Thank You

To those who may stumble upon this site, we pray that you will be blessed by its contents. You have before you nearly a year's worth of commentary on the scriptures. It's so very tempting to persuade you to stick around, now that you know this is a site concerned with the Bible. But what's the point? You're either ready to encounter the living God or not. If not, then we pray god's blessings on you, and we hope that you will seek him while he may still be found. If you are, then welcome. This site, though flawed, can help you with the discipline of scripture study if you need the help, or it can help you go a little deeper in the scriptures if you feel like you're skimming the surface.

To those of you who have dropped in more regularly, especially Aggie, thank you. It was our goal to do at least one year on this site, and we did. Now we are each very busy with other commitments (it shows!) and unsure whether we will continue with this site, start another, or move on to independent studies.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
(Paul, Ephesians 1:15-19)

Downcast?

Psalm 44:5
Why are you cast down, O my soul,and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,my salvation and my God.

As I grow older in the faith, I am more and more aware of the depth of my sin. I see the myriad ways that I fail my Lord daily...both in the sins of commission and omission. I am easily distracted, discouraged, and turned aside from Him. As I learn more of Him, I see how high and holy His standard is, and how far short I fall. To dwell on it leads to despair. This is why we must hear the Gospel weekly, and why we must wake up each morning and preach it to ourselves. The Enemy wants us to be downcast, discouraged. He wants us to lose our sight of what Christ has done for us. He wants us to think that our very existence is futile. Yet because of the Gospel, we can truly praise God in the midst of our struggles with sin and the adversities of life.

If there is one thing we have strived for in the posts of this blog, it is to articulate the Gospel of Christ. He came from heaven to earth, not to "show the way", but to be the Way of our salvation. He is the Way to God because he fulfilled all the demands of God's holiness on our behalf. He went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sin. By God's grace, and through faith in Christ, His very righteousness is imputed to us, and our sin has been nailed to the cross...once and for all. Through His Spirit He dwells within us, teaching us obedience and gratitude, and adopting us as His children. When we fail, he is there to forgive. And one day, he will grant eternal life to those who believe, in renewed spiritual bodies that will never die. When we are downcast, yet can we praise him...for he has granted us His mercy and grace!

But here there are two evils specified, which, however apparently different, yet assail our hearts at the same time; the one is discouragement, and the other disquietude. When we are quite downcast, we are not free of a feeling of disquietude, which leads us to murmur and complain. The remedy to both of them is here added, hope in God, which alone inspires our minds, in the first place, with confidence in the midst of the greatest troubles; and, secondly, by the exercise of patience, preserves them in peace. In what follows, David very well expresses the power and nature of hope by these words, I shall yet praise him; for it has the effect of elevating our thoughts to the contemplation of the grace of God, when it is hidden from our view. Nor is this an imaginary expectation produced by a fanciful mind; but, relying upon the promises of God, he not only encourages himself to cherish good hope, but also promises himself certain deliverance. We can only be competent witnesses to our brethren of the grace of God when, in the first place, we have borne testimony to it to our own hearts... By this example, therefore, we are admonished, that although Satan, by his assaults, often subjects us to a renewal of the same trouble, we ought not to lose our courage, or allow ourselves to be cast down.
- JOHN CALVIN

Trust and Fear

Today's Readings
Job 16-19 | 1 Corinthians 16 | Psalm 40:1-10 | Proverbs 22:1
Tomorrow's Readings

I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
Psalm 40:1-3

The terms fear, and hope, or trust, do not seem at first view to harmonise; but David has not improperly joined them together; for no man will ever entertain the hope of the favour of God but he whose mind is first imbued with the fear of God. This fear in general means the feeling of piety which is produced in us by the knowledge of the power, equity, and mercy of God. Now, whoever submits cordially to the will of God will of necessity join hope with fear; especially when there is presented to his view the evidence of the grace by which God commonly allures all men to himself.
John Calvin

