Tag Archives: Psalms 136-142

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2023 Bible Study — God Knows Our Inmost Being and Loves Us Anyway

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

We should give thanks to God because He is good and His love endures forever.  The psalmist gives us some examples of things which God has done which demonstrate both His goodness and His love, but each of us should think about the good things God has done for us.  If we honestly appraise what God has done for us, we will praise Him before those who seek to take His place in our lives.  But let me get back to God’s enduring love for us.  God loves us deeply and fully.  Everyone I know struggles to one degree or another with thinking that no one will love them if they truly knew who they were.  But this is a false belief, because no one can possibly know our deepest darkest secrets as well and as thoroughly as God does, yet God loves us with a love beyond our ability to fully comprehend.  So, when the psalmist asks God to search him and know his heart, he is not asking God to learn more about him.  Rather, he is asking God to reveal to him things he has hidden from himself.  Let us ask God to reveal to us the things we do, or say, or think, which He finds offensive, and then to transform us so as to remove those things from our lives.

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

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2022 Bible Study — God Knows Our Innermost Being In Ways That Google Will Only Ever Be Able To Dream

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

I have an idea of what I want to write about today’s psalms which comes together as a cohesive whole.  Let’s see if it works out that way when I type it out.

We ought to give thanks to God for His goodness and love.  When we look at the world and what happens in it, time and again we see the great wonders which God has done, and the endurance of His love for those who fear Him.  I will praise God before the powers and authorities which set themselves up in His place, letting them know that they fall short of His greatness.  I read Psalm 139 and I think of the surveillance apparatus of the government, and of the ways in which “Big Tech” tracks our actions, behavior, and movement, but compared to God, they know nothing about us.

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.

Those I mentioned think that they can search me and know my heart, that they can know if there is any offensive way in me, as they define offensive.  They even think they can guide me to the right way to think.  But they are mistaken, because they did not form me in my mother’s womb.  They did not shape my innermost being.  In fact, unlike God, they cannot truly see my innermost being.  Each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made by God, and only He can see into the depths of our hearts.  Those others misuse God’s name and attempt to appropriate for themselves that which only God can command.  When I first read the psalmist’s plea to the Lord to keep him safe from the wicked my thought was to rephrase that thought to keep from being wicked or violent because those things could trip my feet and bring me down.  However, as I wrote what I wrote above it occurred to me the ways in which those who think they are ‘gods’ attempt to trip us up, to separate us from God.  Which caused me to echo the psalmist’s plea.  I, too, beg God to protect me from them, to protect me from the ways in which they seek to manipulate me into worshiping them in place of God.  Finally, I ask God, as the psalmist does, to guard my mouth so that I say only those things which bring glory to Him.

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

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2021 Bible Study — You Are Fearfully And Wonderfully Made

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

All of these psalms are worth reading, but I am going to focus on Psalm 139 today.  I am struck by how this psalm addresses those who think they were made wrong, that their mind should be in a different body, or that there is something wrong with their body.  No, the psalmist tells us that God knew what He was doing when He shaped us.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

If you are one of those who think the above, the psalmist was talking to you when he wrote this.  But there is more to this psalm than just that.  Before he got to that point the psalmist reminded us that knows us: He knows what we think and what we do.  There is no place we can go where God does not see us and cannot reach us to help us, or to discipline us.  And this is where I need to go back to today’s first psalm, where the psalmist says again and again about God, “His love endures forever.”  No matter where we are, or where we go, or what we do, God is with us and we are with Him…and He loves us.  Let us embrace His love and seek to be the person He made us to be.

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

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2020 Bible Study His Faithful Love Endures Forever

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 Psalms 136 I imagine it being done as a congregational responsive reading.  Today, I actually pictured a large outdoor gathering, perhaps in a stadium.  I am imagining the leader being amplified by a microphone and thousands of people responding “His faithful love endures forever” with the final line being both the amplified leader and the crowd shouting that line.  I hope you can form that image in your head and feel how powerful it would be.

