I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 143-150.

    Often times we pray that God will teach us His will. That is a good thing to pray, but in today’s psalms there is an even better prayer: teach me to DO your will. There is a wide chasm between merely knowing God’s will and doing God’s will. I know that unless God’s Spirit actively maneuvers me to do God’s will, I will fail to do so. So, I pray that God will teach me to do His will. Teaching involves both positive and negative reinforcement. None of us desire negative reinforcement, but when we fail to face negative consequences for doing wrong we will continue to do so. As part of communicating God’s saving grace we must communicate both the negative consequences of failing to do His will and the positive consequences of following it. We, as human beings, have a tendency to focus on the importance of only one. God never forgets that, as teaching tools, positive reinforcement without negative reinforcement and negative reinforcement without positive reinforcement has limited impact.

    One part of God’s will is for each generation to tell the next the story of God’s love. We have many stories of God’s power and love which we need to tell the next generation. However, these stories are all part of one story and we must make sure to both tell the multiple stories and how they fit together into one story. The message of good news which God has given us to convey can only be transmitted by inviting people into the community of faith and telling them the stories. Part of the story we have to tell is that God is good to everyone. Despite God’s wonderful majesty and our transient nature, God cares for each and everyone of us. Do not think that God is overwhelmed by the huge number of human beings. You will not, cannot, get lost in the crowd to God. He knows each individual star as unique from the rest and He knows each individual human being as unique from the rest. No one is just a number to God and we should seek to know and treat each individual we meet with similar caring and love.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 136-142.

    Every time I read Psalm 136 I imagine it being read as a responsive reading, but not the way we generally do congregational responsive readings. Instead, I hear in my head both parts being said enthusiastically. I run through several different iterations of how it could be done to make it a powerful form of worship. One iteration is both parts being said loudly throughout. Another iteration is with the lead part spoken at a constant volume while the response gets louder and more enthusiastic as the reading goes on. I debate in my head if the lead should be a single person or a group, and if a group, should it be a small group, or one the same size as the responding group? Or perhaps the congregation should read the lead with the response being read by an individual. I think we miss a lot by not doing more responsive readings as part of our worship services.

    God has searched us through and through. He knows our motivations, even those we hide from ourselves. There is no place we can go and nothing we can do that He does not see. He has seen everything we have experienced and understands the influence those things have had on our lives. It was God who created our inmost being. He began the process of forming us into who we are when we were a fertilized egg in our mother’s womb. There are two sides to this. On one hand, we can not hide anything from God. There is no place we can be hidden from Him, where our actions are not known to God. On the other hand, there is no place that we can be in danger or threatened where God does not see what is happening. No matter where we are, God will know the instant we need Him and come to our aid.
    Not only can God see everything we do and have done, not only can He come to our rescue no matter where, or by whom, we are threatened, He understands the things which have shaped us. He knows, even better than we do, how the events of our childhood have shaped our personalities and influenced the decisions we make. God uses that knowledge and understanding to offer us a plan to overcome our weaknesses and failure. We just need to be willing to follow the course which He has shown us, a course which He has brightly lit with the light of His Word.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 120-135.

    Once again I am unsure how I am going to bring my thoughts on all of these psalms into one coherent post. Perhaps I am putting too much effort into creating a post which ties my thoughts all together. I am not doing this blog to get credit for being a theologian, or student of the Bible. I am doing this blog in order to discipline myself to read the Bible daily and think about what I read. I certainly hope that what I write is of service to others, but that is not the purpose. Or, at least, that should not determine how and what I write.

    As Christians in this fallen world we find ourselves among those who will use our desire for peace as a means to lead us away from God. They do not seek the peace of God and their professions of desire for peace are lies designed to deceive us into compromising our integrity. However, if we lift up our eyes from the ground we will remember that our help comes from the Lord. His enemies may be lying in wait to ambush us, but He does not sleep, not even for short naps. He will watch our comings and goings. Our enemies may attempt to hide around the corner, in the glare of the sun, or in the shadows at night. It does not matter because those things provide no cover from God’s eyes. Whether it be noon day or night, God will be awake to watch over us.

