Psalm 128

"Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in obedience to him." 

Psalm 128:1 (NIV) 

 

What a blessing it is to be a child of God! To enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit and the blessedness of being in Christ is the greatest blessing that any person could ever hope to receive for God during their life. May we always remember and give praise and thanks to God for the love He lavished on us that we are called His children. 

This psalm follows in correct order behind the psalm that taught us to place the LORD God in leadership over all our activities - especially our families. It spells out the benefits that God promises to those who place Him and His kingdom first. If I read this psalm and others like it every day and ignored many other sections of the Bible, I would in short order fall into the trap of becoming a prosperity preacher and yet I cannot ignore the rest of the Word. So when I read this psalm, my soul is filled with thankfulness, that God’s face does shine on His children from heaven, that God’s hands are busy in the wombs of godly women all around the world, throughout all ages, and He causes children to be a blessing to their parents, and more than that, He even prolongs the lives of His men and women so that they may see and bless their grandchildren. 

I will not use this psalm to demand from God, but I will use this psalm to give Him the thanks He deserves for all good things come from Him! What could be more good, than a man and a woman, joined in love, surrounded by their children and their grandchildren with their hearts filled with thankfulness to our great God who gave us each other, who gives us food, and strength and love, and life and happiness. Blessed! Blessed! Truly we are Blessed! Praise His Holy Name for the blessing of family!

Click here to read today's Scripture

Psalm 127

"Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him." 

Psalm 127:3 (NIV) 

How much time do we spend with our families? How early do we get up? How late do we stay up? How much toil in our lives are related to our families? This psalm makes it clear that family life is the one activity where we are clearly God’s helper. It is God who decides who our mom and dads are. It is God who gives children to parents.

Many of us think that it is our job to raise our kids to be the spouse they should be, or the child they should be, or the sibling they should be, and that we need to persuade God to help us - YET - this psalm and all of Scripture, teach that God Himself brings us our spouses (Matt 19:6), that He gives us our children, which means that He chooses our parents, and that He places the lonely into families (Ps 68:6). This is God’s work and He expects us to help Him. We are called by God to be our brother’s keeper. It all started in the Garden of Eden where God brought Eve to Adam and it continues to this day all around the world.

Family is the building block of all human society - not by accident, but because God’s work, is family work. Humans strive to build villages, kingdoms and communities, but God builds families. He is building a family right now - a spiritual family where He is our Heavenly Father through his beloved Son, Jesus, and we are His children, reborn in His Spirit. He is also building millions of families all around the world, husbands and wives, children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters – FAMILIES.

Friend, if these things I have written are true - if our families are God’s work, and we are but helpers - then have we asked Him for guidance recently in our family life? Have we rested in Him in our toil and hours of work we pour into our family? Have we committed our family relationships to Him, and placed His wishes for our families above our own desires?

Click here to read today's Scripture

Psalm 127

"In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - for he grants sleep to those he loves." 

Psalm 127:2 (NIV) 

No one likes "make work" projects! My wife will chide me about things I get my kids to do around the yard or at the lake - she calls them “another one of your make work projects” - what she means is that the work I get them to do is meaningless and temporary. My kids pick up on that theme and complain that they only want to help me “on things that count”.

No one likes "make work" projects! No likes being a hamster in a wheel running and spinning until we drop dead. YET according to Psalm 127 unless the LORD builds the house - building is only a “make work project”, and unless the LORD watches the city – guard duty is only a “make work project”. The ramification of these verses is tremendous; just think of the pyramids, or the tower of Babel, and if we extrapolate the activities of building and guarding to all human activity (which Solomon does in Ecclesiastes) it becomes depressing as we realize that all human activity conducted separately from God is just a series of temporary “make work projects”. 

But we are not left in a state of despair, for verse 2 tells us: “he grants sleep to those he loves.” This wonderful statement – promise even - brings hope to our toil. There is rest in our toil, there is peace in our toil and there is purpose to our toil when the LORD is doing the work and we are the helper.

