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Tuesday 31 March 2020

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [14] I Shall Not Want




 Notes from China

A school teacher in China, 7 weeks into their lockdown routine passed on 7 hints on how to cope with Coronavirus. The first was "accept that you have no control over the situation. Let go of any thoughts of trying to plan too much for the next month or two."

But this is the one that most caught my attention, "Try not to listen / read / watch too much media. It will drive you crazy."

That tip is one reason these Devotionals aren't all about Coronavirus.

Our text today, as we amble through Psalm 23 is simple:

 "The Lord is my Shepherd
I shall not be in want"

What a world of faith and wisdom in our one line: "I shall not be in want."

The Meaning

The word "want" means exactly what it says on the tin, I shall not be in need of, I shall not lack. But lack what? Our minds naturally turn to both our material and spiritual needs.

The Lord promises to his industrious and trusting people all they need in terms of physical needs. Regarding our physical needs the Saviour said, "Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." (Matthew 6:33) The ageing psalmist says he's seen God keep this promise over his life time, "I have been young, now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread." (Psalm 37:25)

The Good Shepherd does not promise to provide all our wants, we note in passing, he promises to provide all our needs; there is a difference. In our sinful greed we may want more than we actually need. "My God will provide all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." 

This is not to say that God is stingy, not at all, he is unbelievably generous. We have, for example, many more material possessions than we actually need, do we not? We could, any one of us, theroretically, live in a one-room tent, with one set of clothes, and enough food and water for just one today. 

But is it not true that the Lord has given us, so often, much more than this? 

We have perhaps a television - that is a luxury (we don't actually need one). Perhaps we have a computer - that too is a luxury. A mobile phone? Luxury. He has given us more than one set of clothes, and so on. You get the point: the generosity of the Shepherd. When we pray "Give us this day our daily bread" we are both asking God for our material needs and remembering with thanksgiving that every good and perfect gift comes from above (James 1:17).

And then, following suit, the Lord has "blessed us in the spiritual realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 1:3) Here is a fact we little dwell upon: the moment someone becomes a believer, at that moment they receive all the spiritual blessings that a 100 year old saint possesses! (If there are people 112 years old, there could well be believers with a 100 years of faith behind them.) 

We all have the forgiveness of sins, we all possess the spirit of adoption, we have all been chosen before the creation of the world, and so on. God has blessed us all with "every" spiritual blessing.

What we do grow in, over the years, is an understanding and enjoyment of these bountiful spiritual gifts. Just as a child with five birthday presents received on the same day, takes time to enjoy them one by one, so we too received all of God's spiritual blessings on the day we believed, but it will take a lifetime - and indeed an eternity - to appreciate them all. 


The Great Confidence

David could have said "The Lord is my shepherd, but I may lack something, I hope not, but who knows, perhaps I may." But he does not. Instead he says "I shall not be in want." He is 100% sure that every thing he needs will be supplied, bar nothing!

Another word for confidence is faith. Now faith grows with the years. Over the decades David has walked with God, he has proven God's faithfulness in day to day life, and so David's faith has grown with every passing year. 

On the one hand faith is a gift from God. But on the other hand, the seed of faith grows with the years, as we experience the goodness and sheer faithfulness of God. This happens in any living relationship: as the other one keeps their promises, trust grows. It's no different with the Lord.

The Reasons for Great Confidence

Why is David so confident? We've alluded to one reason - years of experience with the Shepherd has built faith in this sheep.

A futher reason is the wealth of the One he trusts. If you were a pauper and a man with savings of a £100 promised you £50, but another man with savings of a £100 million promised you £50, you might be inclined to trust the richer man more than the poor man, for it is easier for the richer man to fulfill his promise than the poorer man. 

Our God "owns the cattle on a thousand hills," he owns "all the silver in all the mines" (Psalm 50:12)  and the treasure of all the nations, saying about "their" treasure - "the silver is mine and the gold is mine" (Haggai 2:8). 

