Flourishing in the House of God - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 52:8,

"But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever."

The contrasting conjunction that begins verse 8 in this psalm refers back to the previous verses that highlight what is in store for the wicked (not good...).

In verse 8 David proclaims what is his in the Lord that contrasts to the fate of the wicked. In this verse, as a man of faith, he equates himself with the metaphor of an olive tree flourishing in the house of God. This portrayal is for me a vivid figurative description of an abundant fertile life, lush in all the very best life has to offer as intended by God. An opulent and sumptuous life, not in terms of financial riches, but the riches of fulness of life, satisfaction in life, purpose in life, fulfillment in life, a life replete with mental, emotional, intellectual and spiritual vitality, exuberance and vibrancy. All the very best that God has to offer us in his presence, of being "in the house of God."

David lays his claim to this in that "I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever." This, I believe, is what is ours, those of us who have embraced the Lord in faith just as David did.

It brings to mind Paul's words when he quoted Isaiah 64;4, "'What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived'— the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit." 1 Corinthians 2:9-10a.

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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What Believers Must Know About Abortion - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 51:3-4,

"Surely I [David] was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you [God] desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place."

Here is a fascinating observation: God desired David's faithfulness as soon as he was conceived in this mother's womb, before he was born! And, he confesses to a spiritual condition while in the womb, beginning at conception!

Is David using figurative language here? Did he really mean it? Is this just David's idea, an idea begotten before the medical knowledge we have in this age of abortion?

Peter tells us that the Scriptures came to be written as men were carried along by the Holy Spirit and therefore divinely inspired. "Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:20-21. In just the preceding verse he says "We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."

We would do well to pay attention to the Scriptures because God had them written- he has some things he wants us to know! What he wants us to know from this passage is that unborn babies exist in a spiritual state, a spiritual condition prior to birth.

David was not using figurative language in Psalm 51:3-4, and, yes, he (being carried along by the Holy Spirit) really meant what he said. This psalm enlightens us about the unborn in a way that medical science will never be able to.

This helps us understand passages like Luke 1:39-45, "At that time Mary [Jesus' mother, just having conceived] got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby [John the Baptist as a fetus at 6 months] leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!"

In this passage in Luke we see that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was Jesus Christ, the Son of God at the point of conception, not at birth. We also see that John the baptist was fully functioning spiritually and gifted as a prophet when his mother was at the end of her second trimester with him. John, before he was born knew he was in the presence of God and emoted - he responded with joy!

We learn from the Scriptures that we are fully human, we are alive physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually at the point of conception. Any follower of Jesus Christ must recognize that every abortion is the taking of a human life. What is practiced in our culture today is nothing other than state sanctioned murder.

What is the believer's responsibility in all this? Here is a helpful passage from Proverbs 24:11-12, "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this,' does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?"

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know..

Our God Speaks! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 50:1,

"The Mighty One, God, the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to where it sets."

It never fails to amaze me that God, the Creator of the universe, the Creator of mankind, the omnipotent One, the omniscient One, the eternal One... it just never ceases to amaze me that he has spoken to mankind! As I contemplate the fact that our God, who designed and created both the vast reaches of the universe as well as the microscopic objects that make up all creation, the atoms and molecules, as well as everything in between, has spoken to us! I am always astonished that our God, who knows everything there is to know, who knows every thing that has ever happened, who knows every intimate detail about each and every one of us, has spoken to us! "Our God comes and will not be silent...", verse 3a.

This psalm of Asaph has in its view that God has spoken. He has two messages in this psalm. The first is to God's people (and it is a testimony against them), verses 7-15. The second is to the wicked person, verses 16-21.

To "my people", verse 7, God says he doesn't bring a charge against them for their sacrifices, but that they need to realize he really has no need for them, that is, for himself. He does tell them, "Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me." Verses 14-15.

To "the wicked person", following charges he brings against them he says, "Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:" Verse 22. But to those he calls "my people" he says "Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me, and to the blameless I will show my salvation." Verse 23.

The Bible is not just a "rule book", not just "the good book", it is the very words of God himself to us! I can't imagine why anyone would ignore such an important treasure!

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know..

The Great Inevitability - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 49:10-12,

"For all can see that the wise die, that the foolish and the senseless also perish, leaving their wealth to others. Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations, though they had named lands after themselves. People, despite their wealth, do not endure; they are like the beasts that perish."

The well known axiom, "The only certainties in life are death and taxes" could find its basis in this psalm. At least the death part. It is inevitable- we all will die one day. It is a truth that most of us probably avoid giving too much contemplation to in our younger years. We have other things on our minds: careers, marriage, raising a family, caring for those we love, pursuing those things that interest us or have our attention, etc.

However, to me, I think it is in those younger years that the contemplation of the temporary nature of our lives has its best yield in the wisdom it could bring into our lives. It is often observed that one can be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good, but given our life here in this age is relatively short and that our lives following this age will be eternal, whether eternal life or eternal damnation, making choices in this life that have positive impact on the next can only provide for the very best use of our lives here in this age.

