How Majestic is Your Name!

Psalm 8

I have always been amazed by God’s creation for as long as I can think of I marveled at its beauty. From my youth reflecting on the times mom took us to the main library getting that book on how to build a telescope so that I could get a closer look at the stars.  Now, man has sent a telescope out into space so that we can gaze even deeper into the universe. If you’ve never done it before go to the science centers observatory and take a look.

As I sit and watch the geese, both mother and father nurturing their children again I sit in awe. Wonderfully they protect them. They show them how to swim. One flaps his wings demonstrating to them how to strengthen their wings, and feeding them leading them to various pastures.

Reading this amazing Psalm you can visualize young David still tending to his sheep lying in the pastures with his eyes fixed heavenward, with feelings of wonder and excitement when he looks at His heavens, the work of His fingers, the moon and the stars. Yet, to think that in all that God has done in establishing the foundations of the earth, creating the birds in the sky to the fish in the sea He would be mindful enough to care for man.

Creating man in His image, and likeness that man would have dominion over creation. In this man was separated from the rest of living creation and defined his relationship as above the rest of creation. This authority comes in our unity now given us in Christ Jesus, once lost in Adam.

What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels;  you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Heb 2;6-9

God’s Majestic Name. The opening words in v.1 set the theme of the psalm, which v.9 then repeats. The majesty of God’s name his revealed character is seen in the dignity He gives to mankind. Esv

D John

All rise “Our LORD and Judge” presides

PSALM 7

Carrie Prejean keeps her crown, a day later Shanna Moakler resigns. She says ” since the press conference yesterday, I had a chance to think about what has taken place, and I feel that at this time it is in the best interest to resign from Miss California USA organization” Why you ask “she doesn’t in a clear conscious believe in what the organization represents” You see, Miss Prejean “My”( emphasis mine) Miss USA announced a campaign opposing gay marriage and Ms Moakler announced she was appearing in a new add supporting gay rights. Criticism comes in all forms and when we least expect it.

Running from his son David comes into Bahurim a Benjaminite town on the north side of the Mount of Olives. He encounters Shimei, the son of Gera, a man of the family of the house of Saul. Now Shimei curses continually David as well as throw stones at him, why because he’s bitter and holding onto a grudge that he can’t let go. But, its what he said in the criticism that perplexes David. ” Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man! The LORD has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the LORD has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood.”

There is some truth in what he says in that the kingdom has been given into the hand of Absalom. But temporarily. And the criticism wasn’t what Shimei nor David assumed.  Living a vertical life means putting all of your eggs in the LORDS basket and trusting in His promises and that’s what we find continuously from David here as he opens with “O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; yet perplexed his mind racing to and fro he has his son chasing him now this man cursing him for something he is unsure of if he committed these atrocities. Yet, he is steadfast in following the LORD his God he submits that if he has wronged anyone he surrenders himself to the judgement of HIM who sustains him.

O LORD my God, if I have done this: if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid evil to him who was at peace with me, or have plundered my enemy without cause, Let the enemy pursue me and overtake me; yes, let him trample my life to the earth, and lay my honor in the dust.

In a speech “Citizenship in a Republic” delivered in Paris 23 Apr 1910 by Theodore Roosevelt he says, ” It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually try to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. “

The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.

As we walk vertically living horizontally we will face the criticism, some just, and some not. Find refuge in Our LORD and God, and to HIM give the thanks due to his righteousness, and sing praises to the name of the LORD,  the MOST HIGH

 

D John

Fallen! I feel I can’t get up

Psalm 6

 Remember that old television commercial for the medilert tag, “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” it’s been the coffee room joke now for many years. What about the time you walked by the mirror and asked that question what has happened and who are you? I can honestly say I have. I can still hear momma saying go get that switch and go to your room. It’s then we cry out please, please I promise I won’t. It’s at that time as we peer at the reflection, thinking about the many tears we’ve cried, sorry for the hypocritical life we’ve lead. We ask our Father crying out please, please “rebuke me not in your anger” I won’t do it again please be gracious to me O Lord for I am languishing. Like David, we find ourselves hard pressed, fallen, and feel we can’t get up it’s then we recognize where we are and ask for forgiveness.

“Turn, O LORD, deliver my life; save me for the sake of you steadfast love. For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?

I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.

Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping. The LORD has heard my plea; the LORD accepts my prayer.”

