pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Victory in the Daily Battle

Reading: Psalm 1

Verses One and Two: “Blessed is the man who… delights in the Law of the Lord and on His Law meditates day and night”.

The Psalm represents a daily battle for us all. On one ‘side’ are those who “walk in the ways of sinners” and who “sit in the seat of mockers”. The psalmist writes that these are like chaff that the wind blows away. They will soon be no more as the “way of the wicked will perish”.

This choice is contrasted with the choice of the righteous. We read, “Blessed is the man who… delights in the Law of the Lord and on His Law meditates day and night”. The psalmist compares faith to a tree “planted by the water, whose leaf does not wither”, a tree that “yields its fruit in season”. The Psalm speaks of the righteous being able to stand in the judgment in the end and of God’s protection in the time here on earth, a time of prospering for the righteous.

When one considers option A and option B, it hardly seems like a choice. Do you want the rusty old Pinto or the shiny new Corvette? Hardly seems like a choice. Yet it is a daily battle. It is a daily battle not to fall to sin and not to choose the ways of the world. Satan has ways of making that rusty old car look pretty good to our earthly eyes. Satan can also trick us into giving up the keys to the Corvette, enticing us with something “better”, but it it just rust underneath.

The key to victory in our daily battle lies in our key verse for today. When we choose the Word as our foundation and we think on it day and night, then the things of God remain in the forefront of our minds. If we keep God’s Word fresh in our mind, it is easier to call on it when Satan tries to come calling. When we choose to be rooted in Christ, then Satan stands no chance. May we walk steadfastly in the way of the Lord today, enjoying His protection and love. Amen.


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Abide

Reading: Psalm 22: 25-31

Verse 29: “All who go down to the dust will kneel before Him”.

Today’s passage from Psalm 22 has both a present and a future sense to it. Overall the Psalm is about worshipping and abiding in God’s presence. Verse 26 reads, “they who seek the Lord will praise Him”. What we find when we seek God does lead us to praise God. The psalmist also writes of a future time. Verse 30 reads, “future generations will be told about the Lord”. The continued telling of and living out of our faith will help future generations to know God and to have faith in Him.

In order for us to tell of and to live out our faith we have to have a relationship that abides daily in Christ. To do so, we must practice our spiritual disciplines. This begins with daily time with God. Each day we need to spend time in the Word and in prayer. Finding a time and space each day to abide in God keeps Him always at the center of our life. When God is whom we abide in, God is who flows out of our life through our words and actions. Both how we live our life and the stories of faith that we share help our families and the “future generations” to know of and to have a personal relationship with the Lord.

Worship and thanksgiving are also means to abide in the Lord. When we gather to praise and pray and hear the Word proclaimed we are renewed and strengthened for our personal faith journey. Corporate worship is an essential faith discipline that connects us not only to God but also to each other. A personal part of our worship is our thanksgiving. Taking time to name and give specific thanks for the work of God in our lives helps us to stay in love with God. This essential helps us to abide even deeper in God and His love.

When we abide daily in faith, then we are assured of His presence each day in our lives and we also live with an assurance about our eternity. Both are blessings of nourishing our relationship with God daily. Verse 29 reminds us, “All who go down to the dust will kneel before Him”. The word ‘all’ is pretty inclusive. So this week may we live our faith out loud so that all we meet will experience the light and love of Jesus Christ in their lives too. May Christ brightly shine in us so that others may invite Him to abide in them as well.


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Walking Daily

Reading: Psalm 4:8

Verse Eight: “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety”.

The Psalms are full of emotion. They range from deep and sorrowful laments to joyous songs of praise. In short, they cover the whole range of human emotion and represent well the ups and downs that life inevitably brings. Because life is such, it is hard to always do as today’s verse suggests.

What does it take to lie down each day to sleep in peace? How could we do this each day, no matter what life brings our way? I think if the deep and painful moments that come with the sudden loss of a loved one or the unexpected news of unemployment and wonder how this is always possible. The answer to these questions lies in what we do day in and day out. If our spiritual disciplines are daily and consistent, then we build a great relationship with God that allows us to live out this verse even when our hearts are filled with great hurt and deep sorrow. When our relationship with God is rock solid, then He will always be our solid rock.