The psalm makes the obvious point that wealth, among the top things many people expend their earthly lives for, is of no value when the inevitability hits. That wealth does not go with us when we die and in verses 8-9 we read, "the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough— so that they should live on forever and not see decay." Money is not going to help.

However, something else insures a wonderful eternity for us that we can obtain in this life- righteousness! Proverbs 11:4 tells us, "Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death." This righteousness is something we can acquire here in this life, right here and now.

Paul tells us in Romans 3:21-25a, "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith."

Placing our faith in Jesus Christ may not bring us money, mansions and all the big toys in this life, but it will certainly bring us a wonderful eternity beyond our wildest dreams!

What will you expend your life for as you contemplate the inevitable?

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know..

God's Enduring Faithfulness - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 48:14,

"For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end."

This, the closing verse of Psalm 48, points to an underlying current found throughout the psalm, God's enduring faithfulness to those who are his. In verse 8 we read that God makes Zion secure, not for a period, but forever. In verse 9 the Sons of Korah speak of meditating on God's unfailing love. Then we have this closing verse that speaks of God as being "our God" for ever and ever, and that he will be "our guide even to the end."

One of the wonderful aspects of God's nature is that he is eternal. He has always existed and will continue to always exist. His love for us never changes. We will never wake up to find that God has changed his mind and no longer cares for us. His kingdom and what he has prepared for those who are his will endure with no end.

The Scriptures often refer to this aspect of God as his faithfulness. Never changing, never abandoning us, he is always and continuously faithful to us, both in his love for us and his promises to us.

I am reminded of an interesting observation Paul makes about God's interaction with both patriarchal Israel and his new entity, predestined before the creation of the earth, the church, "As far as the gospel is concerned, they [Israel] are enemies for your [the Gentile church] sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable." Here is an amazing confession of the faithfulness of God, in this case to Israel.

Likewise, God's faithfulness is found to be the basis for confidence for the the church in Corinth, and by extension, all of us who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith, "He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

It is due to that faithful nature of God that all believers can have confidence that nothing will ever separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. This is how Paul puts it in Romans 8:33-39 in an astonishing proclamation of the confidence we should all have due to God's faithfulness:

"Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God's enduring faithfulness!

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know..

What is God Worthy Of? - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 48:1,

"Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain."

This psalm, by the Sons of Korah, has as its focus the strength and beauty of Jerusalem. Here are some of the noteworthy observations made of Zion back in their day:

It is the city of God as pointed to in verse 1, "his holy mountain". (Jerusalem sits atop a mountain in Israel.)
It is beautiful in its loftiness, verse 2.
It is the "joy of the whole earth", verse 2.
God's temple resided there.
God himself is Jerusalem's "fortress", verse 3. He makes her "secure forever", verse 8. Although destroyed by the Babylonians and Romans, Jerusalem will always have its place for all eternity.

It was God himself that made Jerusalem's transcendent status what it was. And, so, it is the observations about God, that this city derived its greatness from, that captures my attention this morning.

The psalm begins with an observation about the greatness of God himself, who is "most worthy of praise", verse 1. The unique and transcendent love of God is observed as being unfailing, verse 9. God's hand is seen as being filled with righteousness, in verse 10, a righteousness that he will give to all those who embrace him in faith, as we learn of in passages like Romans 3:21-22, "But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe."

It is that first verse that has me thinking this morning. The Sons of Korah declare that God is "most worthy of praise". It has me thinking of just what all God is worthy of in reference to my own life.

Is God worthy of me giving my life for him? Is God worthy of me living my life for him? Is God worthy of my time, my attention, throughout the day, throughout the week? How do I express that? How do I live that?

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know..

The Exalted Ascension to the Throne - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my heart and mind in Psalm 47:9,

"The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham, for the kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted."

While I recognize that the Lord is the God of all nations today, pursuing his agenda of building his kingdom in this age through his interaction with both individuals as well as nations, this psalm appears to me to prefigure the ascendancy of God the Son over all the nations at the end of this age. "God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets. Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise." Psalm 47:5-7.
The picture of the ascendancy of the Lord over the nations brings to mind a couple of passages for me. "With justice he [Jesus Christ] judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. 'He will rule them with an iron scepter.'"

The end of that passage is a quote from Psalm 2:7-9 where we read the Father's statement to the Son, Jesus Christ, "You are My Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel." NKJV.

In Psalm 2 we see the nations in rebellion against God. However, the culmination of the ages sees Jesus Christ's defeat of sinful mankind and his enthronement with the "ends of the earth" his possession as spoken of in Revelation 19. So it is today as in Psalm 2, with Team Cain, lost in its rebellion against God and his Son, the heir of all the nations of the earth. We are told in Psalm 2:4 that God laughs at mankind's rebellion against him as he lets them know, "I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain." Psalm 2:6.

As we may feel distressed over the sinfulness of all the nations, be reminded that God in heaven laughs, because he knows what he has in store for them. One day, following God's judgment of sinful mankind, all the nations will gather as "the people of the God of Abraham", exalting him with cries of joy, just as is pictured here in Psalm 47!

A blog with my ruminations over the years can be found here: http://worshipfortoday.blogspot.com/

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know..