Malcom Muggeridge wrote; Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo, as Huxley envisaged in “Brave New World”, the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the Cross signifies. And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.

“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:3-5

D John

As I walk before my enemies

As I walk before my enemies

Psalm 5

 

 

We’ve often been told “ do onto others as others would do onto you.” Nowhere is this found in scripture. Luke 6:31 and as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. So it would seem that this is just the oposite of what the world would have us think. Romans 12:16-19 “live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, vengence is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

 

We find David in this psalm on his knees looking up, he’s living vertically and walking horizontally. I’m reading Eugene Petersons book “Christ plays in ten thousand places” and he’s talking about Christ and the pattern he sets for His disciples – he says p 234 “ The pattern holds: whatever we do in Jesus’ name, we begin on our knees before our friends and neighbors and conclude looking up to heaven praying to the Father. Washing dirty feet and praying to the Holy Father bookend our lives. We can’t live Jesus’ life, we can’t do Jesus’ work, without doing it within the boundaries that Jesus set.”

 

-         There’s an Irish prayer that goes

        May those that love us, love us

        and those that don’t love us,

       may God turn their hearts;

      and if He doesn’t turn their hearts,

     may He turn their ankles

     so we’ll know them by their limping.

 

We can’t ignore our enemies but be mindful of them, pray for them, continue to live righteously. And allow God to be God.

 

 

D John

 

A Nation in Distress

Psalm 1,2,4

Eph 4:17-32

 

 

A ship sails the seas completing its journey looking for home. Night comes, storms arise and the fog thickens. The captain no longer can see the beacon of the lighthouse. Like this captain we can’t seem to find our way bitterness, anger, lust covetousness and greed have clouded our mind we have hardened our hearts, no longer able to see God. We no longer seek Him. He doesn’t exist anymore.

 

Stuck even trapped in the rut of life completing the mundane, we find our rest in the sanctuary of our own homes. Speaking to our neighbor is a thing of the past. Like God we don’t even know them. Something is lost and forsaken. How can I, how can we find ourselves? How do we find God?

 

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night, yet our nations rage. Our anger and bitterness has turned to wrath for we have sinned.

 

Chosen by God as Christians we have a duty an obligation to our fellow man no longer are we to walk as gentiles, we must put away falsehood, speak truth with our neighbor for we are members one of another. Put on the new self being renewed in the spirit of our minds we have been created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Lets live vertically and walk horizontally.

 

D John

 

Bound to Him – Led by the Holy Spirit

When we think about slavery and imprisonment picture in your mind the chains of the prisoner as he is led to his holding cell.

As, the chains that bind his hands and ankles we have little choice but to submit to the pull of the leader or be drug against our will. 

Paul writes in Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

As a Christian we’ve determined that we will follow Him, if then I say follow Him willingly don’t find yourself being drug, in, so doing you are resisting the Holy Spirit for it is He that is leading you to Christ and through your journey in life

 

D John

Love words can’t describe

How do we love thee Creator of the heavens and earth. We do not see thee with our natural eye yet you are there.

As we seek thee you make Yourself known to us that we may find thee. How do we love thee we love thee from within, our spirit is quickened by thee as we glorify thy name.

You are Most Holy and all love. You have cared for us before we have cared for ourselves, Father I thank thee for who you are, Father I love thee more than mere words can describe.

 

D John

Depravity, to permissiveness that leads to rationalization…

Still reflecting on my last post and the thoughts of intolerance. I came across an article by, John MacArthur ” Why biblical Christianity is intolerable in an age of “Tolerance” you can find it at http://www.gty.org . He said “Unfortunately, the church in our generation is drifting from these fundamental convictions and has already begun to embrace postmodern ideas uncritically. Evangelicalism is quickly losing its footing, and the church is becoming more and more like the world. Fewer and fewer Christians are willing to stand against the trends, and the effects have been disastrous. Subjectivity, irrationality, worldliness, uncertainty, compromise, and hypocrisy have already become commonplace among churches and organizations that once constituted the evangelical mainstream.”

Then today I’m listening to Woodrow Kroll and he’s going through James 3 and it’s the reading from a Robert Frost poem that brought me back to where I am now still thinking about this subject. The poem was a ” The Road Not taken”

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
But be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent into the undergrowth;

Then took the other, and just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the road less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

How did we get here? To this place of tolerance of any and everything intolerable to Christianity. Depravity that dwells within each of us, an allowable permissiveness because we don’t want to offend anyone and discounting the word of God making it of no affect. But, thats Satans ploy of deception.

