Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas from our family to yours! May your holiday be blessed as you celebrate the birth of our Savior!
Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:169-172
Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts
The final stanza in Psalm 119 differs from all those that come before it in the fact that it is a final petition of the writer to God. Take a look at the first half of this passage in Psalm 119:169-172:
The psalmist wraps this passage up with a plea for God’s help in several areas. These are areas that he recognizes clearly that he needs some assistance from God. How does he know this? Because a close look at the Word of God reveals those areas where we fall short, and can only grow with the help of God himself.
The psalmist compares himself to a lost sheep in the final lines of this psalm, bringing to mind the passage written in Psalm 23, of God being our Shepherd. In that passage, the author clams that he lacks nothing, and then describes those areas that God has provided for him.
In this stanza of Psalm 119, by contrast, the writer lists those things he does lack, and seeks God’s help in gaining them. We need God’s help in these areas as well.
Did America Have A Christian Founding? (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books , 2019)
American history is one of my favorite subjects. My top eras are early twentieth century, during the 1930s and 40s, and the old west period from the Civil War to the turn of the century. But I also love the founding era of American history too.
One of the biggest questions posed to students of American history, is whether or not the Founding Fathers were Christians, and if this nation was founded as a Christian nation. The answer to both of those question is unequivocally yes, but that concept is being consistently rewritten by those who reject the idea that America has deep roots in Christianity.
In Did America Have A Christian Founding?, author Mark David Hall takes a look, not at the history books that have been written since America became a nation, but at the documents of the Founding Fathers themselves, and finds solid evidence of their faith in their letters, journals and other writings.
It’s worth taking a look at. If you would like to read Did America Have A Christian Founding?, you can get it on Amazon.
Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:165-168
Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts
Over the last couple of stanzas, the psalmist has revealed some things he knows to be true about God. In this last portion of this stanza, he shares two final thoughts. Take a look at this passage in Psalm 119:165-168:
At this point, the psalmist has revealed three different characteristics of God’s nature that he relies upon, that he has found within the pages of God’s Word. First of all, in verses 153-156, Scripture displays God’s mercy. Next, in verses 157-160, God’s Word is proven to be true. The third thing the psalmist reveals about God’s Word, in verses 160-164, is that God’s Word brings joy.
In these next four verses of Psalm 119, we find two additional characteristics of God that can be seen clearly through his Word.
Obedience To God’s Word Brings Peace
I find this verse to be very intriguing. Peace is one of those qualities that followers of God can find when they obey God’s Law. But the idea of obedience is a tough one, because who can obey the Law fully and completely? No one can. And so the psalmist stresses first that peace come to those who love God’s Law, in verse 165. It’s a couple verses later that he equates this love with obedience, in verse 167.
Living With An Awakened Perspective
How A Kingdom Imagination Looks Beyond
A Kingdom imagination is a necessary ingredient for a fullness of life. I have come to believe that over the past few weeks. And I have been challenged to increase my Kingdom imagination to more and more awareness of what God may be doing around me.
One of the first things I have learned about living with a Kingdom imagination has been to live with expectancy. God is doing a lot of things around me, within me, and through me, and I have been learning to look forward to those things with a sense of urgent expectancy, waiting to see what he’s doing as he reveals it.
As I have been waiting with that sense of expectancy, I have sense my heart being awakened in new and deeper ways.
God has given me gifts and talents and passions. He’s given you the same things, gifts and talents and passions. What I have seen in my life is that I have grown accustomed to the way I have been doing things, and have let my excitement for those things slip a little. Those things that used to excite me and make my pulse race have grown commonplace and mundane.
I didn’t intend for this to happen, but it did anyway. And to be honest, it bothers me. A lot.
Happy Thanksgiving from us to you!
Memorize Scripture: Psalm 119:161-164
Hiding God’s Word In Our Hearts
God brings joy. As the author moves toward the end of this psalm, he leans more and more into the nature of God and his Word. In this passage, he refreshes his own memory about the joy God’s Word brings him. You can see it for yourself in Psalm 119:161-164:
So far, the psalmist has shared that God’s word displays God’s mercy for us to see, and that God’s truth is found to be clear as well. As he meditates on those two characteristics, he seems to almost pause here to share the joy that those qualities of God bring to him.
And yet, at the same time, this is the third characteristic that we can see in this stretch of stanzas as we near the end of this psalm. God is the source of our delight, and that is a constant, whether we face easy times of difficult ones. The psalmist is facing persecution from those who do not love God, from those who hate the truth. But he still finds a reason to rejoice.
God’s Word Brings Joy
These few verses here bring a sense of refreshing to our hearts. The psalmist has covered some weighty and difficult things through the verses of this psalm so far. This brief section reminds us of the joy that God brings to us. And it seems as if he finds a new way to express this joy in every verse of this passage.
In verse 161, he states that his heart trembles at God’s Word. In my own experience, my heart trembles in two different ways: in the face of great fear, and in the face of great anticipation. Either could be the case here, and more likely both. He is standing against unjust persecution, and yet he trembles before God’s Word.