ResponsiveReiding

Margin notes: Psalm 46

September 5th, 2019

Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.
6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

God IS our refuge, He does not provide one outside of Himself. He desires us to run to Him in everything.

God is our strength – He does not make US strong, He bids us to rely upon Him.

God is VERY present in our troubles. He is not far off. He remains with us at all times.

THEREFORE the Psalmist concludes: Since the One who made the earth is the one we run to when it crumbles beneath our feet; since the one who formed the mountains is our strength, when they begin to disintegrate; since He is ever with us though by all accounts we are to be overwhelmed and drowned – we will not fear. Our reality encompasses more than the created universe. We are loved by the Creator.

And therefore, we can “be still.” Be calm. Be comforted, in knowing that He is God.

That he WILL be exalted among the nations in due time.

That He WILL be exalted in the earth.

That He IS with us.

That He IS our fortress.

Hallelujah!
Margin notes: An encouragement to prayer

September 4th, 2019

Matthew 20:29–34 (ESV) — 29 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.

What a great encouragement to prayer this account is.

Note that Jesus is never too busy, never too preoccupied to hear us when we pray. Nor does He fail to hear us because of where we are. These men were unable to go to Him, but He was passing by. He always is. And despite the chaos of the “great crowd” and the rebukes of that crowd to stop pestering Jesus – perhaps interrupting His teaching – He heard. And stopped. And responded.

And note how He did not presume to know what they wanted. He asked them. He does not respond like a machine, but in pity and in an attitude of personal care. While we might think their blindness was the obvious need, who knows what else may have been the case. Might there be an even worse malady, or perhaps someone else they would petition for? But He stops to ask. As He does with us. He waits to hear our hearts and minds. He gives us His tender, personal attention.

Nor is He offended that their prayer centered on their own perceived need at the moment. He did not rebuke them that they did not ask for greater, grander, more spiritual things. They cried out, out of their need. And so do we. And no doubt, there were better, more important things they could have asked for. But this is where they were. This is what filled their hearts at the moment. And Jesus, in His tenderness and compassion meets the need of the moment as they were experiencing it. He is so good and gracious and overflowing with compassion toward us – in all of our needs, great and small.

As they followed Him after their healing, no doubt they learned to pray for many other things far beyond their mere physical needs. But this is where they began. And so with us. We grow in grace in time and the focus of our prayers can and will shift. But we ought never to forget how He meets us where we are, even as He designs to take us beyond where we are in time. Never be ashamed of the smallest need, but cast ALL of your cares upon Him. For He cares for us.
Margin notes: The power of prayer

September 3rd, 2019

Matthew 14:27–31 (ESV) — 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29 He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

We all know this famous account of Jesus walking on the water to the Disciples. Here they were in the storm, and here comes Jesus – in the most unlikely way. We can only imagine how mind-boggling this must have been for them. And then Peter – perhaps without thinking it through at all takes the step of asking Jesus to command him to walk on the sea. I for one would never have the nerve. Blessed impetuous Peter.

And then, distracted by the wind and waves, Peter begins to sink. And so he prays. No formally, the way we normally think of prayer – he just cries out in his panic. And it is so very informative and encouraging.

And when it is all said and done, could there be a more eloquent prayer? It is but 2 words in the Greek – “Lord! Save!”

It wasn’t dismissed for its brevity. It wasn’t ignored because it was uttered in terror. It wasn’t denied because the very thing which occasioned it was lack of faith – but it was answered because it was directed at our Lord. Because Christ is a Christ who saves those who call upon Him. Because He is merciful. Because He is faithful. Because He is compassionate. Because He is full of grace. Because He loves us. It is not the power, eloquence, length or glory of our prayers – but the wonder of the One we pray to. Never think your prayer too weak, too poorly phrased, too imprecise, too un-religious sounding to be heard and answered. For the power in prayer is not located in how well we pray, but in how well our Savior hears and responds. He is a prayer-hearing and answering God. And we have full access to Him because of Christ’s death on our behalf.