Sheep can trust their wealthy Shepherd. 

But a third reason David is so confident that he will lack nothing lies in the character of the Shepherd he trusts. Not only is He rich in  treaure, the Shepherd is loving in character. A father's liberality to his children is a pale shadow of God's super-abundant generosity to us. 

God is love. His heart is filled with love for his children (though the Devil lies to us otherwise). And the greatest demonstration of our Shepherd's love took place 2000 years ago, when he laid down his very life for his sheep in order to meet their greatest want or lack, which is alienation from God. To bring us back to God, the Good Shepherd bore away our sins in his body on the cross.

And once he had set the giving-bar that high, no subsequent giving is too great for him. I often return to this outstanding description of God's abundant giving:

"He who did not spare his Son, but gave him up for us all - how will be not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

Do we get that?

If God has given us his Greatest Gift, he will - of course! - give us the tiny little things (tiny to God) we ask him for!

You and I fret and worry so much. About all sorts of things, about today and tomorrow. We need to hear the Good Shepherd's own voice - again and again and again - "Do not worry!"

It's a command: Do not worry!

A SONG FOR THE DAY 
I have chosen a song which reminds us that the Good Shepherd will supply us with all the grace we need so that we will not lack, whatever the burden we are carrying.

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, 
He sendeth more strength when the labours increase; 
To added affliction He addeth His mercy,
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, 
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done;
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father's full giving is only begun.

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His pow'r has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again. 

Annie Johnson Flint

Beautifully sung HERE


A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Father in Heaven,

We thank you for this new day.

We thank you for every good and perfect material gift - we have so many of them - from your bountiful hand. You give us much more than we need, for you are generous and kind.


We thank you most of all that we are spiritually rich beyond knowing. We thank you for chosing us, we thank you for adopting us into your family and we thank you for redemption through the blood of Jesus.


Forgive our fretful and forgetful worrying and teach us to obey our Shepherd's command today and help us not to worry about a thing.

We pray these things in the Name of the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

Amen

Monday 30 March 2020

Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [13] The Lord is My Shepherd

These Strange old Days!

On Saturday I did our weekly supermarket shop. Sanity was somewhat restored, since there was pasta, eggs and even you-know-what on the shelves. On the way in we had to wait in a queue a few metres apart from everyone else  and only when one soul had left the shop, was another allowed in.

Driving home I approached the first traffic light - on red. And guess what? I stopped the car ten metres behind the car in front of me! (Then sheepishly crept forward.)

There are few certainties in a world like this, but that was true of our world before Coronavirus - it's just that we are presently more aware of the profound frailties and deep uncertainties of this passing life.

And we should pause to remember, in these days, that there are many folk around the world who live in far greater uncertainties than we presently do - every single day of their wretched lives. We're catching just a small glimpse of their every-day worlds. I can remember talking to one believer in an African country. His mother had cancer and without any sort of NHS, her treatment was bankrupting the whole of his family and he did not know how the future would pan out. What would you and I do? We'd also go without A, B all the way to  Z, to pay for chemotherapy for a loved one.


A new look at an old Psalm
Over the next few days, we're going to take a look at Psalm 23, where we meet Someone who never changes and a Love that never ceases.

Let's go through this Psalm line by line. Here's our text for today:

              "The LORD is my shepherd"

Three simple questions.

Why the Shepherd-sheep analogy?

Some forty years ago at a Christian conference in Wales a preacher gave a series of talks about Psalm 23. Nothing strange you may say. No. But in this case the preacher had been a shepherd for 12 years, so he was able to draw on his considerable experience in leading sheep as he preached.

Not surprisingly the conference was spellbound and the talks became a book, which you can still buy: it's worth its weight in gold, and I shall lean on it in these blogs.

There are many good reasons why David, a shepherd himself for many years, took up the Shepherd-sheep analogy to describe the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people, the church, you and I.