Christ commands us, Mat 7:13-14 “Enter ye in at the strait gate for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Luke 13:24 “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

Ready yourself for a fight because its is upon us all, Peter 1:13 “preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ” You shall be holy , for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,” understand that all must appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

D John

Did God actually say?

In reflecting on my good friends blogpost http://web.me.com/toddgroup/digital_publius/Blog/Entries/2008/12/22_What%E2%80%99s_In_A_Name_(Calling).html
there were many thoughts that went through my mind. Yet the scripture from Genesis 3:1 kept ringing in my head. Did God actally say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. We see here a play on words for the woman has changed what the Lord had spoken in ch 2 v18 You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

December 11th the title of the Christian Post article reads “Oxford Junior Dictionary Drops Christian Words” The article states – “Christian-related words like “bishop,” “chapel,” “disciple,” “minister,” “sin,” and “devil,” have been replaced by words like “blog,” “biodegradable,” “MP3 player,” “democratic,” and “celebrity,” in the 2007 edition of the popular children’s dictionary in the United Kingdom.” The reason ” Vineeta Gupta, the head of children’s dictionaries at Oxford University Press, told the Telegraph the changes were made to reflect a “multicultural” society. “

Society as a whole is ok with it. Change a words meaning to fit whatever I want it to mean. All sounds like relativism to me. Your truth is your truth and my truth will be mine. What we are talking about on a grander scheme is the removal of God Himself from the lives of everyone. If he “satan” can plant doubt, replace or remove words and the meanings thereof I then leave open the door to question the true motives of God Himself.

If it means that I am to be called a bigot because i am intolerant to changing one word of His message then let it be so. Let me fanatically stand on every word that He has given us now and forever more.

D John

Thanksgiving Reflections

“Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God” Eph 5:20 “For from him and through him and to him are all things.To him be glory forever. Amen” Rom 11:36

We as a people have much to be grateful, and thankful for. Yet we neglect and overlook the One responsible for that which we have.

Looking for civil and religious liberty pilgrims set sail on a 2 month journey for the New World. Under extreme conditions they found land in late November, but prayer was a staple in their daily lives, and it was by prayer that they perservered.

“Edward Winslow one of the pilgrim settlers described their thanksgiving this way… Our harvest being gotten in, our Governor sent four men on fowling so that we might, after a special manner, rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as served the company almost a week. Many of the Indians amongst us and, their king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted; and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us yet By the goodness of God we are far from want“

It is this mindset that we ought to have in our daily lives, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father. 1 Thess 5:18 tells us in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. However we are warned in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 , that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. You see this in the Americas and the world around us. Change your focus! We were saved to serve our Creator and there is so, so much to thank Him for even as we all go through our individual trials. Just keep in mind that the trials we go through are part of the purification process see Ezekiel 36:22-32.

In closing this prayer is taken from ”The Valley of Vision” titled God All- Sufficeient

“O Lord of grace, 

The world is before me this day,

 and I am weak and fearful,

 but I look to thee for strength;

If I venture forth alone I stumble and fall,

 but on the beloved’s arms I am firm as the eternal hills;

If left to the treachery of my heart I shall shame thy name,

 but if enlightened, guided, upheld by thy Spirit,

 I shall bring thee glory.

Be thou my arm to support,

 my strength to stand, my light to see,

 my feet to run, my shield to protect,

 my sword to repel, my sun to warm.

to enrich me will not diminish thy fullness;

all thy lovingkindness is in thy Son,

I bring him to thee in the arms of faith,

I urge his saving name as the one who died for me.

I plead his blood to pay my debts of wrong.

Accept his worthiness for my unworthiness,

 his sinlessness for my transgressions,

 his purity for my uncleanness,

 his sincerity for my guile,

 his truth for my deceits,

 his meekness for my pride,

 his constancy for my backsliding,

 his love for my enmity,

 his fullness for my emptiness,

 his faithfulness for my treachery,

 his obedience for my lawlessness,

 his glory for my shame,

 his devotedness for my waywardness,

 his holy life for my unchaste ways,

 his righteousness for my dead works,

 his death for my life.” 

Lets not wait until the celebrated Thanksgiving day to be thankful, lets give God thanks each and every day share with someone that you work with, go to school with, work out with, or even live with the reason for your joy and why you are thankful for we have a gracious God!