God has plans for our lives and He will work them out.  Psalms 139 describes how God knows everything we do and everywhere we go.  He uses that knowledge to shape our lives according to His plan for us.  He began that shaping before we were born, while we were still in our mother’s womb.  If we choose to do God’s will, that knowledge brings us joy and comfort, because we know that even the things that happen that we don’t like serve God’s purpose and make us better able to serve Him and share His love.  On the other hand, if we are tempted to rebel against God, the psalmist reminds us that there is no place we can go to do anything of which God will be unaware.    If we rebel, God will still use our actions to accomplish His purpose.  We can choose to serve God’s purpose and experience the joy of seeing His plans come to fruition.  Or, we can rebel against God and experience the suffering of seeing His plans come to fruition.

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2019 Bible Study — His Faithful Love Endures Forever.

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.

The first of today’s psalms is a responsive reading.  I would love to hear it done by a group in several different ways.  Most groups would have the worship leader read the part which changes and the congregation read “His faithful love endures forever.”  Yet, when I read this I imagine the congregation reading the first part and the worship leader responding.  Another option which intrigues me would be having a group of people where the part being read goes from one to another.  I imagine these different ways of reading this because its message strikes me powerfully and responsive readings have become so rote that we tend to miss their power.  We need to find new and innovative ways to communicate the message which God gave His people long ago.  A message which has not, and does not, change, no matter how much some might wish for it to do so.  Let us give thanks to God for He is good.

Again today we have a theme I touched on yesterday.  We cannot escape from God’s presence no matter where we go.  There are two sides to this.  On the one hand, we cannot hide anything we think or do from God.  On the other hand, we cannot be any place where He is not aware of what we are experiencing and come to our aid in our time of need.  The psalmist does such a wonderful job of expressing both of these thoughts.  He even manages to capture the comfort we can feel from our inability to hide our wrongdoing from God.  An element of that comes from the fact that we need not be embarrassed to confess to God our sins: He already knows.  As important, God cares deeply for us and wishes for us to embrace the goodness He has in store for us if we do His will.  Let us welcome God’s examination of our lives and beg Him to show us what we have done, are doing, are about to do which is wrong so that we can correct our path.

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2018 Bible Study — God’s Faithful Love Endures Forever

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 hear it as a responsive reading in my head. Sometimes I hear a single voice read out the primary words with a crowd reading, “His faithful love endures forever.” Sometimes I hear it reversed. But every time it strikes me as a powerful worship experience. Let us give thanks to God because He is good.

    Then in Psalm 139 the psalmist tells us that God knows our every need, better than we do ourselves. He knows everything we do and every aspect of our being. God knows our every action, and our every thought. He knows every word we are going to speak before we even begin to formulate the thoughts behind them. God has overseen the minutest details of our existence from the moment we were conceived in our mother’s womb. There are two sides to this. There is no place we can go to hide our actions from God. No matter where we go God can see us. The other side of that is that there is no place we can end up where God cannot come to us and care for us. We cannot hide from God, nor can we be hidden from God.

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2017 Bible Study — His Love Endures Forever

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.

Daily Bible Study

July 8, 2016 Bible Study — Every Moment Of My Life Was Laid Out Before a Single Day Had Passed

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

DSCN0762

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

    I am going to focus on Psalm 139 today. The other psalms have value (although I always have trouble figuring out what to make of 137). God knows everything about us in great detail. He knows when we sit down and when we stand up. He knows our every thought, no matter how far we travel. He knows what we are going to say before we say it. There is no place we can run to get away from God’s Spirit. We cannot escape God. That should be a scary thought, but it should also be a comforting thought. No matter where we find ourselves, God will be there to guide us, support us, and protect us. We cannot hide our sins from God, but we, also, cannot be anywhere that He cannot help us. There is another part to this. God knows our flaws. He knows every single thing we have ever done wrong, all of the reasons to despise us. Yet, He loves us and cares for us. Finally, I will pray the thoughts which the psalmist ends this psalm with:

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.