We are so accustomed to the fear that follows the cruelty of people who abuse power and glory, that we cannot conceive of a holy fear that sets its gaze upon the eternal and righteous God. But every time God saves us - whether it be the ultimate act of regenerating our sinful spirits from death to life, or the daily and seasonal displays of his providence, wisdom and strength in our lives - every time we are saved from calamity, we cannot help but be in awe of the wonderful and terrible power wrought on our behalf. Contrary to our modern psychology, fear is a healthy response to this: Awe trains our gaze upon the impossible brightness of his glory; fear reminds us that we are dust. If that were all there was to it, then we would hate him. If we remained in sin, and if we knew nothing of God's goodness, then we would know only fear and impotence; our weakness and cowardice would drive us to despise him, to undo him if such were possible. But we know more than the power of God; we know that he is good, blessing us in abundance and turning all the evil of life to our profit. In this knowledge we stand firm. It doesn not cancel fear, but strengthens it and balances it with confidence. God's power and goodness move us equally to fear and trust: for his works are awesome to behold, and they make glad the hearts of those who love all that is good and right and true.

The innocent prosper

Today's readings
Tomorrow's readings

" Remember: who that was innocent ever perished?Or where were the upright cut off?" Job 4:7

The book of Job is hard for me to read on a few levels but the conversations between Job and his friends/accusers are painful to behold. They are painful for me because I hear them in the halls of the church I attend in various guises. And I titled this post as an ironic designation for I hear things like this all of the time and it makes me sad. We seem to have a knack for making our lives about works rather than faith. We see others in the worst possible light and ourselves in the best possible light and it should be the other way around. We see someone in a trial or suffering and we think they must have done something to deserve it. And yet a minute later we can be in a conversation about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and affirm that He died for US and He Himself was sinless. And we dont realize the disconnect in our thinking.Granted we are all sinful but all suffering is not an indication of punishment. We have only to read Proverbs and the Psalms to see that the innocent often do not prosper and the guilty can be rich beyond their wildest dreams. That is the idea that will stick with me today. Mercy and compassion and comfort are things that are naturally foreign to us and we need to cultivate them. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can. And may God richly bless us in this effort today.

To The Heavens

Today's Readings
Esther 4-7 | 1 Corinthians 12:1-26 | Psalm 36 | Proverbs 21:21-22
Tomorrow's Readings

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God;
your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O Lord.
Psalm 36:5-6

Although we may see among men sad and frightful confusion, which, like a great gulf, would swallow up the minds of the godly, David, nevertheless, maintains that the world is full of the goodness and righteousness of God, and that he governs heaven and earth on the strictest principles of equity.
John Calvin

Sometimes the doctrine of total depravity can seem to suggest that humanity is helplessly bound, and not a willing participant, in our sin nature. But the opening lines of this psalm lay any such claims of innocence exposed for a lie, for contrary to our self-image, transgression resonates within our hearts, inflaming ambition, covetousness and lust into malice and spite. But we flatter ourselves, thinking that our sin is hidden at the same time that we congratulate ourselves on our own goodness.

And then these words of praise are spoken: your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. It's sobering sometimes to consider what it means to believe in the midst of a world bent on self-love and rebellion. I wonder sometimes, what is this faith in a good God when all about us screams despair, emptiness, hopelessness and rage? Is it delusion? Have we believed in Christ because to do otherwise is simply too pessimistic? Is it desperation? Have we been taken by a lie in order to shut out the existential angst of an utterly meaningless existence?

But I always come back to Paul, who observed that those who seek wisdom find in Christ foolishness, while those who seek power find in him weakness and disgrace; but those who believe find in Christ the very power and wisdom of the eternal God (1Cor1). And so in the blackness of sin's night, still we cannot but see the glory of God, for we know his triumph on the cross signified his ultimate triumph over all of the dominion of the devil. And we know that with the devil's end we will be glorified, and that which was sown corruptible will be raised incorruptible (1Cor15) in the glorious freedom of the children of God (Rom8).

