The Lord: Love And Justice - 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 101:1,

"I will sing of your love and justice; to you, Lord, I will sing praise."

In this psalm David says he will worship the Lord and live his life in a way that supports his worship of him. I count 14 ways David says he will back up his worship of the Lord with choices he makes. Can you identify them? Count them, maybe I'm off a bit!

In any event, David points to the two chief qualities the Lord wants us to know of him: his love and his justice. These key attributes of the Lord show up over and over again as the Lord reveals himself to us in the pages of Scripture.

Here is a key passage for me that expresses what the Lord wants us to know of him, "Let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight." Jeremiah 9:24.

Another passage is when Moses asked the Lord to reveal himself to him. The Lord passed in front of Moses and said, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation." Exodus 34:6-7. The Lord's love and justice are on full display in this revelation of himself through Moses to us all.

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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A Compulsion to Worship the Lord! - 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 100:1-5,

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
    Worship the Lord with gladness;
    come before him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
    It is he who made us, and we are his;
    we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
    his faithfulness continues through all generations."

This is Psalm 100 in its entirely - a short 5 verses. It begins with a call to worship the Lord. 

What I love about this psalm is its expression of what the normative emotions, passion, excitement and ardent affections are that should be found in our worship as we focus on the Lord.

Joy expressed in joyful songs, gladness, thanksgiving, an irresistible felt compulsion to praise. 

The psalmist provides the grounds for this passion to praise the Lord as being due to the Lord's own compelling and evocative qualities: the Lord is our Creator God and so we belong to him. He is good, his love endures forever and his faithfulness has no end. Think about those things!

I find this beautiful psalm to be a real jewel in the pages of Scripture!

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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All Are Invited! - 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 100:1-3,

"Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture."

I can't think of a more wonderful invitation that has been extended to all peoples everywhere, to "all the earth"! It is an invitation to worship the God who has made all of us. It brings to mind Peter's words, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9.

All have been invited! All are desired and wanted by God! As Paul has written, "This [prayer] is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people." 1 Timothy 2:3-6a.

Don't fall for the impoverished theology that God only wants a few and that Jesus' payment for sins was only for a few. God's redemption of mankind extends to all! Jesus Christ's death on the cross paid for all the sins of every last person who has ever lived.

All he asks of us is to embrace him in faith! "Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." John 1:12.

What a grand invitation! No matter who you are, what you have done, how successful or not you have been in life, the Lord wants you! He wants us all!

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.  

How Many Nations Belong To The Lord? - 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 99:1-2,

"The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake. Great is the Lord in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations."

A nation exists as a group of people that inhabit a certain geography within a distinct timeframe. We learn from the apostle Paul that God is the creator of all nations, "From one man he [God] made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us." Acts 17:26. From this passage we see that God's purpose in creating all the various nations is to draw all people to himself, "so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him."

God uses the interactions of nations to create an environment that prompts people to seek him. I often correlate this passage with another from Paul, "For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Romans 8:20-22. Here we see that the difficulties found within the coexistence of the differing nations is a tool the Lord uses to draw mankind to him - a coexistence of frustration, and at times desperation. 

That message seen on those "Coexist" bumper stickers we have all seen will never come to fruition. That, and John Lennon's song "Imagine" are antithetical to the purposes and workings of God - never going to happen.

As we learn about God's purposes for all the nations, we see that God has created all the nations for those purposes.

In the end, we also see from Psalm 99 that all nations will exalt him in recognition of who he is and what he has done.

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 Lord is Holy! - 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 99:1-3,

"The Lord reigns,
    let the nations tremble;
he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
    let the earth shake.
Great is the Lord in Zion;
    he is exalted over all the nations.
Let them praise your great and awesome name—
    he is holy."

Merriam-Webster defines "holy" as, "... exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness".

That definition is clearly Illustrated in this psalm. The NIV breaks down this psalm into four stanzas, three of which end in the refrain, "he is holy."

The psalmist declares the Lord is exalted over all the nations in verse 2. In verse 4 he tells us the Lord (the King) is mighty, that he loves justice and has established equity, that he has done what is right and just in Jacob. We also learn that the Lord was forgiving toward Israel, verse 8, and yet he punished them for their sins.

The Lord is the same today as he has ever been. Worthy of our worship, he remains mighty, just, forgiving and yet a God of judgment. He forgives the sins of those who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith, while having his Son die on that cross to take the vicarious punishment for those sins.

Truly, the Lord is holy!

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 Righteousness and Justice - 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 97:1-2,

"The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne."

The Lord clearly wants us to know that he is both righteous and just. Listen to what the Lord said in Jeremiah 9:24, "let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight."

Merriam-Webster defines righteousness as "acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin." Whatever is consistent with God's character and nature is righteous. When I say God is righteous, what I am saying is that he is simply consistent with himself, in every case at any time.

Real justice is something we all have an innate understanding of. The same dictionary defines justice as "the quality of being just, impartial, or fair". These days the term has been hijacked by those with political axes to grind. God's justice and our own innate understanding of true justice and fairness have nothing to do with the meaninglessness, unfounded nature of, and baselessness of this perverse use of the term (usually coupled with another term such as "social" or "economic" or whatever fancies the demagogue employing it.)

1 John 4:16 tells us that God is love. But, as we see in the Jeremiah passage, there is more to know of God than only his love. As the psalmist points out in Psalm 97 and as we read in Jeremiah, the foundation of God's throne and what he delights in is justice and righteousness.

It was God's very sense of justice that placed Jesus Christ on the cross. In his desire to make a people for himself to spend eternity with he determined to satisfy his own strong sense of justice by having our sins paid for by Jesus Christ to provide us a righteous standing with him.

That payment for our sins gets credited to our account with God only by embracing him if faith in this life. How thankful I am that God loved us so much and wants us for himself so much that he gave his one and only Son to pay the penalty for our sins. providing for himself satisfaction of his sense of justice and providing for us a righteous standing with him!

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.

Seeing the Lord's Glory - 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 97:2-6,

"Clouds and thick darkness surround him [the Lord]; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory."

Here is a description of the Lord, rich in beauty and splendor with reference to his creation. As we view his creation, we gain a reflection of what he is like. Like all creators, a creation says something or points to something or reflects something of its creator.

In this psalm, the psalmist makes these observations relative to his creation:

Clouds and thick darkness surround the Lord, verse 2.
Fire goes before him (consuming his foes), verse 3.
The Lord's lightning lights up the world (the earth sees at trembles at it), verse 4.
Mountains melt like wax before the Lord, verse 5.

Also observed by the psalmist:

The Lord reigns, verse 1.
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne, verse 2.
The heavens proclaim the Lord's righteousness, veres 6.
All peoples see his glory, verse 6.
The Lord's judgments brings rejoicing and gladness, verse 8.
The Lord is the "Most High over all the earth", verse 9.
The Lord guards and delivers his faithful ones, verse 10.
The Lord's name is holy, verse 12.

These truly are wonderful observations about the Lord. A comment the psalmist makes has me wondering though, "all peoples see his glory." I am quite certain every last individual who has ever lived will see the Lord's glory at some point. Some, who refuse to recognize the Lord's glory in this life will do so in the next. "'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.'" Romans 14:11.

However, there are many of us who chose to see the Lord's glory in this life. How blessed we are!

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.