For one, we so easily go astray! "All we like sheep have gone astray..." (Isaiah 53:6). We need a shepherd to gently draw us back to the path.

For another, sheep, at least of the domesticated variety, depend wholly on the shepherd for life. Utterly vunerable on their own, they need a shepherd to feed them, lead them, protect them and keep them healthy. We are the same. Spiritually, we need feeding, leading and healing.

So we, the sheep, and the Lord Jesus, the all-wise Shepherd who loves and leads us, is a most apt analogy for the Christian life.

Who is the Shepherd?

We pass, without comment, the word "LORD" in capitals, because we have considered the meaning of this personal title in Devotion [6]. LORD, remember, translates the Hebrew word Yahweh or Jehovah, a name only God's people could use when they spoke to God.

How do we know that the Shepherd of Psalm 23 is Jesus? Well, Jesus himself says "I am the Good Shepherd" (John 10), the book of Hebrews calls Jesus "the Great Shepherd of the sheep" (13:20) and Peter refers to Jesus as the "Chief Shepherd" of the sheep (1 Peter 5:4).

Jesus is the Good, the Great and the Chief Shepherd of the sheep.

So when we hear David speaking about his Shepherd, we may translate to this, "The Lord Jesus is my Shepherd."

I am glad Jesus is the Shepherd, aren't you?

Why? Because he has lived in this world, and knows from the inside the joys as well as the sorrows of an ordinary earthly life. I would be fearful of a pampered king leading me! Someone who never had an hour of need, was privileged with the finest medical care, food, and so on. How could such a one have a clue about my ordinary life, and your ordinary life?

The wonderful thing about Jesus is that he was a poor man and an ordinary man and so there is no person in this whole wide world who can say "Jesus does not understand me."

Jesus, the Good Shepherd understands his sheep. 

Who are the sheep?

Sad to say, there are many people in England, at least, who assume too quickly that they are God's sheep. They think that because they have gone to church, or been confirmed or christened, that they are, ipso facto Christians.

But we do not become a sheep of the Shepherd by being born in England. What does the Good Shepherd himself say in John 10?

"I know my sheep and my sheep know me" and later he says that his sheep "Listen to my voice", and "Follow me." A true sheep is tuned in to the voice of his shepherd and follows that shepherd, obeys that shepherd.

So, a true sheep is someone who both knows the Shepherd and who listens to his voice.

To know Jesus is to have come into a relationship with him by faith. Through faith we trust him as our Saviour and Lord, by faith we love him and by faith we have his life-giving Spirit living within us.

To listen to his voice is to be daily attentive, through his Word, the Scriptures, to his leading. Shepherd, how do you want me to live as a husband, wife, son, daughter? Shepherd, how do you want me to use my time? How my money? How my gifts? What do you want me to do with my life? And so on and so forth.

Sheep are tuned into the voice of the Shepherd.

So I close with a question and a comfort:

Do you know the Good Shepherd? Are you a true sheep? We become followers of Jesus when we hear his call, believe in his name and receive him as our Saviour, Master and Lord.

A comfort: if we are a true sheep, wherever we are in the world, whoever we are, known or unknown, great or small, the Good Shepherd cares for us. In these days of isolation, even if we are completely on our own, the Good Shepherd is with us, cares for us and loves us.

One day Douglas MacMillan was taking a train journey through the countryside. All of a sudden he passed a field of sheep. To you and I one sheep looks pretty much like the next. But not to a shepherd! Shepherds recognise their sheep, one by one. MacMillan recognised many of the sheep in that field, once his own but now sold on.

Our Good Shepherd will never sell us on, for he knows each one by name, gives them eternal life and promises that no-one can snatch them out of his hand.

Being in the flock of the Son of God is the safest place we can be. 

A SONG FOR THE DAY
I believe the church should sing songs old and new. We should avoid monochrome worship at either end of the spectrum: worship that ignores the great words being written today, and worship that ignores the best songs of the past.

