Psalm 106-107 A Roadmap From God

I saw in these chapters a path charted out to bring a sinner to redemption.  His cries are:  “Lord, remember me …. Help me when You save them.  Let me see the good things You do for Your chosen people.  Let me be happy … Let me join Your own people in praising You.”

He admits, “We have sinned … we have done wrong; we have done evil.”

So what does God do?  “But the Lord saved them for His OWN sake, to show His great power … He saved them from those who hated them … from their enemies … Then the people believed what the Lord said, and they sang praises to Him.”

It didn’t last long, however:  “They tested God there.  So He gave them what they wanted … They exchanged their glorious God for a statue of a bull … They forgot the God who saved them … They refused to go into the beautiful land … They did not believe what God promised.  They grumbled … and did not obey the Lord … The people became UNHOLY by their sins; they were unfaithful to God in what they did … The Lord saved His people many times, but they continued to turn against Him.  So they became even more wicked … But God saw their misery when He heard their cry … He felt sorry for them because of His great love … They were hungry and thirsty (spiritually), and they were discouraged … He led them on a straight road …He satisfied the thirsty and filled up the hungry .. He broke their pride … He brought them out of their gloom and darkness and broke their chains.  God gave the command and healed them…. They saw what the Lord could do … God guided them to the port they wanted.”

And what should our reaction be to His intervention in our lives?  The same as theirs:  “Let them give thanks to the Lord for His love and for the miracles He does for people.  Let them praise His greatness in the meeting of the people; let them praise Him…”

And lest we be tempted to forget all this, He concludes:  “Whomever is wise will remember these things and will think about the love of the Lord.”

Father, reading this was like watching a replay of my own life.  It reminds me too much of the movie Groundhog Day.  Just as I’d hate to be stuck in that loop, help me not to get stuck in the loop of loving You, then wanting what You don’t want me to have, and turning away from You to get it.  I know it’s better to skip to the end instead.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 105 -- Us In The Details

David recounts most of the history of the Israelites in this one psalm.  Listening to everything God did for them, it’s easy to see that they are His chosen people.

There was one sentence that stuck out early on, and when I finished reading, I went back and saw how amazingly it summed up what our feelings should be toward a God who would do all these things for us:

“Be glad that you are His.”

Be glad that God loved you enough to seek you out, to draw you to Himself, and to save You.  Understand that He didn’t have to do it.  But He did.  Not because of anything worthwhile that He saw in us.  But simply because He loves.

Father, I’m still amazed that You cared enough for me to do all that.  I was totally unworthy and deserving of death instead, yet You pursued me and purchased me with the death of Your own Son.  Such love!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 102-104 What God's Been Doing And Not Doing

Several times the statement is made:  “My whole being, praise the Lord.”  That should lead us to ask ourselves, “Is there any part of my being that is not praising the Lord?”  Perhaps my eyes could instead be looking at something that doesn’t praise the Lord, or my ears listening to disrespectful stuff.  Are my feet walking into places they shouldn’t go?  Perhaps a body check would be advisable.

Psalm 103 tells what God has been doing and what He has not been doing:

                “He forgives all my sins

                And heals all my diseases.

                He saves my life from the grave

                And loads me with love and mercy.

                He satisfies me with good things

                And makes me young again….

                The Lord does what is right and fair for all who are wronged by others …

                The Lord shows mercy and is kind …

                As high as the sky is above the earth, so great is His love for those who respect Him.

                He has taken our sins away from us as far as the east is from the west.”

So what has He not been doing?

                “He does not become angry quickly …

                He will not be always accuse us,

                And He will not be angry forever.

                He has not punished us as our sins should be punished.

                He has not repaid us for the evil we have done.”

I’m so thankful for what He has done and is doing.  Yet I’m equally thankful for His patience with me, for His mercy, and for His grace and His great love for me that has led Him to not do the things listed above.  All that should lead us to want to praise Him with our entire being.

Father, thanks for the reminder to look at my life and see that every part of me is praising You through what I’m doing and not doing.  Thank You for Your great patience with me, for Your mercy, Your grace, and Your love.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 98-101 The Cost Of Our Disobedience

“Moses and Aaron … and Samuel … called to the Lord, and He answered them.  He spoke to them … They kept the rules and laws He gave them.  Lord our God, You answered them.  You showed them that You are a forgiving God, but You punished them for their wrongs.”

The great leaders of the Jewish people still sinned.  They cried out to God for forgiveness, and in His faithfulness He granted it.  Yet, they did bear the consequences of their sin.  The most notable of the three was Moses, I think, who had led the people out of Egypt for 40 years, yet was not allowed to enter the Promised Land – having to be satisfied with gazing upon it from a high mountain just outside the borders.

We, too, can come so close to the best God has for us, yet miss it because of the consequences of our sin.  Yes, God does forgive, and He does restore.  But our sin taints our memories and causes us to have to settle for less than God’s best for us. 

