Though a host encamp against me,
My heart will not fear;
Though war arise against me,
In spite of this I shall be confident.
because
(Psalm 34:7)
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.
(Psalm 27:3) Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident. because (Psalm 34:7) The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them.
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For Christmas a dear friend gave me a copy of Morning and Evening, the classic Charles Spurgeon devotional. Yesterday, in passing, I found a beautiful reflection about the Lord Jesus, which I would like to share with you. Normally I would post this in the "Passages" section, but what better way to close out the year and begin a new one than with a tribute like this? I pray for myself, and for you, that we will keep the "intrinsic excellence" of the person of the Lord Jesus foremost in our perspective; that we will spend time letting Him reveal the wealth of His character and the healing power of His love for us. I have too often loved Him blunderingly, thinking I had to somehow convince Him to care more, since I did not fully believe His declarations of love for me. I have decided instead to proclaim His love for me, His goodness towards me, His perfect design for every thread of my life, even when the opposite appears to be unfolding in front of me. To trust His great heart, in other words. Happy New Year to you all. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Originally posted September 2, 2014: _______________________________________________________ For the land, into which you are entering to possess it, is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden. But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year. Deuteronomy 11:10-11 I will leave this almost without comment. It's a picture -- Cease striving and know that He is God.
He is the land; He is also the rain that waters the land. I think the idea is to plunge in and drink, even when there appears to be no rain in sight.
I will leave this almost without comment. It's a picture -- Cease striving and know that He is God.
He is the land; He is also the rain that waters the land. I think the idea is to plunge in and drink, even when there appears to be no rain in sight.
One night not long ago I decided to take the counter-intuitive approach to some mounting frustration. I sat down with my Bible study notebook and waited for the Lord's direction. One passage He led me to was Psalm 85:
I will hear what God the Lord will say; For He will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones; But let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land. ... Indeed, the Lord will give what is good, And our land will yield its produce. Righteousness will go before Him And will make His footsteps into a way. Psalm 85:8-9, 12-13 The image in verse 13 strikes me deeply: Righteousness will go before Him and will make His footsteps into a way. His own footsteps become our way -- not the process of following in them, but His own footsteps, because He is the way. But what on earth does this mean in practical terms? I for one don't need a Christianity that only deals in abstractions; apparently neither does God. The other day God added another dimension to the image. Taking Louie Giglio up on his advice at the end of "Fear Must Fall," I began soaking in Psalm 23. It's so familiar, most of us could recite it in our sleep, but I had never noticed that in verse 3b... He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. ...the word "paths" literally means "tracks." This made me think of a reflection I posted here on "tracks" a couple of years ago, concerning Psalm 65. The metaphor is cool enough to bear repeating, so I hope you don't mind if I link to that post ("Wagon tracks," August 2012). In Psalm 23, the image is even more intimate, because the tracks are made by the feet of our Shepherd. How is this practical? It's practical because the Christian life is a process of learning to let Him walk in our feet. And wherever His feet make genuine contact, deep healing begins. In a world where the level of anxiety seems to intensify by the day, what could be more practical? Though the fig tree should not blossom
And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, And makes me walk on my high places. Habakkuk 3:17-19 Really, really needing to direct my focus back to my One and Only after a very strange and emotional week, I went looking tonight for a video of "There's Power in the Blood."
I found three: The first is pure country, sung by Alan Jackson. The second one is in Spanish, sung by someone I sure do like but whose name I don't know. Version three is just for fun. The "eight feet tall" comment at the end seems to fit right in with a celebration of the mighty Lamb of God. I hope you enjoy these. All praise to Jesus! (Please excuse any ads that may pop up before the videos.) "There's Power in the Blood" words and music by Lewis E. Jones, 1899 YouTube videos: Version 1, sung by Alan Jackson Version 2, in Spanish Version 3, by someone named Joshua Yasaswi (whose family sure takes a LOT of videos!) _____________________________________________________ Lyrics* Would you be free from the burden of sin? There’s power in the blood, power in the blood; Would you o’er evil a victory win? There’s wonderful power in the blood. Refrain: There is power, power, wonder-working power In the blood of the Lamb; There is power, power, wonder-working power In the precious blood of the Lamb. Would you be free from your passion and pride? There’s power in the blood, power in the blood; Come for a cleansing to Calvary’s tide; There’s wonderful power in the blood. (Refrain) Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow? There’s power in the blood, power in the blood; Sin stains are lost in its life-giving flow. There’s wonderful power in the blood. (Refrain) Would you do service for Jesus your King? There’s power in the blood, power in the blood; Would you live daily His praises to sing? There’s wonderful power in the blood. (Refrain) Spanish lyrics/letras en español: ¿Quieres ser salvo de toda maldad? Tan solo hay poder en mi Jesús; ¿Quieres vivir y gozar santidad? Tan solo hay poder en Jesús. (Do you want to be safe from all evil? There is power in my Jesus alone; Do you want to live and enjoy holiness? There is power in Jesus alone.) Coro (chorus): Hay poder, poder, sin igual poder, En Jesús, quien murió; Hay poder, poder, sin igual poder, En la sangre que él vertió. (There is power, power, unequalled power In Jesus, who died; There is power, power, unequalled power In the blood that He shed.) ¿Quieres ser libre de orgullo y pasión? Tan solo hay poder en mi Jesús; ¿Quieres vencer toda cruel tentación? Tan solo hay poder en Jesús. (Do you want to be free from pride and passion? There is power in my Jesus alone; Do you want to overcome all cruel temptation? There is power in Jesus alone.) (Coro) ¿Quieres servir a tu Rey y Señor? Tan solo hay poder en mi Jesús; Ven, y ser salvo podrás en su amor, Tan sólo hay poder en Jesús. (Do you want to serve your King and Lord? There is power in my Jesus alone. Come, and you can be saved in His love. There is power in Jesus alone.) (Coro) ______________ *(source) This message couldn't be more pertinent to me today.
"Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way. Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious, because He was not out to realise His own ideas; He was out to realise God’s ideas." Oswald Chambers, "One of God's Great Don'ts," My Utmost for His Highest (classic), July 4 "Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical, never suspicious, because He trusted absolutely in what He could do for human nature."
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (classic), June 24 I don't normally think of the apostle Paul as someone who fought with depression to the point of despairing of life, so I find the following passage unusually uplifting and hopeful. May it find whoever most needs to hear it today, to bring encouragement from the Lord. Keeping in mind that whatever we go through, He wants to use it to build into us the grace to become His instruments of hope and comfort in a hurting world.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ...For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us[.] 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, 8-10 Sometimes when I'm passionate about something, I can come on a bit strong, especially when I see something spiritually dysfunctional.
It's a bit like Isaiah in the last half of chapter 5. What he says there is no less true than what he says in chapter 6, but by chapter 6 the lesson has come home to him. What made the difference? In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:1-6 There's a wonderful saying that's become popular in recent years: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." It's attributed to Gandhi (it's not actually what he said, but whatever). Although the world doesn't tend to see God as part of this "be the change" process, there is spiritual truth here. Any change that needs to take place in the heart of the church needs to take place in my heart first. A humbled, compassionate church begins with a humbled, compassionate me. With that in mind, here's a version 2 of the conclusion of my previous post: I'm reminded of Isaiah 58, one of the most powerful and hopeful injunctions in scripture (Isaiah 58:6-12). This is God's heart. Is this what the world sees about God when they look at me? My "woe is me" when I answer that question isn't hopeless, just as Isaiah's wasn't. Because here's verse 6-7: Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.” "Be the change you wish to see in the world," the spiritual version -- the deep and permanent version -- begins and ends with Jesus. Last night I happened to scroll down this page and noticed a post from last December called "For this very purpose." Romans 9:16-17 speaks to me more deeply now, in fact, than it did when I wrote that post. I needed to think about this again.
In case this is a message God wants someone else out there to re-hear, here's a repeat of that post: ________________________________________________________ "...So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." Romans 9:16-17 A central point Paul makes in this chapter of Romans is that God's purposes are sovereign. The example of Pharaoh stands in contrast to the example used several verses later: God hardened Pharaoh's heart to accomplish His purposes, yet the hearts of God's own people are likened to potter's clay, to be molded as He sees fit. The verses I've cited above struck me recently, not as they relate to Pharaoh, but as they relate to those of us who are surrendered to the Lord Jesus. Let this thought sink in, and let it become personal: For this very purpose God raised you up, to demonstrate His power in you, and that His name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. It's not about us, it's about God. He didn't raise us up to make a flashy statement. He doesn't demonstrate His power in us so that we will have remarkable or even necessarily happy lives. He raised us up to glorify and proclaim His own name. He does this by demonstrating His power in us, as we surrender to Christ's lordship. What does this mean to us in our daily walk? It means everything. It means that our prayers are not about us, they are about God's glory. It means that we can rest in Him, not focused on whether things are being restructured in our favor, but focused on giving Him full creative control over everything in our world. As we do this, we release Him to demonstrate His power in us, so that His name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. And as a side benefit, He begins to shape us in a way that will eventually reveal that He has had His way in us. Not that our lives are likely to become free of problems -- on the contrary. But we will bear the marks of His healing grace, evidence that He has been at work deep, deep inside us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The freeing thing is that we cannot produce this fruit, any more than a lump of clay can make itself into a beautiful or useful object. Our weakness before Him becomes the very thing the Lord uses to shape the strength of His own nature into us, serving His purposes and at the same time marking us as His own treasured vessels. |
All thy sins were laid upon Him, Jesus bore them on the tree;
God, who knew them, laid them on Him, and, believing, thou art free. Joseph Denham Smith (c. 1817-1889) Praise reflection archives
May 2020
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...take root downward and bear fruit upward.
2 Kings 19:30 |