Today's song is an old one, but full of great words. (It's one of those songs the author can't take much credit for, because it's pretty much Psalm 23, through and through.)

It's sung by a congregation HERE
(If you sing along it will do you good!)

The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.


Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth;
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.


Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.


In death's dark vale I fear no ill,
with thee, dear Lord, beside me;
thy rod and staff my comfort still,
thy cross before to guide me.


Thou spreadst a table in my sight;
thy unction grace bestoweth;
and oh, what transport of delight
from thy pure chalice floweth!


And so through all the length of days,
thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise
within thy house forever.


H.W.Baker, 1868

A PRAYER FOR TODAY

Our Father in heaven,

We thank you that by faith we have become sheep of the Great Shepherd. 

I thank you that I can say with certainty that he is "my" shepherd. 

We thank you that our Good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep, and through his death he bought us with his own blood. 

Help us to listen to his voice today, and not only to hear his voice but to follow it, in the strength and mighty power that he supplies.

We ask this for your glory and for our good.


Amen

Saturday 28 March 2020

Meditations for Difficult Days [12] Transforming Sorrows into Hopes (part b)



Mindfulness vs Meditation

You may be aware that a new practice has taken off in western culture in recent years, the practice of Mindfulness. According to Wikipedia, "Mindfulness is the psychological  process of purposely bringing one's attention to experiences occurring in the present moment without judgement."

Mindfulness has eastern religious roots, and as I understand it, is really a westernised version of eastern meditation. I notice how eager Wikepedia are to put the authenticating word "psychological" into the definition. What they mean is "Don't worry, westerners, Mindfulness isn't eastern hokey-pokey, it's scientific."

In the hurly-burly of western life, a dose of stillness is no bad thing. And paying more detailed attention to life is surely a good thing (provided it does not become a narcistic self-centred practice). Some folks paddle in the shallows of life and never, or at least rarely, venture beyond the shore.

Husbands - if I may add a word of exhortation - husbands in particular, need to learn the art of tuning in to the present needs of their wives and families. It's one reason much more space is allocated to Christian husbands in Ephesians chapter 5 than to Christian wives. "Blokes pay attention!" Paul is saying. But perhaps, to prove my point, fewer husbands than wives read blogs!? (Or perhaps I'm being too hard on we men!)

That last sentence of Wikipedia's description "without judgement" is what distinguishes Mindfulness from Meditation. To merely listen to life without comment will not get us far. It may be a start. It may be that we need to listen more first of all, but we cannot stop at listening. Because all we will hear are the noises of a fallen world. Is that really all we want to listen to? The rumblings of the curse? Echoes of the fall?

No, we must go on to make mindful judgement, assesment, reflection and analysis.

And today I want to suggest how we assess the sorrows of this life and turn them into joful hopes.

Take them one by one

We sing the song "count your blessings, name them one by one" to encouarage thankfulness. Now, I suggest, we count our sorrows one by one, and then imagine the exact counterpart of that sorrow in the world to come.

Here's our text:



"God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
(Revelation 21:4-5)

King Jesus, seated on his throne says to John, "I am making everything new." The old order, the curse, the fall, has been done away with and everything in that new paradise will be different from what it was down there.

Of course there is continuity as well as discontinuity, let's not get carried away. Jesus, for example,  was still recognisable after his resurrection. And remember, he ate with his disciples too?

But today we focus on discontinuity and difference.

Take each sorrow and imagine the exact counterpart to it: that will give us a bright idea of heaven and transform each  sorrow into a hope.


Did someone let you down - big time? So that now you find it hard to trust to people? In heaven, no one will  let you down and every relationship will be filled with eternal and  childlike trust.

Did someone hurt you - real bad? In heaven no one will harm you.


Did someone deceive you? Only truth-tellers in heaven.

Getting the jist?

Did a loved one die and leave you before their time? All relationships in heaven are forever.

