psalm 107

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Psalm 107 is a marvelous psalm for study.  Naturally, it is another psalm of praise, lifting up the deliverance that we feel from the hand of God.  This psalm speaks to His greatness.  But as it speaks to the greatness of God, it weaves together multiple perspectives.

First, we can see the wanderers.  Whether these are people who chose to abandon their locale or forced into the wilderness we cannot know.  What we do know is that God is the God of the wanderer.  He hears their cry and brings them home.

Second, we see those who sit in darkness.  These are prisoners.  These are people who are near death.  These are also people who have spent time in the past rejecting God’s words.  God is God of these people as well.  He may bend them to humble them, He still gives them an opportunity to be humbled!  He allows them to see the error of their ways and the circumstance of their affliction.  He allows them to rise above it if they will listen to Him.  He is their God as much as anyone else’s God.

We then hear about the fools.  These are people who thought they knew better than God.  They made choices that may have made human sense, but weren’t really all that great in the end.  God heals them.  He brings them out of the destruction that their foolishness brought upon them.

There are others who went out in the world to focus on business and entrepreneurial efforts.  As they focused on their pursuits, they also found themselves in trouble.  Those who see the hand of the Lord at work turn and find salvation.  He calms the turbulent world of worry and risk around us.

God works miracles.  He will come to us in our time of trouble.  He will even save us from our own trouble if we are willing to be humbled and turn to Him and His wisdom.  God does not demand perfection from us.  God merely desires that we follow Him and humbly repent when we find ourselves walking away from Him.

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