On a Tuesday morning just over two years ago I was informed that my job was being eliminated. After being a part of that organization for 23 years, it felt like the end of the world. I prayed a lot that day and spent a lot of time in conversation with God. He was not a stranger but a dear friend. By the end of the day I had found peace. Yes, there were still more questions than answers, but I was able to lie down and sleep in peace because I knew that God was in control, that He loved me, and that He would lead the way.

His presence gave me the strength I needed and allowed me to trust in His plans. This came through years of walking daily with God. I had established a deep personal relationship that made me into someone who knew God would see me through. Yes, it was a difficult process and there were hard days yet ahead, but in all of them God was with me. May this be your relationship with God as well. May you walk daily, through the good and the bad, fully connected to the Lord our God.


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Faithful Prayer

Reading: Ephesians 1: 15-23

Verse 18: I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.

Today’s passage is about how Paul prays for others.  He is praying for a group of believers that he has heard of.  I think we all pray for a group of people.  While I most regularly pray for family and friends, I do add people to my daily prayers that I hear about at church.  At times, events in the community or in our wider world will draw my heart to be in prayer for those people or that situation.  So, like Paul, we too pray for people we do not know.  It is part of our role in the fellowship of all believers to pray for one another.  This all leads me to think about prayer.

The core of our daily prayer life focuses on the people and events that are close to our hearts.  Early each morning I pray for my extended family by name, for those I know battling cancer and illness, for those I know who have experienced recent loss, and for our church.  It is a pretty standard list.  It changes from time to time but remains pretty constant.  As I go for a walk, I also pray.  I pray for each pastor and their churches in our area.  I pray for our leaders – national, state, and local.  I pray for our police, highway patrol, EMTs, and firefighters and those who lead them.  I pray for the jail, both the inmates and the workers, as well as for the judicial staff across the street.  It is good to have a pattern of prayer to follow.  It is good to have a time set aside to pray.  It is good to have a regular list of folks to pray for.  It is good to be in prayer.  What and whom do you pray for each and every day?

Two other important areas of prayer that we need to consider are thanksgiving and confession.  It is important to take time each day to reflect on our blessings and to name them before God.  It acknowledges God as our provider and it reminds us of our need for His provision.  It helps us to be humble.  Another important area of prayer is our confession of sin.  We are sinful creatures so we are not usually in short supply of confessional material.  It is so important to daily bow before our Maker, to confess our sins, to seek His forgiveness, and to pledge repentance.  This act of prayer helps us stay in a right relationship with God.  How well do you offer thanks and practice confession?

Lord, may we ever bring our praise, our petitions, our thanksgiving, and our confessions to you.  You are faithful.  May we be as well.  Amen.


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Represent

Reading: 1st Thessalonians 1: 1-10

Verse Three: Work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, endurance inspired by hope.

Thessalonica was a large city.  It was an economic and political hub.  In the city was a mix of Romans, Greeks, and some Jews.  It was a worldly city – a place with lots of idols worship and plenty of wild living.  Paul had been there on a missionary journey and had begun a church.  It was a challenge to be a Christian in such a setting.  Our world today is still filled with many false idols and it is easy to stray from the faith into the dark side of the world.

Yet the Thessalonicans remain faithful.  Paul commends the church for the faith that they have and live out in the city.  Their faith has drawn some persecution yet they remain steadfast and joyous.  Their faith is known around the city and region.  Paul notes the three ways in which their faith is seen: “Work produced by faith, labor prompted by love, endurance inspired by hope”.  Their faith has gone from their head to their hearts and pours out of their mouths, hands, and feet.  It is a faith that is easy to see.

In our daily lives, is our faith so easy to see?  By simply watching us, can others see the joy of the Lord in us?  When the storms of life come, can others see our endurance that is inspired by our hope in God?  Our faith should pervade our lives in the good and the bad, being on display for all to see.  Do people see us as the hands and feet of Jesus in our daily lives?  Do they see in us a servant’s heart, offering our work and labor as an offering of love and faith?  In our daily living others should see the ways that we serve Christ.  In these three ways, we model Christ and introduce the world to our Lord.  May we represent well today.


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Daily Walk

Reading: 1 Peter 2: 19-25

Verse 21: Christ himself suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.