A good and joyful gift you wished and prayed for, but was never given? Eternal pleasures at God's right hand (Psalm 16:11)

A thorn in your flesh - some ongoing painful, never-ending, allowed-there-by-God ailment or frustration? Without a sinful nature there will be no need for thorns.

Some sin you committed which permanently scarred your life or changed the landscape of your family? In heaven only righteouseness dwells, no sins will mar that holy place.

You have rarely felt a closeness to God that some of your Christian friends seem to have. Well, they could be exagerating, of course, but even so, in heaven God will actually dwell with us, like in the Garden of Eden but better: we will live and commune with God incarnate.

Some weakness of body or mind that does not go away? In heaven you'll have a new body and since God will wipe away every tear, your mind will be perfectly sound and sane.

Summing it all up

We have a choice. Stew in old sorrows, or take each one - and this will take time and meditation - and contemplate its  counterpart
in the world to come.

Strange isn't it? How we can gain a fuller glimpse of the world to come through the sorrows of this one! By contrast and comparison.

In this way we can, with God's help, turn sorrows into hopes.
 

A SONG FOR THE DAY
Based on Psalm 130, we end with a Gospel song which reminds us to wait for the Lord. Perhaps even to wait until heaven.

Out of the depths I cry to You
In darkest places I will call
Incline Your ear to me anew
And hear my cry for mercy, Lord

Were You to count my sinful ways
How could I come before Your throne
 Yet full forgiveness meets my gaze
I stand redeemed by grace alone

I will wait for You
I will wait for You
In Your word, I will rely
I will wait for You
Surely wait for You
Till my soul is satisfied

So put your hope in God alone
Take courage in His power to save
Completely and forever won
By Christ emerging from the grave

I will wait for You
I will wait for You
In Your word, I will rely
I will wait for You
Surely wait for You
Till my soul is satisfied

Now He has come to make a way
And God Himself has paid the price
That all who trust in Him today
Find healing in His sacrifice
That all who trust in Him today
Find healing in His sacrifice

I will wait for You
I will wait for You
Through the storm and through the night
I will wait for You
Surely wait for You
For Your love is my delight

I will wait for You
I will wait for You
In Your word, I will rely
I will wait for You
Surely wait for You
Till my soul is satisfied  

Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.

You can hear it sung movingly by Shane and Shane,  HERE.
 

A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Dear Father in heaven,

We thank you every day for your many blessings upon us. All of them come by your grace to people who don't deserve them, but that is your way, your path of unending grace.

We thank you especially for this Lord's Day, when we can worship in spirit if not in person with our brothers and sisters.

Teach us to use the sorrows of this present world to inform us and inspire us to yearn for the world to come.

And remind us that heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace because Jesus is there, the one who gave himself to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

We ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ

 
Amen

Meditations for Difficult Days [11] Transforming Sorrows into Hopes (part a)




 TRANSFORMING SORROWS INTO HOPES (part a)

"Put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?"
Psalm 56:8 

From time to time, to help us unwind, my wife and I are watching a light-hearted "whodunnit" series on BBC iPlayer called Death in Paradise. 

In the last episode we watched, the murderer, in his forties, killed a man who had bullied him way way way back at school. Decades had not erased either the memory or the hatred.

I know the story is made up, but just how do you cope with past sorrows in this "valley of tears"? 

The Path of Bitterness

One way of dealing with disappointments, regrets and failures, is to stir them up in our hearts, bring them often to mind and nurse them day by day.

This is the surest road to a heart of barren bitterness. Hell is hell partly because it's filled with an eternity of remembered regrets, remorseful musings and "if onlys."

The fictional chappy of Death in Paradise did not let the past go, but watered the memory of that childhood bully and let it bloom into the hatred which became father to the asasination.

I say "did not let the past go", but I should have said, "could not let the past go." Because no human effort, no human counselling or psychobabble can wipe the memory or cleanse the soul of bitter experiences.

But God can.

Another Path

Better ways of dealing with past sorrows are laid out for God's people in the Scriptures. Today we consider one, and tomorrow, God-willing, we'll consider another.

