Fw: looking back, looking forward

Psalm 80:

17 But let your hand be on the man of your right hand,
    the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
18 Then we shall not turn back from you;
    give us life, and we will call upon your name!

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Looking back at the Psalms...looking back with the knowledge of Jesus...we see Him in those writings.  They were inspired...Holy Spirit thoughts placed in the minds of human writers.  Looking forward a thousand years to Jesus' birth and three thousand years to the present time we have come to know that "the son of man" who was "made strong for yourself" would be the inspiration for us "not to turn back".  Through this son we have been given life and because of that new life we call upon God's name in sincerity, praise, need and worship.

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This Psalm is ever current!

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blessings!

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Fw: A dose of reality

Psalm 78 is an amazing recount of God and the people of Israel during the years after He delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  A major them of the psalm is that, despite God doing amazing miracles to sustain millions of people in a desert over generations the people of Israel did a "reverse miracle" and managed to continually forget His reality.

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It's a good reminder for us...for we who have been born again through faith in Jesus Christ.  Let's not forget to go back in our minds and remember how we also were delivered, personally.  We each have our story of faith...how we were living in our own strength, trying to make it with the limited resources of our minds and bodies...and then God broke into our understanding...broke us out of our "self" lives and showed us deep within our spirits his awesome knowledge of us personally.

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There are still reminders of how God did miracles in the desert for the people of Israel.  I'm attaching a picture of the rock that Moses struck at God's command to bring gushing rivers up out of the ground and create a river of water to quench the thirst of the people of Israel in the desert.

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Psalm 78:15 He split rocks in the wilderness
    and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16 He made streams come out of the rock
    and caused waters to flow down like rivers.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Fw: The greater reality

We define reality as we perceive it through our eyes and through the experience of our lives.  But our perception of reality is dwarfed by a greater reality.  That is the reality of the great God who made us.  There was a time when we were not yet here (by far...most of history).  There is a sliver of time while we walk the earth.  And then we return to dust and time rolls on.  And somehow we think that our reality...our experience...is the definition of reality.

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I think Moses was getting at some of this perspective in Psalm 90.  Here are a few key passages:

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90 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

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4 For a thousand years in your sight
    are but as yesterday when it is past,
    or as a watch in the night.

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10 The years of our life are seventy,
    or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

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12 So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.

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I especially like how the psalm ends.  God and man together...this is the greater reality!

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16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and establish the work of our hands upon us;
    yes, establish the work of our hands!

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Fw: When you hit bottom...

Psalm 88 O Lord, God of my salvation,
    I cry out day and night before you.
2 Let my prayer come before you;
    incline your ear to my cry!

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The reality of life is that it is lived in the context of eventual death.  No one likes to think about dying but everyone will.  And the process of dying usually includes sickness and suffering as these temporary bodies fail.  But we have only known life while being carried about in these bodies.  It is hard to picture life apart from the body.  And the frontier of suffering is one that is experienced at an intensely personal level.  Fortunately we have an intensely personal God.  While we cry out for deliverance from pain and suffering and we seek to reclaim our healthy lives, God is the only one who can heal and the only one who can perfectly understand the suffering, while providing His presence regardless of the physical outcome.

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The psalmist feels free to ventilate to God all the depression, frustration, fear and desperation:

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Psalm 88:8 ...I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
9     my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O Lord;
    I spread out my hands to you.

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This psalm doesn't have a happy chorus and sometimes in life there is a stretch that is just plain tough.  And we must be tough, also.  Like the suffering psalmist our discipline is to cry out daily to God.  But that is exactly what we should be doing in good times as well...the daily call and cry to God.  Our suffering defines our limits and points us to the limitless Creator and Savior...the one with whom we shall dwell even past these temporary earthly vessels.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Fw: Heaven and earth harmony

The psalms are an art form.  They express the feeling...the emotion...wrapped up in living life.  They capture the tension of man living in the pull between Heaven's leadership and a fallen earth's daily reality.  As we read through the psalms this summer we see the battle raging.  Will man trust in the God who made him and desires to lead and protect him...or will he trust in what God has created instead.  When the enemies of God show up how will he respond?

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Psalm 85 provides encouragement to the people of God who have turned away, but now are returning to Him because they realize that life doesn't go well apart from a close trust in the Lord.

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Consider the beauty that can flow when the people of God are in harmony with Heaven:

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Psalm 85:

9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,
    that glory may dwell in our land.

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
    righteousness and peace kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground,
    and righteousness looks down from the sky.

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Surely this poetry paints the harmony of heaven that God intends for us.  Such good outcomes when our faith matches His faithfulness!

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blessings,

Rob Smith 

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Fw: god's of our making

Psalm 82 is like a short science fiction story.  It creates a picture of many gods that form some kind of council with the true God at the head.  The psalmist makes the point that the gods that man creates (think of the Greek gods, for example) do not show the most essential qualities of the true God.  You could make a case that each of us follows one god or another, even if that god is our own personal life.

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Consider the following qualities that the man-made gods fail to perform and only the one true God can do:

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3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
    maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
    deliver them from the hand of the wicked."

5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
    they walk about in darkness;
    all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

It makes me think of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says "Blessed are the meek" and "Blessed are the poor in spirit" and "Blessed are those who mourn".

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Man looks for the gods who will conquer and lift him high.  God looks for the man who realizes his "lowness" and then He lifts him up!

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Ultimately, we should all put our complete trust in, and bow before the God of Heaven and Earth...consider the final verse of the psalm:

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8 Arise, O God, judge the earth;
    for you shall inherit all the nations!

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Fw: War in the city of Peace

Psalm 79 O God, the nations have come into your inheritance;

    they have defiled your holy temple;
    they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

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The people of Israel had tasted of God's miracles.  He'd delivered them from slavery as an entire nation and provided food and water in the midst of a desert to sustain them for 40 years.  He'd driven out enemies and led them to a promised land and established a city of peace called Jerusalem.  But, as is the manner of people, they forgot God and went their own ways.  More than that, they angered God by following false gods and taking on evil ways from local cultures.

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God wasn't silent.  He brought strong armies against Israel and led them into captivity for 70 years....and the city of peace was destroyed by war.

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The psalmist, here, in the depths of despair, remembers God.  Sometimes it takes a great crisis to come back to our great God.

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5 How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?
    Will your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out your anger on the nations
    that do not know you,
and on the kingdoms
    that do not call upon your name!

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Even when believers "forget" God in their actions...somewhere deep inside they know He is real.  When their lives are on the line they "remember" and cry out.  But they must come back to God through the door of repentance:

-8 Do not remember against us our former iniquities;
    let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
    for we are brought very low.

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Finally, they realize that even the deliverance that God provides is ultimately for His glory...to show His might to a world of unbelief!

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9 Help us, O God of our salvation,
    for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and atone for our sins,
    for your name's sake!

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Amazingly, even our sins and rebellion can ultimately provide a stage for God to be magnified and known by others.  That is an encouragement we can take as believers in the midst of our current culture of rebellion and evil.  Just as Jerusalem was ultimately restored as the city of His peace.

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13 But we your people, the sheep of your pasture,
    will give thanks to you forever;
    from generation to generation we will recount your praise.

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."