The body of Christ

Today's readings
Tomorrow's readings

"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. " 1 Cor 12:12

As I get older I find myself concentrating more and more on what it means to love. Not the emotionally charged love that is invariably intertwined with lust but the sacrificial love that Christ calls us to. That is a hard subject to talk about because it goes hand in hand with my selfishness and judgemental nature. I have been thinking about this more and more because I am realizing little by little how much Christ has loved me when He gave His life so that mine could be ransomed and saved from destruction. That love should then flow out of me to those around me and to my shame often it does not. It is an easy thing to love those whom we like. It is a hard thing to love those who are difficult or different or have special needs. And yet all of the saved are part of Christ's body. We may have different gifts and different tasks but we are no less than a child of God and that is distinction enough. Love of those around us is something that is consistently taught in the Bible and cannot be ignored. Loving your enemies sometimes is the easier thing to contemplate because we can see the immediate benefit of overcoming our hatred and it is almost a reward in our minds. To love the man or woman who is not an enemy but is self centered or does not bathe often or is obnoxious and crude is more difficult. But we are not better and are often worse and for every person that I think is obnoxious there are at least 2 who think I am a major pain in some way. But I often choose to forget that given that I see myself in the best light most of the time. We are all parts of the body of Christ and we should love each other as such. May God grant us the humility today and every day to love others as He loves us.

Defend me O Lord

Today's readings
Tomorrow's readings

" How long, O Lord, will you look on?Rescue me from their destruction,my precious life from the lions!" Psalm 35:17

Serving the Lord can be difficult at times. And it should be joyful at all times but my sinfulness is legion and I get in the way. I am impatient with Him because things do not go according to my time table. Then occasionally I will come to my senses and laugh at myself. It is not my time table that is important it is His. And I am too stupid and sinful to know what is good for me anyway most days. I am going through a rough time at work and it seems as if each new day brings a new beating. Mostly it is through the selfishness and stubborness of others that causes me to endure whatever harshness comes my way but it is my sinfulness as well. But it is really hard to be doing the right and ethical thing in the midst of depravity and still be the one punished. The specifics of the situation are not terribly important because we all encounter these situations in our walk. The problem is that I am tired and discouraged and so it seems like a never ending battle. And like the psalmist I want to ask the Lord how long He will wait. How long do I have to endure this situation and where do I find the strength to fight the good fight? Those questions are natural and I need to remember that the fight is not mine. The strength is not mine. Like Elijah on Mount Carmel the equation is not 800 against one; the equation is 800 against one plus the Lord and I will take those odds any day. And just because I do not see immediate evidence of deliverance for me does not mean the Lord is silent. My witness through this time might be just what is needed for someone to believe in Jesus or have their faith reaffirmed. Or it could be so that I come to a fuller dependence on the Lord and stop relying on myself. Whatever it is I have the ultimate solution in my salvation. The body they may kill, God's truth abideth still. That will keep the lions at bay today and remind me that Daniel faced such a situation and the solution was completely unexpected. May God's grace and mercy be with all of us this day.

Taste and See

Today's Readings
Nehemiah 9:22-10:39 | 1 Corinthians 9:19-10:13 | Psalm 34 | Proverbs 21:13
Tomorrow's Readings

I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
for those who fear him have no lack!
The young lions suffer want and hunger;
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
(Psalm 34:4-10)

David calls upon men to stir up their senses, and to bring a palate endued with some capacity of tasting, that God's goodness may become known to them. His meaning, therefore, is that there is nothing on the part of God to prevent the godly, to whom he particularly speaks in this place, from arriving at the knowledge of his goodness by actual experience. From this it follows, that they also are infected with the common malady of dullness. This doctrine is confirmed by the promise immediately added, Blessed is the man who trusts in him; for God never disappoints the expectations of those who seek his favour. Our own unbelief is the only impediment which prevents him from satisfying us largely and bountifully with abundance of all good things.
John Calvin

David's encouragement to us emerges out of his own need and experience in prayer. "This poor man cried..." transforms into "those who fear him have no lack"; "...saved him out of all his troubles" transforms into "those who seek the Lord lack no good thing". Our health & wealth brethren are fools for forgetting that we pass through troubles to find the abundance of God's provision - the reason for this is stated by Calvin: we are all given to dullness of heart. When we enjoy God's abundance, we too often slide slowly into forgetfulness and presumption; the withdrawal of his blessing leaves us flopping like minnows left exposed by the heat of the sun. Baked and parched, the discomfort moves us to once again desire his living water. We cry out to him, and he hears us.