There is some debate as to whether or not Psalm 127 was written by King Solomon, or by King David, for his son Solomon, to instruct him on how to build the temple, because 2 Samuel 12:25 tells us that Solomon was one whom God loved. I don’t know for sure who wrote Psalm 127, but I do know that I am one whom God loves, because I am united with His beloved Son, through His Holy Spirit. AND I know from these two verses that there is sleep, and rest for me and for all who are in Christ, if we would be careful to only involve ourselves in God’s activities - becoming His helper in our work, our families, our evenings and our church.

The choice is ours - rest in the LORD and do work that lasts forever! OR Toil and sweat and run and weep, and have our work disappear like the mist.

Click here to read today's Scripture

Jeremiah 9

"This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD."

Jeremiah 9:23,24 (NIV)

The book of Jeremiah can be a very depressing read, as the LORD describes what the future holds for His people who reject Him. Most of us try to forget the passages as soon as we read them - if we read them at all -  and YET Jeremiah contains some real gems! Verses that we should put on plaques on our walls, or put on our desktop background; verses to be chewed on over and over again.

These two verses in chapter 9 speak to our souls about who the LORD truly is. Do you know who the LORD is? Not in the midst of plenty, but in the midst of disaster, for chapter 9 describes disaster. Do you know who He is when “Death has climbed in through your window”, vs 21? When your food is bitter and your water poison, vs 15? People ask us (we even think it ourselves sometimes) how could a good God kill so many people? They say that they could never worship a God who allows a baby to die, and never worship a God who allows so much suffering, or who would create a place of eternal suffering called hell. Yet there is something about a Christian that causes us to worship God in the midst of disaster. There is something about a child of the Most High that draws us to Him even as everything we love is taken away. We have been given the understanding by the Spirit of God that enables us to know that God is a God who delights in and exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on this earth. So let us put this verse on our walls, and in our hearts while times are good. Let this verse teach us to boast in God and only in God (1 Cor 1:31). 

Did we boast this week about anything? Did we boast about our strength? Hey- did you hear my son made the Ontario u16 rugby team? Did we boast about our wisdom? Hey- did you hear about my other son’s good grades at engineering school? Did we boast about our riches? Hey- did you hear about my daughter’s great summer job at WSIB? Did we boast about being given the grace by God to know Him through his Son Jesus Christ - to be able to see Him as He truly is, to be able to recognize His character and to KNOW in my heart that He is good all the time?

A friend of mine says to me, “John – if you are going to tell me that God is good all the time - you will have to define good for me!” Very well then – good is defined in this verse as “exercising and delighting in kindness, justice and righteousness on earth” – this is who God is and what a wonderful good God He is!

Heavenly Father thank you! Thank you for opening my eyes! Thank you for revealing yourself to me! May I boast this day in You my Lord, and not in my wisdom, or strength or riches.

Click here to read today's Scripture

Genesis 15

"God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them." 

Exodus 2:24,25 (NIV) 

Why did God need to hear their groaning before He would remember His covenant with Abraham? Or are we not allowed to ask that question? Didn’t God know that they were in trouble? Why would they have to call out to Him before He would become concerned and act?

You may think that it is just a bit of archaic language, but this is the first of four examples that we will examine together that demonstrate the role of prayer in bringing about the revealed will of God. God had told Abram, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.” (vs 13,14) This is clearly the revealed will of God, spoken to Abram 400 years before the Israelites cried out before the Lord and He heard them and acted on their behalf. Their captivity, like Joseph’s captivity, was the result of evil intentions of men, being used for good (redemptive) purposes by God.

These verses clearly present God as waiting until a certain level or quantity of noise reached Him, and nowhere does God tell them: “Hey I told you I would redeem you, be quiet and wait until the time I have set.” We might tell our kids that when they keep asking us: “Are we there yet? How much longer?” etc, but God never tells us to be quiet. As a matter of fact, God tells us to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), and He tells us to never give up on a request (Lk18:1-8). The Bible teaches from the book of Genesis through to the book of Revelation that God moves after we pray. He accomplishes His will on earth through people praying for Him to act, and to fulfill His promises.

Our Lord taught us to pray: Your kingdom come, your will be done. May we cry out to Him today, may our lips utter what our hearts desire.

"As It Is In Heaven", Matt Maher, via YouTube

Click here to read today's Scripture

Luke 11:1-13

"You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

James 4:2b,3 (NIV) 

 

My daughter, Phoebe, is at that fun age where all she does is ask Wanda and I question after question - can I have this can, I have that, can so and so come over, can I go over there? She phones me on my cell as soon as she gets home from school and the questions start. I call it the fun age, because there will be an age where she won’t even talk to me (based on my experience with her older siblings). 

 

Our Lord tells us that we have a Heavenly Father and that we are little children to Him, and that we are to ask Him with shameless audacity (vs8) (now there’s a word that describes my Phoebe). What have we asked God for today? Have you asked Him for forgiveness, for peace, for faith? Have you asked Him for a miracle in your marriage or in your relationship with your parents or siblings? Have you asked Him to bring a loved one into the kingdom, or to deliver a loved one out of a life of sin? Oh friend have you asked for healing from pain, disease or injury? Have you asked for a job, for money, for safety? For food, for a spouse, for life itself? How about for the Holy Spirit? Have we asked Him to fill us with His Spirit, with the River of Life? Have we asked Him for a glimpse - no more than a glimpse - have we asked Him to show us the glory of His One and only Son?  

 

How did we become so “self-reliant”, so “grown up”, so removed from our loving Heavenly Father that we never talk to Him, let alone ask Him for anything? 

 

Oh Heavenly Father forgive us for our silence. Teach us to seek your face in the morning, to seek your face in the noon time, and to seek your face in the evening. Teach us to ask with “shameless audacity” and yet to ask with “pure motives”. Teach us to pray! Teach us to pray!

"Give Me Jesus", Fernando Ortega, via YouTube

Click here to read today's Scripture

2 Kings 20; Isaiah 38

"And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." 

James 5:15,16 (NIV) 

I came to a personal decision several years ago while still an elder, that when a person asks me and the elders to pray for healing, that I would only pray for healing and NOT pray for God’s will. The other men can pray as the Spirit leads them but as for me, I will pray for healing and not pray for God’s will. It may seem strange to you; you may think to yourself: “Come on John, you want God’s will, not a person’s will! God knows the end from the beginning and He knows what is best! Trust Him and pray for His will.” Yet we have this example of Hezekiah before us to examine. He was told by Isaiah that God’s revealed will was that he die from his sickness - clearly the prophet Isaiah’s words are God’s Words! But Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, prayed and wept bitterly and God saw his tears, heard his prayer and turned Isaiah around and sent him back to Hezekiah with the message that he would be healed. Talk about changing God’s mind - talk about a righteous person’s powerful and effective prayer!

Now I hasten to add that Hezekiah’s previous prayers for a healing of his people (2 Chron 30:20) and for the deliverance of his people (2Kgs 19:15) had already been answered by God. This man had a track record with God; his heart trusted in God fully (2 Kgs 18:5) and he would pray prayers of faith, in line with God’s revealed will, interceding for those who were under his spiritual authority. This prayer for healing is different and because it is so obvious in the text that God changed His mind concerning Hezekiah’s date of death, I will pray as the sick person requests and trust God to sort out His inner workings.

What do you truly truly want? Do you want to be healed AND you want God’s will? Do you want God’s will more than you want healing? Do you want healing more than God’s will? Friend, Hezekiah wanted healing more than he wanted God’s will, and God answered his prayer.

Friend, will you accept some wisdom from me? Always pray in line with your heart, not in line with what you “think” God wants to hear. Trust God to work it out - He is quite capable of healing you and having His will done at the same time!

"Better Than A Hallelujah", Amy Grant, via YouTube

Click here to read 2 Kings 20; Isaiah 38

James 5:10-20

"Elisha died and was buried." 

2 Kings 13:20 (NIV)

Friend, death is so near to me, that tears fill my eyes as I typed in this verse. Oh we live under the shadow of death! (Ps 23:4) Oh we struggle under the bondage of our fear of death! (He 2:15) And oh what a blessed salvation we have in Our Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ! What a blessed hope we have in Him, for the grave could not hold Him, and therefore it will not hold us!

This passage in 2 Kings is precious to me for it not only gives us a glimpse of the glorious truth of resurrection, by describing an incident where a dead man came back to life after being thrown in on Elisha’s bones - but also for its declaration that a man of great faith died from an illness, and was buried in the ground. We seem to think based on the promise in James 5:15 that a person of great faith will always be healed from their sickness. We believe somehow that if only we had enough faith we could have persuaded God to heal and preserve the life of our loved ones. Oh friend, not many of us will have the faith that Elisha had! The disciples might have had faith as great as Elisha’s, but did these disciples of theirs, who are called elders in this passage, have that kind of faith? Yet Elisha died despite his great faith.