Take our wise little text above, written by the ever-joyful, ever-sorrowing David, who asks God to put his tears in a bottle. The next line fills out the meaning, as the next line often does in Hebrew poetry - "Are they not written in your book?"

"Lord bottle my tears" = "Lord remember them in your book."

At first sight this is an odd request! Why should David want God to bottle his sorrows and remember them in his Big Book? It sounds like David wants to hold on to them: should he not let them go?

Two keys unlock David's meaning.

"Lord, carry my burdens for me"

The first key is to notice in whose bottle David puts his tears. David does not say "I put tears into my bottle", no, he's asking God to put his tears into God's bottle.

David knows that his own bottle is small, it would soon be filled and he would find himself drowning in the flood. So he asks God to put his tears in God's own Big Big Bottle.

Surely, this is David's poetic way of saying what Peter will later say "cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you?" (1 Peter 5:17)

Get them off your chest, give your tears to God, let God carry your sorrows.

David knows that Almighty Omnipotent God can handle the tears of the whole world in his great big bottle - and though filled with compassion for each tear, yet not be overwhelmed.

But there's a second key to David's meaning. What is God's book?

A Coming Day

In Revelation 20:12, books are opened on the day of Judgement.  Books are records of every event and deed both good and ill.

On the day of Judgement all wrongs will be put right, crooked ways straightened and dark things made plain.

So David is reminding himself that his sorrow has been recorded in God's book, ready to be put straight on that great and awesome day.

Mingled with all our sorrows, you see, is some wrong, some injustice.

For example:

How come my loved one died and their loved one lived?

Why did I get cancer but not he?

How come she found love in marriage, but not I?

Why did providence smile on her, but not on me?

Why did I get these parents rather than those parents?

How come I was bullied and not the other unusual kid in my school class?

Remembering that his tears have been recorded in God's book is another way of David saying, "I know that on the day of Judgement God will take those sorrows and put them right."

This is one of the greatest comforts of a Christian as we walk through an unjust world: one day God will sort out all the injustices of this world, including those that made us weep.

So we do not need to wear ourselves out with a thousand tortured whys, trying to fathom everything out, but leave our sorrows to God's infinitely wise future appraisals and judgements.

This putting our sorrows on the shelf for Judgement day, really does free us up from the past, it frees us from trying to unravel the balls of messed up wool.

Summing it all up

My choice of song today was written by Steve Curtis Chapman. It was written around 1990 - around 20 years before this happened to his precious little Maria. 

Are you ready? (Are you sure?)

"On May 21, 2008, 5-year-old Maria Sue Chapman was accidentally hit by Chapman's son, Will Franklin, after she ran into the path of his SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle, equivalent to our 4x4s) in their driveway. Maria later died at a Nashville hospital."

How do we deal with calamities like that? Words like "blame" and "if only"  so easily come to mind.

This is what you do: put your tears in God's great big bottle and let him carry your burdens. Then you remember that everything that happened on that May day is written in God's book. And he will sort it all out on the last day.

Maria's dad, Steve, told a TV station that "faith was keeping his family going."

A faith that is still alive a decade after the accident, and a faith that some 20 years earlier was already writing the awesome words you will hear sung below. 

I put the time scales in here because nothing prepares us for the sorrows of tomorrow better than growing faith today.