Father, that may be the only sadness in heaven – to get there and have You finally show me what You’d intended for my life and then compare it to where I eventually ended up.  Yet I think it will be necessary so that we can see just how much You did love us, and how much or disobedience really cost us.  Then we will see the value of grace.  Please help me during the remaining years of my life to minimize the differences between what You want from me and what I actually do.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 92-97 We Don't Know The MEANING Of Praise

Sin has caused us to lose sight of God’s majesty and His worthiness of praise.  These psalms seem to show how much more aware people were of these facts than we seem to be today.  They still seemed to have an awareness that nature itself praises its Creator, stifled as it became by man’s sin which fundamentally altered Creation.

“Let the skies rejoice and the earth be glad; let the sea and everything in it shout.  Let the fields and everything in them rejoice.  Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy before the Lord, because He is coming.”

Why would anyone ever imagine verses like this, unless they were true?  This isn’t just the work of an artsy poet imagining frivolous things to try and capture the hearts of an audience.  There had to be truth in these words or God would not have allowed them to become part of our Bible!

All creation, in the beginning, praised its Creator and resonated with Him in expressing joy at its existence.  Skies weren’t just mixes of gases and water vapor.  They are trillions of atoms dancing before their God, working in concert to glorify the One who made them.  Yet because of our sin, they now must struggle to do what once came naturally.  Oceans speak, trees sing, rocks cry out.  But right now they’ve been muted.  They are capable of praise, and they long for the day when they can once again be free to express what they know – that our God and Creator is infinitely worthy of praise.  When God someday makes everything new, I imagine we’ll be blown away by the music all around us that right now we are unable to hear.  And as we finally do hear creation praising God as it once was able to do, we too will be led to appropriately praise Him for His greatness.

Father, I want to hear rocks cry out and trees singing about You.  We think of them as nothing, yet one day they will show us up with the honor they bestow upon You with their praise.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 88-91 Our Obedience, His Watchcare

“Lord, I cry out to You day and night.  Receive my prayer and listen to my cry.”

His cry implies that God may indeed be deflecting his prayers – that they are never heard in God’s ears.  I suppose that since God knows who the prayers are coming from, He could certainly choose to ignore them rather than listening to them.  It made me wonder, though, how God could do that, yet at the same time know when a true prayer of repentance had been prayed, so that He would begin to listen to the prayers again.

“Your love continues forever; Your loyalty goes on and on like the sky.”

The sky truly never ends, so God’s loyalty to His children won’t either.  Would His loyalty, therefore, need to include the turning away from us in order that we would feel the loss of His presence so that we’d desire that presence again and change our lives to get it back?

“My loyalty and love will be with him.  Through me he will be strong … My love will watch over him forever.”  These verses appear messianic – referring to Jesus before His actual incarnation on earth.  Yet they also could apply to David as king, or to any child of God.

“You have put the evil we have done right in front of You; Your clearly see our secret sins.”  God loves us enough to pry.  Because He is all-knowing, even our secret sins are known to Him.  In His love, He desires to change us, and secret sins are a good place to start.

The last part of Psalm 91 seems to wrap up the connection between obeying God and experiencing His love for us:

“Because he loves me, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges My name.  He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble.  I will deliver him and honor him.  With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.”

Father, that’s what I want and that’s what I need.  Make it so, Father.  Strengthen me so that I may love You more!

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford

Psalm 79-87 Are We There Yet?

I read last night that a friend and his family had been driving all day from Iowa to Mississippi.  His stepfather, who’s been quite ill and in hospice, passed away.  Someone had posted “Are you there yet?”.  The stepfather is.

That also seems to be the question I kept hearing as I read this morning:

“Lord, how long will this last? …. Show Your mercy to us soon … Hear the moans of the prisoners …. Shepherd of Israel, listen to us … Lord God All-Powerful, how long will You be angry at the prayers of Your people? … God all-Powerful, come back.  Look down from heaven and see …”

God replied:

“I wish My people would listen to Me.  I wish Israel would live My way.  Then I would quickly defeat their enemies…”

They continued:

“God, do not keep quiet; God, do not be silent or still … Lord God All-Powerful, hear my prayer; God of Jacob, listen to me … My God, save me, Your servant who trusts in You.  Lord, have mercy on me, because I called to You all day… Lord, teach me what You want me to do, and I will live by Your truth.  Teach me to respect You completely.  Lord, my God, I will praise You with all my heart, and I will honor Your name forever.  You have great love for me.  You have saved me from death … Turn to me and have mercy.  Give me, Your servant, strength.”

Father, You and You alone know what each of us have facing us at this moment.  You know the discouragement we feel, and the things that desperately need resolving – things that have been on high-center for so long.  God, please move things along.  I hate to keep asking, “Are we there, yet?”

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford