Psalm 136; Psalm 138

I began this morning by reading Psalm 136 - I have to say that the repetition was at first irritating but then I decided I would read the whole psalm aloud and in so doing the tears of joy came as I realised what God was saying to me through His Word. My lovingkindness is everlasting - no matter what happens, no matter who does what to you, no matter how many lies you have believed and how many times they cause a deep sadness in your soul - My lovingkindness is everlasting and you can depend on it. 

I read that line over and over and as I did it seemed to take root in my mind and filter down through all the layers of my soul. His love, His mercy, His compassion, His grace, His truth is everlasting and it is directed towards and in and through me. I am the recipient of His lovingkindness - I am the one on whom He has showered His love, I am the one who has received of His mercy and His grace, the one to whom He has revealed Jesus, the Saviour, the Redeemer of my soul. I will give thanks to my God, the God of heaven for His lovingkindness is everlasting. 

And then I read on to Psalm 138 and the two connected in my mind - I will give You thanks with all my heart and I will praise You before all the idols of men, all the false religions, all the things that people worship - I will praise You with all my being because I have known Your lovingkindness - I have received of Your grace. I will bow before my Lord and Saviour, I will gladly ask Him to be in charge - to guide and direct and control my life. I will continue to thank You all the days of my life and I will put Your wonderful Word into my mind knowing that by it You will bring about a renewal in me, by it You will conform me into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. I will praise Your name and give thanks to the One who called me out of darkness into His marvellous light, the One who heard my cries and answered with His salvation. I will praise and thank Him for all His answers to all my cries - thank Him that not one goes unanswered, that through it all He hears and He cares and He acts. I will praise the One who gives me strength and courage, who enables me to go forward, trusting in Him. The One who made me bold with strength in my soul. I will yet praise You for You are worthy of all that I am and all that I have and more. 

One day the whole world will see Your glory and will bow before You. One day You will be exalted and the whole earth will proclaim Your glory. One day You will come as as King of kings and Lord of lords and I will come with You. Until then though I walk in the midst of trouble You will revive me - though trials and tragedy come my way I will trust in You and know Your peace. Your right hand has saved me and yet will deliver me from the final enemy that seeks to fill me with fear. I will not be afraid, even of death for I know that You have overcome - You are the mighty conqueror and You will accomplish all that concerns me. 

Your lovingkindness is everlasting and You will finish what You started; Your lovingkindness is everlasting because the Lord Jesus Christ is everlasting - Your promises are all yea and amen in Him. As long as He lives, Your Word will stand and He is the Word, the eternal God, seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. He is the God Man, the Word who became flesh, the One who lived and died and rose again - the One who defeated Satan and sin and death and offers me glory and everlasting, abundant Life. 

Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you cried out to Him and received His lovingkindness - His grace and His mercy and His forgiveness? Then this is your Lord, this is your God - this is the One who will never let you go, the One who will finish what He started in you, the One who will accomplish what concerns you. Give Him thanks for His lovingkindness is everlasting. 

Psalm 130

I trust in the Word of God - I wait for it, I hope in it. My hope is not wishful thinking because it is anchored in the character of God. He who promises is faithful - He is righteous and good - He will never disappoint and He is not a man that He should lie. I can be sure of Him and sure of His promises to me and because I am sure I go out with singing, go out to each new day with confidence, unafraid to face each situation and circumstance. What can man do to me if my God is for me? Of what will I be afraid when the great Creator God has promised eternity to me? Why would I bother about the things of this world if my inheritance is glorious, if it is reserved in heaven for me, imperishable and undelfiled? 

Out of the depths I have called to Him and He has answered my cry. He has redeemed me, forgiven me, purified and restored me. I am already glorious in His eyes and am being made more glorious as each day passes - as I choose to renew my mind with His word. No longer do I worry about my sins, trusting in His forgiveness and in His marvellous salvation. No longer am I afraid to try in case I might fail, no longer afraid of mistakes knowing that my loving Father is encouraging me, causing me to continue to trust in His grace which is always sufficient for me. My mind and my soul are filled with awe at the mercy of this holy God - filled with a desire to live for His glory - to decrease that He might increase - to live to proclaim His excellencies. 

And so I wait and I hope and I trust - I cry out to Him, come quickly Lord Jesus - put an end to the horror and the abuse, to the corruption and perversion that knows no bounds. Come quickly Lord Jesus - take Your stand upon the earth - be exalted as King of kings and Lord of lords and oh Lord until You come, help me to walk worthy of the calling with which I have been called even as I trust that You who began this good work in me will see it through to completion on the day of Christ Jesus.

2 Samuel 23:11-12

I'm just reaching the end of 2 Samuel and have been struck again and again at the life of David - trying to understand the times that he moved in and why he did what he did. I'm conscious that the line in Judges sums up the world David inhabits - 'every man did what was right in his own eyes'. Even though David is the King - even though he is a man after God's own heart - still wickedness and evil abound - still people live for themselves. 

I have been thinking along those lines for a while now - seeing in David's day the picture of our today. The King has taken His place - He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high - He has defeated death and Satan, defeated every foe, every dominion, every authority - He rules and reigns and one day He will actually stand on this planet and impose His righteousness but until then we inhabit a world where every person does what is right in their own eyes - a world of trial and trouble, of pain and sorrow - a world of wickedness and horror, a world where man's inhumanity to man knows no end. 

What then shall we do, those of us who know and love our King, how then shall we live for His glory - how will we show that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, that He is God Most High? How will we make a difference in this world, how will we hold fast until He comes? 