A SONG FOR THE DAY

If I could only fly, I'd go up and look down from the sky
So I could see the bigger picture
And Lord if I could sit with you at your feet
   for an hour or two
I'm sure I'd ask too many questions
   'cause there's so much going on down here
That I must confess I just don't understand,
  I don't understand

And I have prayed, that at your feet
  my whole life has been laid
So I won't worry I won't be afraid
Cause My soul is resting on your higher ways

So let the road ahead become unclear
For I am yours so what have I to fear
If my soul is resting on your higher ways

Your higher ways teach me to trust you
Your higher ways are not like mine
Your higher ways are the ways of a father
   hiding his children in his love

So let it rain and if my eyes grow dim with tears of pain
This hope I have will not be washed away
Because this soul of mine is resting on your higher ways

Your higher ways teach me to trust you
Your higher ways are not like mine
Your higher ways are the ways of a father
   hiding his children in his love

Someday I will fly and maybe then you will take me aside
    and show me the bigger picture
But until I'm with you I'll be here with a heart that is true
  and a soul that's resting on your higher ways

Your higher ways
Resting on your higher ways

Steve Curtis Chapman

You can hear it here


A PRAYER FOR THE DAY

Dear Father in heaven,

Thank you for this day, and all the many blessings that crown our lives, even in the midst of Coronavirus.

We pray for the world, and especially your people in these strange days of uncertain foreboding.

Help us to put all our tears in your bottle and help us to remember that when Jesus Christ returns he will put all wrongs right.

Help us not try to fathom out our sorrows, but leave them to the Last Day, when God-man King Jesus will judge the world in perfect equity.

We look forward to his glorious return!

And ask these things in His Name,

Amen.

Friday 27 March 2020

Medititatons for Difficult Days [10] We Will Not Fear

We Will Not Fear



Psalm 46:1- 10 - "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. 
SELAH

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. 
SELAH

Come see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire. Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the natioons, I will be exalted in the earth."

Pslam 46:11 "The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress."
 SELAH

Selah, Selah, Selah

So we come to the end of our life-giving Psalm. Tomorrow we begin considering the great comfort the Scriptures give about the end times.

There are three features of this Psalm which catch our attention as we close, and not only catch our attention, inform our minds and warm our hearts.

The first is that little thrice-appearing word "Selah."

Bible teachers are uncertain as to the exact meaning of this little word. Some think it is a musical instruction - take a pause, up the tempo, that sort of thing. Others think it is a thought instruction; pause and think about what has just been said or sung.

If the meaning of Selah is "pause and think about what you have just read or sung" we are being taught implicitly what the psalms also teach elsewhere explicitly: meditate. The book of Psalms opens, Psalm 1,  with the key to blessedness in this world. A man or woman who wants their life to be fruitful strong and blessed will not only delight in God's Word, he or she will meditate on it day and night.

In our culture "meditation" is a strange and even despised word. For sure biblical meditation does not mean emptying your mind - in fact it means precisely the opposite. It means mulling over, considering from different angles, squeezing out all the juice - much as we have been doing with Psalm 46 these last ten days.

I once heard meditation described as doing with a Bible verse what a camel does with his food (the image may not be pleasant but the analogy sure is accurate!) He chews up his food again and again and again, to extract the maximum nutrients from it. 

That is meditation!

You head off to work in the morning or go to sleep with one single Bible verse - or even one sentence - in your mind. Try this.  You go over it again and again, both to understand and to apply it to that very day, your very situation in life. It enters your soul, it becomes part of your world-view, your way of thinking, it waters your soul.

Do you meditate? We can't use the excuse "I have no time" anymore, can we now! (We couldn't use it before: on the Day of Judgement should we try to use that lame excuse God will point to the hours we spent on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Netflix, etc., as witnesses against the "I didn't have the time" cover-up.)

We know Jesus meditated. Proof? When tempted in the desert, Scriptures poured out of him, Scriptures that were stored in three decades of meditation on God's Word.


Sing, Sing, Sing

Selah, could, on the other hand, refer to a musical term. Take a pause, up the tempo, change the key, etc. A reminder of the power of music. When I was a lad a book was making the rounds in Christian circles "From Prison to Praise." (Books come and go, The Book remains.) The jist of this then must-read book was that praising God did our souls good and I think the author went further (perhaps further than Scripture?) and suggested that an imprisoned soul would be set free by praise.