If your prayer today is only “Lord! Save!” Know it is enough. Because He is enough.
Margin notes: The Gift of Suspicion

August 30th, 2019

Proverbs 30:7–9 (ESV): Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: 8 Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, 9 lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

The two things our writer is concerned about here merge in being kept back from deception by virtue of his own response to external conditions.

Poverty lies to us – in that when we feel deprived, we begin to believe it is a worng doen to us by God and profane Him in theft. Riches deceive in our foolish trust in them. It is this tendency toward self-deception our writer sees within himself and prays that God will not allow him to fall victim to his own perverse inward sinfulness. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

And in this day of the proliferation of the “prosperity Gospel”, who would think to pray this way? In a world obsessed with success (humanly measured), performance, personal achievement and the notion that God seems to exist for me, to make my life what I desire it to be – what a rebuke this is! How it challenges us to examine our desires and priorities. To see if our goal is Christlikeness above comfort; freedom from sin instead of freedom to sin; and self-suspicion above self-confidence. But it seems as though we assume that if we want it, it must be valid and therefore it is God’s mandate to help us secure it. Whatever “it” may be.

Personally, abundance seems to be the more destructive to me. My tendency to take what is abundantly given, and to rest in it apart from the Giver, and to be greedy in it so as to want even more beyond what He has provided is a most pernicious facet of my own soul. But I have also known the sin of self-justifying theft when pinched by circumstances.

Heavenly Father, you know my heart better than I. You know my propensity to grow more stingy when I have abundance, and resentful when in lack. Grant me the gift of suspecting my own motives that I might seek only what will be most in keeping with recreating the image of Christ within me, and honoring you in my life and decisions. Grant only what is most needful for me in your quest to rid me of sin, and make me like Jesus.
Margin notes: Repentance that makes a difference

August 29th, 2019

Psalm 51:10–12 (ESV) — 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

People often conceive of repentance merely in terms of someone taking responsibility for their sin or saying they are sorry for it, they regret it. And this is right and proper, but it is just the leading edge.

Here, David models the part of genuine repentance that is most often ignored. He does not simply make an empty pledge not to do it again, but he recognizes the pollution of his own heart – that his sin is an inward problem not located simply in wrong actions. Sin is a heart problem. An issue of loving what is not good or right to love. Something that requires far more than human resolutions – it takes the work of God to purify, to cleanse, to bring the very heart to a new and restored place. To have new and better desires themselves. An inward renovation which can only be wrought by the Spirit of God within.

And then he proceeds to a most vital idea: Give me the resolution of heart and mind that I do not find within myself. Give me YOUR strength. Your resolve. Your steadfastness. Your endurance. Fill me with Your Spirit. I am helpless left to myself.

And it is in this light that he prays he will not be rejected. The rejection he fears at this juncture is not a total repudiation by God – but that his prayer will not be heard. In other words, it is a prayer of desperation. He is desperate for God’s working in his heart. He knows apart from that, all is lost.

Never settle for merely asking for forgiveness for your sins. Pray desperately for the enduement of God’s Spirit to create in you as native a love of holiness as He Himself has.

As the hymn writer expressed it:

Breathe on me Breath of God,

Fill me with life anew,

That I may love, what Thou dost love,

And do what Thou wouldst do

Heavenly Father – DO hear that prayer today for me, and for my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Margin notes: No Jennifer, Jeffrey didn’t escape.

August 28th, 2019

Revelation 21:5–8 (ESV) — 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

I read it just this week in any number of places – this from the NewsMax website: Last month, Jennifer Araoz said he had raped her when she was a 15-year-old New York City high school student. On Saturday, she was angry that Epstein won’t have to face the survivors of his abuse in court. “We have to live with the scars of his actions for the rest of our lives, while he will never face the consequences of the crimes he committed,” or the “pain and trauma he caused so many people,” Araoz said in a statement. “Epstein is gone, but justice must still be served.”