    I love the symbolism given in Psalms 123 of a slave watching their master for the tiniest hint of approval or disapproval. That should be our attitude towards God. We should be constantly watching Him for signs that He approves of our actions, or that He disapproves of our actions. At the merest hint of His disapproval we should abandon our activity and the least sign that He approves of an action should motivate us to redouble our efforts. Psalms 127 tells us why such should be the case. No matter how noble our motivations, if our project does not have God’s full support we will waste whatever time and effort we spend on it. If it is not God’s project we will fail to accomplish the good we sought. We read a little further on in Psalms 131 about being neither haughty or proud, not concerning ourselves with great matters or things we do not understand. God will make clear to us what we need to understand.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 117-118.

    I really like today’s Psalms, but was struggling with how to express what it said to me. Then I thought some more about what the psalmist said in Psalms 117. He calls on all people to praise the Lord because God is faithful, and His faithfulness will endure beyond the end of time. The psalmist continues that theme into 118. Here he explains his reasons for praising the Lord. What the Lord did for the psalmist He will do for us, if He has not already. God will be our strength and protection. If you find yourself surrounded by enemies, call upon God and you will have no reason to fear those enemies any longer. If we allow our actions to be determined by fear of the Lord, we will have no reason to fear any person or group of people because God will take our side. If we trust in God, and therefore follow His instructions, we will be more secure than if we put our trust in any other person or thing. If we put our trust in God, He will give us victory over every enemy and trouble we face in life. Then we, like the psalmist, will be able to tell what the Lord has done.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 108-116.

    Since most of the psalms are about praising God, it should come as no surprise that praising God is the primary subject of today’s passage. When we have confidence in God it permits us, it more than permits us, it inspires us to praise God with all of our heart. It may inspire us to wake up at dawn to praise Him…oh wait, the psalmist says that he will wake the dawn. Think about what he is saying. Ordinarily, we think of, possibly, waking with the dawn to get something done which we strongly desire to do. However, the psalmist does not say that he wakes with the dawn to praise God. He says that he is so inspired to praise God that he gets up before the dawn and wakes the dawn up.

    The psalmist tells us of one of the great mysteries of this world which God has created. Fear of the Lord inspires us to act according to God’s will. Acting according to God’s will brings us great joy. That great joy causes us to praise God with our whole being. Praising God allows us to experience God’s love for us. When we experience God’s love we cease to fear Him. I have one final point from today’s psalms which I want to make. The psalmist tells us that the glory for all that happens around us belongs to God. We desire to be glorified and yet when we learn to credit God, and to get others to credit God, for any good which might incidentally result from our actions the joy we experience is greater than that which we might receive from public adulation. And it is genuinely true that God deserves credit for any good which I do. It was He who set up my life experiences so that I do whatever limited good which I do. If you are blessed by anything I say, or write, or do, give credit to God and praise Him, because it is the many wonderful gifts which He has given me which caused me to take whatever action you may think praiseworthy (my screw ups however, are my own).

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 105-107.

    Psalms 105 recounts how God cared for the children of Israel and shaped them as a people. When they were few in the land of Canaan, which God had promised to them as an inheritance, He protected them from the more numerous people around them. When the sons of Jacob began to assimilate with the locals and thus lose their identity as the people of God, God ordained a famine in Canaan. But first He sent Joseph ahead of them into Egypt as a slave. Through Joseph’s faithfulness in adversity God prepared a place to forge the descendants of Jacob into the Children of Israel (these two names for the same person which reflect how his relationship with God changed over time also reflect how his descendants relationship with God changed over time). In due time, God acted, by calling Moses, to bring this new people out of Egypt and forged them into a nation as they traveled through the wilderness. All of this was done in order to create a people who would follow God’s will and model it for the world.