No, friend, there will be a day when our loved ones will lie on a bed suffering from the illness from which they will die. Will we still seek the LORD’s face in faith even when that day arrives? Friend, there will be a day when our loved ones go from that bed into their grave. Will we still seek the LORD’s face in faith even when that day arrives? I hope so friend, for there is a time to be born, and a time to die, and when that time to die arrives may we be found as completely dependent upon receiving the grace of God thru faith as Paul was when he heard His Lord and our Lord say in response to his pleas: “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Click here to read today's Scripture

2 Kings 13:10-25

"Now Elisha had been suffering from the illness from which he died. Joash king of Israel went down to see him and wept over him. "My father! My father!" he cried. "The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" 

2 Kings 13:14 (NIV) 

A man of great faith is lying on a bed dying, and a king of little faith comes to see him. The king is afraid of the enemy and his greeting reveals his distress, for Israel is about to lose the one man that could summon the chariots and horsemen of Israel. What is the king to do? Well, Elisha puts the bow in his hands, tells him to shoot an arrow (with Elisha’s hands over his) and then take the rest of the arrows in his own hands and strike the ground. Elisha then becomes angry with the king at his lack of faith, and tells him that his lack of faith means a partial victory not a full victory.

We read this story with amazement, looking back on a time and a period where God’s grace came upon His apostate nation; the breakaway tribes that refused to worship in Jerusalem and eventually became the hated Samaritans of our Lord’s time. It was grace, for these people deserved nothing but destruction. Instead of destruction, God granted them the prophet Elijah and then Elisha, and then other prophets after, and reserved among this group a large number (7,000 at the time of Elijah) of people who worshiped the LORD and not Baal.

Faith and grace are revealed in this account. The king is not a descendant of David, but the grandson of Jehu, and the people have turned away from God and are worshiping false gods. Yet God is willing to pour out His grace and power on their behalf in response to acts of faith by this king! How much more He is willing in this age of grace, where we have received grace upon grace through His Son, our Lord Jesus – how much more is He willing to pour out grace and power in our lives and our loved one’s lives in response to our acts and prayers of faith!

O friend may we be bold, may we pray bold prayers, may we intercede for our loved ones in faith and in boldness! May we never be rebuked for our timidity.

Click here to read today's Scripture

Psalm 121

"In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa was afflicted with a disease in his feet. Though his disease was severe, even in his illness he did not seek help from the LORD, but only from the physicians." 

2 Chronicles 16:12 (NIV) 

This verse tweaks me every time I read it! On whom do I rely for help? Have I asked God to help me in my situation? I get medicine, I go to emergency, I seek medical help - which is fine and wise and right! But have I sought God’s help?

The Bible contains a lengthy record of Asa who was the great grandson of king Solomon and the king of the Judah for 41 years. 2 Chronicles 15:17 says that “his heart was fully committed to the LORD all of his life”, and we understand the context of that statement to mean that he was a true worshiper of the LORD, the Great I Am. He refused to worship idols and false gods, and he even punished his grandmother for her public worship of idols. Chapter 14 tells us that he commanded Judah to seek the LORD, the God of their ancestors, and to obey his laws and commands; truly he was a worshiper of God in the lines of Joshua who said, “as for me and my house we will serve the LORD.” YET - Chapter 16 records that the LORD rebuked him for relying on a foreign government for help instead of relying on the LORD to help him against his enemies. Then it records that Asa relied on doctors to heal his disease and did not seek help (healing) for the LORD.

How can a true worshiper of God forget to seek God’s help? I can’t explain it; I suspect that it has to do with spiritual pride, for we see a real anger directed at the prophet and other innocents following the LORD’s rebuke. I can’t explain it, but I don’t want to spend 39 years of my life as a true worshiper of God and fall into the trap of not seeking His help in every situation. May the words of Psalm 121 be true in our lives, our entire lives!

"I lift up my eyes to the mountains - where does my help come from? 

My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." 

 

Click here to read today's Scripture