Jeffrey Epstein was by all counts and convicted pedophile, serial abuser, and unrepentantly immoral on every level. And just as he was coming to trial, he died in jail. These are facts everyone familiar with the case know. But what the Believer knows, contrary to what many of Epstein’s victims repine – is that in his death he did anything but escape justice. Indeed, if they knew the terror that awaits all who refuse to repent and seek Christ for the forgiveness of sins and for the power to live holily before God, their sense of justice not being served by our judicial system would be wiped away.

It is never right to delight in the death and ultimate demise of the lost. Be it Jeffery Epstaien or any other unrepentant man or woman. But the Christian knows full well justice cannot be escaped by physical death. For the soul lives on. And each must stand before the judgment bar of God – either clothed in the filth of their sin, or in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And if any stand their apart from Christ, the Scripture is unequivocal: [They] “also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and…will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, d.and they have no rest, day or night.”

We take no delight in their lot. But we do delight that our God will bring to rights all things amiss, unaddressed and justice seemingly thwarted in this life. And it is why we with the Apostle Paul: knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. (2 Cor. 5:11)

Hence, the Believer rests in the justice and holiness, as well as in the grace and mercy of our God in Jesus Christ. He cannot (not just will not) He cannot, fail to be fully, perfectly and eternally – just. What a miracle then salvation really is. For if Christ had not died in our place – we would face that same, eternal justice.
Margin notes: Why am I downcast?

August 27th, 2019

Psalm 42:11 – 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.

This short Psalm has been a refuge for many of God’s people throughout the centuries. Its opening expressions of thirst for God are deeply moving. David is in pain. And, he is counseling himself. I think it was D. Martin Lloyd-Jones who remarked that Christians need to talk to themselves more – to take their own thoughts in hand and counsel themselves from what they know of God’s Word and from their life experiences of Him. This is David’s tack.

Now his question in this last verse is one he asks both honestly, and rhetorically.

In the first part, he lists things that reasonably bring sorrow to his soul and would make him downcast. Written when he was fleeing from his own son’s attempt at a coup for the throne, that form of betrayal and violence would deeply distress anyone. Being on the run for his life, and not in the place where he can worship with his beloved people as was his practice. Taunted by his enemies. Chased like a common criminal while family and friends plot his demise. These are reasonable causes for great despair.

But then he also asks it rhetorically as he reminds himself of the greater reality overshadowing his present distresses – and sort of chides himself: Why – even though these other things are true – why should my soul be cast down and I be full of inner turmoil? For in the final analysis, I know this: I can hope in the God who has proven Himself to me all my life. I can trust in Him that the time WILL come that I will yet praise Him. For He is my salvation. He is my God. So why in the world should I let these other things – as dire as they may be – blot out the abiding knowledge of God’s power, goodness, grace and promises?

And perhaps you and I need to ask that very same thing today as well. Let us face our trials without trying to pretend they are not there. But also face them in the full knowledge that He, IS there. And He stands above all.

This is the heritage of those reconciled to Him in Christ Jesus.
Margin notes: Psalm 40 – a “DOING” God

August 26th, 2019

Ps 40:1–4 I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. 2 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. 3 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. 4 Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!

As I read this today, I could not help but be reminded about how David notes all the things God did in these short verses. And then I recalled a quote from Rober Murray Mc’Cheyne on this same passage. His words are far more eloquent than mine:

R.M. McCheyne: The difficulty of conversion.—So difficult and superhuman is the work of turning a soul from sin and Satan unto God, that God only can do it; and, accordingly, in our text, every part of the process is attributed solely to him. “1He brought me up out of an horrible pit, 2he took me from the miry clay, 3he set my feet upon a rock, 4he established my goings, and 5he put a new song in my mouth.” God, and God alone, then, is the author of conversion. He who created man at first, alone can create him anew in Christ Jesus unto good works. And the reason of this we shall see clearly by going over the parts of the work here described. The first deliverance is imaged forth to us in the words: “He brought me up out of an horrible pit;” and the counterpart or corresponding blessing to that is, “He set my feet upon a rock.”