    Psalms 106 recounts how the Children of Israel failed to live up to the plans which God had for them. Time and again, despite the many miracles which God performed for them, they failed to trust Him and turned away to other gods. And time and again, God called them back to Himself by a combination of punishment and mercy. The psalmist does not recount these things to condemn the Jewish people. Instead he does so to remind us of God’s mercy, to remind us that when we have sinned, God will be merciful to us when we turn from our sins and back to Him. If we are currently being faithful to God, let us praise Him for the wonderful things He has done for us. If we are currently in rebellion by being sinful, let us call on God to bring us back to Him; let us repent of our sins and return to Him.

    Finally, for today, Psalms 107 calls on us to tell our story. How did God redeem you? How did He rescue you from your life of sin? Every time I read this psalm it touches me deeply. Some people were wandering and lost, without shelter and dying from hunger. When they cried out to God, He led them to a place of food and rest. The psalmist goes to to describe various ways in which people found themselves at the end of their rope and called out to God. In each and every case, God came to them and showed them the path out of their troubles. Do not be afraid to tell people YOUR story. Reading this psalm reminds me that it is time to tell my story again, not in today’s blog, but as a separate entry later this week (possibly later today).

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 98-104.

    Psalms 98 starts off setting the theme for today’s scripture reading:

Sing a new song to the Lord,
for he has done wonderful deeds.

The theme which ties together all of today’s psalms, and I know this is going to come as a surprise (or perhaps not if you have read the Book of Psalms before), is praising God. Before I go into the rest of these psalms I want to write about my thoughts regarding this opening line. I dislike current contemporary Christian music. Yet here we are told to sing a new song. My problem with current contemporary Christian music is not with those who produce it, but with the way the Church uses it (or, at least most of the Church). The problem I have is that we are constantly bombarded with new songs to replace the existing ones. This means that the good ones do not have time to seep down in our souls and become expressions of deep, lasting praise for God. I first became aware of the problem at funerals. The songs sung at the funerals for my parents’ generation (my mother is still alive, but my father and all of his siblings have died) were much the same as those sung at the funerals for my grandparents’ generation. Those songs are deep expressions of the faith which filled the lives of those whose life was being celebrated at these funerals. I realized that most current contemporary worship songs lacked the same depth of meaning, and those that did have it were not sung often enough for those singing them to have the same level of investment in their meaning.

    OK, rant over. I do not think the psalmist was just calling for new songs. He was calling on us to find new ways to worship and praise God. We must never allow our praise and worship for God to become stale. Interestingly, in Psalms 101 the psalmist tells us the steps necessary to accomplish this.

1. Live a life of integrity, even in private, where only our own family (and maybe not even them) can see

Our integrity should be real, not just to project an image.

2. Refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar, not for educational value let alone for entertainment, not for any reason at all.

That one is probably harder for many of us to do than it seems.

3. Have nothing to do with those who deal dishonestly.

I do not think this means never associating with such people. I think it means not entering into partnership or alliance with them.

4. Reject perverse ideas.

This is one which I think requires more emphasis than most of us place on it, and more thought about what constitutes a “perverse idea”.

5. Stay away from every evil.

Not just most evil, every evil.

6. Do not tolerate those who slander others.

This is about listening to negative gossip which leads you, and others, to think of people in a negative light. The NIV says it is about those who slander others in secret.

7. Do not endure conceit.

To me this means rooting out my own conceit and building up those who others put down in their own conceit.

8. Associate with faithful people

Now the psalmist gets to the active things we must do to successfully serve and praise God. If we spend our time with faithful people, we will not have time to hang out with wicked ones. And, the influence of faithful people will make us more faithful.

9. Hire people who are above reproach.

This is not just good for our spiritual lives, but it will make whatever business we are in more successful as well.

Every year, I think I should do a blog entry on just Psalms 101, and every year I forget until I find it taking over the post on the rest of the passages included in my reading.