In 1st Peter, suffering is a common theme.  Perhaps this is because the faithful of Peter’s day did suffer for their faith.  Just as Jesus had suffered at the hands of the Jews and Romans, many of His followers also faced trial and persecution and even death.  Many of the more prominent witnesses gladly suffered for their faith and found joy in being like Jesus in their suffering.  Oddly, most of us Christians today avoid suffering of all kinds.

Peter’s response to suffering and his call to the early church and to us today is this: call upon the power of Christ to transcend our times of suffering.  Today, at times our faith will have a ‘cost’ be it time or money or some other resource.  To give up something or to sacrifice in one of these areas may hurt a little, but it is a far cry from Peter’s day.  Our suffering tends to be temporary and non-life-threatening.  Yet even in the midst of small trials we are to call upon the only one who can walk with us through the storms of life.  Even if it was just a bad day at work, Jesus still desires to be present and to bring us peace or comfort or contentment or whatever we need.

When we call on Jesus regularly in the small, day to day, events of life, then we get to know Him.  Jesus becomes a regular companion to us in all times of life.  It is through a consistent and daily walk with Christ that we come to truly know and trust His presence, strength, and love in all of our life.  This is the model Jesus set for us to follow.  His relationship with God the Father was a daily, consistent connection.  God was Jesus’ strength in the trial.  Always.  Peter wrote, “Christ himself suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.”  When Jesus is our foundation rock in this sense, nothing life can bring will shake our faith.  His love will transcend all of our fears, doubts, and anxieties – no matter how big or small.  This becomes how we journey through life.  In the this way we bear witness to the power of Jesus Christ in our lives and in the world.  It is through our witness and example that we too bring God all the glory and praise.


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This Day and Forevermore

Reading: Psalm 121

Today’s Psalm is one of my favorites.  To me it speaks of the encompassing nature of God.  In the opening lines we are reminded that God is the creator of all.  When I look up to or venture out into the Black Hills, I can see God’s fingerprints all over the place.  One does not have to live near the hills, however, to ‘see’ God’s hand.  One can look up to the stars, one can gaze out across the ocean, or one can even look at the beauty and intricacy of a flower or spider’s web.  And one can even ‘see’ God’s hand in the voice of the songbird or in the giggle of a small child.

The balance of the Psalm speaks to the ways in which the God who created all we know and see also pays attention to you and I.  God watches over where we tread and where we sleep.  God protects us from the harmful rays of the sun and moon.  God watches over us and keeps us from all harm – both now and forevermore.  His love and care for all of us is all-encompassing .

While God loves each and every one of us equally, we do not all know God’s love in the same way.  There are many who struggle through life trying to “do” life on their own.  There are even some regular church attenders who do not know how much God loves and cares for them.  To truly know just how all-encompassing God’s love and care is, one must know God in deep and meaningful ways.  To know God in this way requires a disciplined and obedient practice of the daily habits and exercises of the faith.  One cannot run to God only in the crisis.

To truly walk daily under the watch of the Lord, the Word had to be at our center.  Each day we must read and meditate on the Scriptures.  Each day we must spend time talking with God, both thanking God for our blessings and bringing Him our petitions as well.  In these ways we connect our heart to God.  And each day we must practice what God reveals to us in our time with the Bible and in our time talking with God.  We must love our neighbors, turn the other cheek, care for those in need, and lift one another in prayer.  The closer our daily walk is to God, the closer He walks with us.  May it be so this day and forevermore!


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Each Day

Reading: Romans 13: 11-14

Paul writes to the church in Rome with some urgency.  As time has elapsed since Jesus’ resurrection, they need some encouragement.  Early believers thought Jesus would return soon – surely in their lifetimes.  But as year after year ticks by, their mindset began to change.  For many, “when” became “will” Jesus return?  Some in the church in Rome have begun to drift.  Paul’s words to “wake up” reflect this idea.  Paul writes, “our salvation in nearer that when we first believed”.  While is is true for the Roman church, it is also true for us.

Paul calls the church in Rome to faithful living each day.  “The night is nearly over” implies again that again that Christ is coming soon.  Or at least that they should return to living that way.  He urges them to put aside sin and to “put on the armor of light”.  The people must have been straying a but from the faith.  The list of actions Paul mentions are things more common to secular Roman culture.  Paul is calling the church away from this lifestyle and back to following Christ faithfully each day.