RAF: So if He can save us – what can’t or won’t He do for those He loves? O the wonder of being Christ’s!
Margin notes: David’s epitaph

August 23rd, 2019

Ps 30:1–3 (NET) I will praise you, O Lord, for you lifted me up, and did not allow my enemies to gloat over me. 30:2 O Lord my God, I cried out to you and you healed me. 30:3 O Lord, you pulled me up from Sheol; you rescued me from among those descending into the grave.

If this Psalm is as its title purports – then it is David speaking from the grave. He penned it before Solomon built the Temple. And now it is being used at the dedication of the Temple. He prepared it ahead of time that it might be used on that occasion. We might well read it as David’s dying testimony.

In 1-3 he recalls God’s great goodness and deliverance in times of need. And hasn’t He delivered me and you from the sins which raged so fiercely against us? Indeed they still rage – but He is faithful, and the blood of the cross of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.

In 4-5 David calls other Believers to give thanks to God for His faithful love. Even when He is angry with us, His good favor always restores us. He never abandons us.

Vss. 6-10 find David recalling how he foolishly trusted in his own strength, in his own faith at times, and then realizing security rests only in his God. How God withdraws at times to remind us it is so, but always hears us when we cry out because of it.

And 11-12 speak of how God in His mercy, grace and faithfulness ultimately turns our darkest hours into dancing, and our grief into joy. And so David wants his final testimony to be thanks to the Lord. For when all is seen in the light of His glory – this is the wondrous end of the saint in the hands of his or her faithful God.

I wonder what I will leave behind to give praise to Christ when I am gone from this life? Maybe it too will be a Psalm of praise and adoration and a testimony to God’s glorious faithfulness to such a wicked sinner as I am. For surely it is true.
Margin notes: How to get back at your enemies – Biblically

August 21st, 2019

1 Peter 3:8–9 (ESV) — 8 Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

It is the 5 qualities of vs. 8 which allow you to enter into the ministry of vss. 9 and following.

The world lives on rights. The Christian, as a citizen of the Kingdom, lives more on privileges than rights. The idea here is, for the sake of manifesting Christ’s kingdom in this present age, do not worry so much about standing on your rights, but take up the privilege of living as an agent of Christ right now, in the presence of this dark and fallen world.

So the instructions are NOT: Just grit your teeth and bear it. Nor, just be the bigger person. It is rather – for the sake of manifesting the life of Christ right here and now, respond not only in a lack of retaliation or retort, but actually BLESS the other. Do that which is making evident the Spirit of Christ right in the very midst of evil – whether they perceive it as such or not. Because you were called to suffer like this, and to respond like this, that you may also obtain the blessing that comes from God alone.

To act this way not for the sake of manipulation, but solely because this is what your Heavenly Father has called us to. THIS, is living in stupendous privilege. And to do it with Worldly Governments. With Worldly employers. If in such a circumstance, with an Unbelieving Spouse. In the home with a Believing spouse. In the Church and everywhere else.

To respond in kind is NATURAL: We’ve all heard of the verbal sparring between Winston Churchill & Lady Astor –

“Winston, you are very drunk.

Churchill: And you are very ugly, but in the morning, I will sober!”

Lady Astor: “If you were my husband, I should poison your coffee!”

Churchill: “And if I were your husband, I would drink it!”

We grin and silently applaud Churchill’s rejoinders. But we are God’s children. An office higher than the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

To refrain from a negative response is NOBLE. But to actually seek to bless in response, is nothing less than supernatural.

Want to get back at an enemy Biblically? Bless them. And in it, you’ll be blessed.