He may have overstepped the mark, but not by much, for music has immense power. That's why in Italy they are singing from the balconies to one another across the streets to lift their communal spirits. That's why people are gathering in virtual choirs across the world. Singing lifts the spirit! In just the ordinary world.

It is no accident that the Bible's prayer book - the book of Pslams - is also the Bible's song book. Singing releases those happy endorphins - and before a killjoy frowns at this fact, let's remember that our biochemistry have been designed by God - but singing also releases the imprisoned soul ("sing" appears 67 times in the Psalms, lyre 12 times, harp 8 times, tambourine 4 times, and (thankfully?) the cymbal once.) Paul and Silas  were both praying and singing hymns to God from their prison cell in Philippi (Acts 16:25). These men, though bruised and beaten on the outside were doing their inner souls good by praying and singing God's praises.

Is praise a missing jewel in your spiritual life?

I ask myself.

I ask the brothers more than the sisters, because for some reason men find it more difficult to sing than men. Perhaps that's why they are, on average, the grumpier sex.


The Lord Almighty is with us
The God of Jacob is our refuge
(x2)

And finally, before we say au revoir to our nurturing Psalm 46, we cannot but notice the twice repeated verse 10 (see verse 7). To repeat something, as every parent will concur, is to really mean it, to reinforce it, to put it in capitals, bold typeface, to say "I am serious about THIS."

The message the psalmist wants to communciate with us through this psalm is that whatever the future holds, God is and will always be with us.

Confession: every day I go to the John Hopkins University Coronavirus data centre. I check out the big red number on the left which is the total number of worldwide cases (over 500,000 this evening) but more importantly, I look at the little curve in the right hand corner, which shows you how fast the number of cases is rising. This is what the little graph looks like today:


Meaning? Things are hotting up. If the trend continues, before long, that curve, folks, is going to "hit the roof." (I really don't like the shape of this curve.)

Someone I know, perhaps someone in my family, or someone in my church fellowship, or even me, will pass from this world to the next due to Coronavirus. This is not the time for pious pretence.

We could become fearful - and I hope the mere presentation of this curve does not unsettle you.

But if the LORD Almighty is with us, we have literally nothing to fear. "Therefore we will not fear."

Let's end with Paul's triumphant note of confidence from Romans 8. Read each line, real slow.
 


"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."


A SONG FOR THE DAY 
We end this series of meditations on Psalm 46 with a glorious hymn of confidence in Jesus Christ the King, our King. Why don't you sing it out loud? Go on! 

The Lord is King! lift up thy voice,

O earth, and all ye heavens, rejoice;

from world to world the joy shall ring,

'The Lord omnipotent is King!'



The Lord is King! who then shall dare

resist his will, distrust his care,

or murmur at his wise decrees,

or doubt his royal promises?



The Lord is king, child of the dust!                                           

The Judge of all the earth is just

Holy and true are all his ways

Let every creature speak his praise.



He reigns! ye saints, exalt your strains;

your God is King, your Father reigns;

and he is at the Father's side,

the Man of love, the Crucified.



Come make your wants your burdens known

He will present them at the throne

And angel bands are waiting there

His messages of love to bear.



One Lord and Saviour  all secures;

He reigns, and life and death are yours;

Through earth and heaven one song shall ring,

'The Lord omnipotent is King!'

You can watch it here.




A PRAYER FOR THE DAY   

Our gracious Father in heaven, and Lord Almighty,

We lift up to you all those who suffer under this present pestilence. We pray for those in authority over us that they may make wise decisions.

We thank you for the confidence of Psalm 46, and even more for the confidence of Romans 8. We thank you that since God has given us his beloved and most precious Son, we can be sure that he will freely give us the much smaller things we ask for - such as strength and faith and hope and a calm heart.

We ask that you will overule and bring great good out of this crisis. May the hearts of many be turned to you, and may those who have drifted away return to you.

We thank you that nothing can separate us from your love, expressed in and through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Help us in these days not to fear but to trust in you - whatever may come.

We ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ

Amen.