This line caught my eye this morning and it reminded me of something I heard a few years ago. In the middle of a list of David's mighty men here is a description of one of them and what he did when faced with an enemy that seemed so strong, when all the people around him were running away.. ' but he took his stand in the midst of the plot and defended it......and the Lord brought about a great victory.

This is what each of us must do - we must take our stand in the midst of the plot - we must take our stand in our home and our neighbourhood, in our town and in our community. We must stand for the Lord, stand up and be counted. We must make it known that we belong to the King of kings - that He is mighty and victorious and that He really does deliver us. We must make it known that He offers forgiveness and cleansing, that He loves with an overwhelming love and that He strengthens those who come to Him. We must be clear and sure of what we know - able to articulate it and to give an answer to those who question us. We must stand firm and actually live what we say we believe. We must love with His love, show mercy as He showed mercy and above all we must be full of grace and truth just as He was. 

Make no mistake there is a war that rages around us and we must take our stand on the plot on which we have been placed. We must understand that our enemy is mighty and he wil come in like a flood but that we serve a victorious King, One who has gone before us, who will stand beside us and who guarantees that we will know success as we stand for Him. 

We must fight with the sword of His Spirit, the word of God. We must make that Word the very fibre of our being as we literally put on the new man He has created for us and lay aside the old man that is constantly being corrupted and conformed to this world. 

Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite - a man who made his choice to stand in the midst of his plot and fight - a man through whom the Lord brought about a great victory. Will you be that man?. 

Colossians 1:9-12

Working together for the cause of the gospel is not always easy. Even though each one understands the truth and wants to go out and follow the Lord's commission to make disciples, still sometimes when we do it together the enemy finds a way to undermine the work. 

Paul writes here to a church that he has heard about - a faithful church,a loving church, a church that is bearing fruit not only in conversions but also in the lives of each believer - the fruit of the Spirit that is becoming more evident as they grow in their understanding of the grace of God in truth and he tells them that because he has heard a good report of them he has not stopped praying for them. Why? How come he feels the need to pray? 

We find the answer in his prayer - he prays that they will grow in their experiential knowledge of God's will so that they will live worthy of the Lord. He prays that as they do they will please God in every respect, they will bear fruit in every good work and that will increase their knowledge of God. But that is not the end - he goes on because he wants them to attain to more - he prays for their strengthening by the Lord's power so that they will attain steadfastness and patience. We might have expected something else - something that sounds more exciting, more appealing but no, he prays that they will grow to such an extent that they will be cheerfully patient with each other and long suffering in every circumstance. 

How amazing that is - this is the end result - this is what he asks the Lord for on their behalf - why? Because he knows that ministry is difficult - that human beings have issues and baggage and that the enemy uses it all to slow down or even stop the work of the gospel, the work of discipleship. 

Working together for the cause of the gospel always presents trials BUT Paul is confident that God will answer his prayer and will work in each one, chipping away at the edges, molding and shaping them into a fitting temple for the Lord, into a body of believers who will so shine in their community that they will be recognised for their joy and perseverance, their patience and steadfastness - no matter the difficulties they face in their fellowship with one another.

This should be our prayer for one another - that wherever the Lord has placed us, in whatever fellowship or church or ministry - that He would have His way, that we would so grow in our knowledge of His will that we are enabled to not only bear with one another but to do it with joy so that everyone can see that these are people who really love one another, who choose to submit themselves to one another, who decide that they will consider others as more important than themselves and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that they will allow to interfere with the work of the Lord through them

John 7:43

Jesus presence always causes division. Here those in the crowd are taking sides, some knowing He is the Christ, the Messiah, others not sure and some wanting to seize Him and all through the gospels we see the same thing - Jesus separates and He divides. I was thinking about this earlier this morning and particularly about the divide that He causes in marriages, in families, amongst friends and even in individual hearts. My family is divided - some have believed in the Lord Jesus, chosen to receive eternal life, trusted that He is the way the truth and the life and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. Some know that He is God - that He has made it possible for those who receive Him to become children of the living God - they have been born again, new creations, covered in the righteousness of the One who knew no sin but became sin on their behalf that they might become the righteousness of God in Him. 

And that's me of course - I have put my trust in Christ - given Him my life and asked Him to use me in whatever way He sees fit for His glory and for His kingdom. But still He divides - He causes division in my heart because each day I must choose where and when and what I will do with the time He has given me. What shall I listen to or look at - how will I respond in each situation and will I choose this morning to let Him sort my priorities, let Him lead and direct my path, let Him be God and me not. 

Separation and division - the laying aside of the old self and the putting on of the new. The moment by moment remembering that I am not my own, I have been bought with a price so high it often defies imagination - the moment by moment remembering that God so loved the world - that He so loved me - that He gave His only Son to set me free. 

Separation and division - the battle of the Spirit against the flesh, in all its forms, subtle and not so subtle. The standing against the anxiety and fear -choosing to believe that the battle is the Lord's and that He has promised that I will overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved me; choosing to believe that He will cause all things to work together for my good because I love Him and have been called according to His purpose. Separation and division as I stand against the enemy of my soul who whispers in my ear that I am not enough, that I will never be what I am supposed to be, never pray enough, never know Him or love Him well enough - that really I am simply not what I should be and not what He wants. 

The presence of Jesus always causes division and separation and how wonderful that is - how amazing that He would show Himself to me in all those tiny things - that even as I choose to put my trust in His Word, that same Word is right this moment piercing as far as soul and spirit and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of my heart, able to speak into my heart and tell me - do not be afraid, I am here and I will never ever leave. 

I have been separated by God for Jesus - He came and I heard His voice and He has caused a division - between me and darkness, between me and Satan, between me and sin and oh how grateful I am, how full of thanksgiving for His amazing grace.