Living today we too have much that we can turn to for pleasure and gratification.  Just like the Romans, we too can engage in wild living and a loose lifestyle.  The more modern temptations of the TV screen and internet are readily available and offer a degree of privacy.  Even more private are our thoughts of jealousy and judgment and envy and freed that can so easily pop up and cause us to sin in our hearts.  Our focus on faithful living day by day can be quite a challenge.

So, Paul’s words speak to us as well.  We must constantly be aware of the efforts of Satan and work daily to stay out of “darkness”.  We must always be ready, always seeking ways to be in the “light” instead.  It is a daily battle.  It is a daily choice.  Each day, may we also “clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ”.  If we begin each day in Christ, our hearts and minds are better prepared to meet the assaults of the day.  We are better prepared to honor God with our choices and decisions.  Strengthen and encourage us each day, O Lord our God.


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The Lord’s Prayer

Reading: Luke 11: 1-4

Today’s passage is oh so familiar.  In most every church, in all times of worship, this prayer is prayed.  The words are in the hymnal or bulletin or on the screen, but most really do not need the words.  The Lord’s Prayer is such a familiar prayer.  One must be careful to not simply go through the motions or to recite the prayer.  It must be prayed.

As the prayer begins with “Our father” it establishes our relationship with God.  We are God’s children.  In the role of parent, God seeks to provide for us, to protect us, to help us mature in our faith, to keep us on the path to life.  But most of all, God seeks to love us in a close personal relationship.

“Who art in heaven” reminds us of God’s authority and position.  God is above all and over all.  God dwells in that place of perfection with the saints and angels.  Yet God is not limited to just heaven.  God’s presence is everywhere all of the time.  We sense it in close personal ways at times and in large, powerful ways at other times.  Through the presence of the Holy Spirit we have a deep personal connection to the presence of God in our lives.  The Spirit dwells in each believer and the presence of God is active and alive in the world.

The prayer fittingly ends with requests.  Reflecting on what is established with the opening lines of the prayer, it does seem fitting that the prayer ends with requests of God.  After all, isn’t that what children do with their parent?  It concludes with requests for our daily bread, for forgiveness of our sins, for help forgiving others, and to be kept away from temptation.  The first request acknowledges our dependence on God for all of our daily needs.  Then it turns to relationship.  Forgive us when we mess up.  In this it admits that we will mess up.  It also deals with our need to offer forgiveness.  In these two requests we are asking to be kept in right relationship with God and with our neighbors.  The Lord’s Prayer concludes with our request to be kept from temptation.  This is one of the roles the Holy Spirit plays in our lives.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, may it be slowly and with attention to detail.  Sit with each phrase, allow it to resonate deep within.  Allow it to bless you this day.


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Rooted

Reading: Psalm 52

David is in the midst of a trial in Psalm 52.  King Saul has become crazed with jealousy and paranoia and is pursuing David to kill him.  David is on the run for his life.  He knows in his heart that he is in the ‘right’ and that God is with him, yet he faces this trial.  Despite being physically on the move, David states that he is like “an olive tree flourishing in the house of God”.  In the midst of this crazy pursuit by Saul, David remains rooted in his faith in the God he loves.

In the song “Always”, artist Kristian Stanfill sings, “My foes are many, they rise against me, I will hold my ground”.  In our life we can often relate to David’s trial and to the thoughts expressed in this song.  At times we can feel beset on all sides.  In these moments it can be easy or tempting to pull up the roots we have in God and to turn to other means to deal with the fear or pain or doubt or whatever else we are facing.

David wrote, “I will trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever”.  The songs says, “I will not fear, His promise is true, my God will come through always, always”.  In both we find the blessed assurance that God will always live us and will always be there for us.  For our part, we must stay rooted in God.

It can be hard to do this.  The song goes on to day, “Trouble surrounds me, chaos abounding, I will test in You”.  It is a faith deeply rooted in God that can rest in Him in the midst of a trial.  To be deeply rooted requires daily watering and fertilizing.  This day may we water our faith in the Word of God and allow it to permeate our faith, to fertilize it as its message sinks deep down into our soul and strengthens our faith.  May we do this day by day do that when the winds and rain of life come, our faith will be deeply rooted on the true foundation, Jesus Christ.