Rules or Relationship

Psalm 119:18 New International Version (NIV) "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law." Often we want to know what God's laws and decrees are. The Christian life would be so much easier if we just had a list of rules to follow, right? However, as I'm reading Psalm 119, I am struck by how the writer repeatedly asks God to teach him. Verse 2 says, "Blessed are those who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart." So it's not just a matter of knowing and keeping the rules, it is a matter of seeking the Father. In verse 5, the Psalmist cries out, "Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees." It doesn't matter how good I may be or how many rules I know, I will never perfectly live out all of God's law. The Bible says that the law was given so we would recognize our need for a Savior. Over and over the Psalmist says he seeks God with all of his heart. He repeatedly asks God to teach him his decrees. He speaks of meditating on God's word and hiding it in his heart. This means thinking, investigating, memorizing and wrestling in prayer over God's word as we seek to really understand it and apply it to our lives. Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." That goes so much deeper than memorizing a list of dos and don'ts. We can outwardly keep the rules but have evil thoughts and intents. Jesus dealt with this in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. He said that lustful thoughts are akin to adultery and hatred to murder. In Jesus' day there was a group that prided themselves on knowing and following all of the Old Testament law. They even made up rules of their own to add to it. In Matthew chapter 15, Jesus calls them hypocrites and says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." They followed the "letter of the law" but not the spirit of it. Jesus also refers to them as whitewashed tombs that looked good on the outside but inside were filled with dead men's bones. The Pharisees obviously thought that they were superior to others and they failed to love others as they should. Jesus said that the whole law can be summed up in two commands:"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." And, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Matthew 22:37 and 39. Sounds simple, but is it? It's so easy to fall into a rule-following mode and forget to work on our relationship with God. When that happens we have a tendency to start to think that we are better or more worthy than someone else, just as the Pharisees did. Philip Yancey writes in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, "Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters,thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace." Grace is defined as the unmerited favor of God. We can never be good enough to earn God's favor. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death but that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus. How amazing that the God of the Universe loves us so much that He provided the way for us to become His children. When we realize our need for a Savior and accept the free gift of salvation, He rescues us from the domain of darkness and transfers us into the Kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:3). That is only the beginning, though. Like the Psalmist we need to not only read God's words and know the statutes and decrees, we need to seek Him wholeheartedly and ask Him to teach us what it truly means to follow them. The more we seek God and learn of Him, the more we will desire to live for Him and for others. In Jeremiah 33:3 God tells us, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." Let's call to Him expectantly!

Be Filled

God says of His people, Israel, in Jeremiah 2:13 "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water." We look to so many things to try to make ourselves feel fulfilled. We are vessels made by God who longs to fill us with Himself. He tells us to wait on Him (Psalm 27:14), to delight ourselves in Him (Psalm 37:4) to seek Him (Jeremiah 29:13) and to love Him wholeheartedly (Luke 10:27), but we busy ourselves trying to do things for Him and to try and make ourselves feel fulfilled. We pursue careers, relationships, worldly applause, thrills, even so called Christian service and apart from a right relationship with Him, they all leave us empty and longing for more. If we would stop pursuing our own happiness and begin to seek Him wholeheartedly, we would be able to approach all of those other pursuits from a place of fullness rather than need. We would be givers rather than takers and would be joyful in the giving. Thinking back on Martha and Mary, it seems that Martha was deriving her worth from the tasks that she was doing. But our true worth is in the One who created us and loves us so much that He gave His Son to be the sacrifice for our sins. When we try to fill ourselves, often we end up frustrated and upset with those who don't fall into line with our agenda. Martha was frustrated that Mary wasn't helping her, but Mary had chosen to spend time in the presence of Jesus. Martha was being depleted while Mary was being filled. Saint Augustine said of God, "You have made us and drawn us to Yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in You." This quote is part of a longer writing in which he takes his heartfelt questions from God's word and wrestles with them in prayer. Let us seek God in this way, truly desiring to know Him. Then, as He fills us with Himself we will be blessings rather than burdens. As the Bible says in John 7:38 "Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

Martha and Mary

To tell you the truth, I've always sort of felt like Martha gets a bad rap in this story. I think that those of us who have the gift of service or just enjoy serving probably have the hardest time with it. However, a couple months ago, the story popped into my head and I started meditating on it. I now have a different perspective. Here's the story: Luke 10:38-42New International Version (NIV) At the Home of Martha and Mary 38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” So, I always thought, "well someone needed to be taking care of things." But then I realized how ridiculous that is. Martha had the Incarnate God of the Universe in her living room. No-one needed to cook and clean at that moment. Martha actually had the audacity to order Jesus to make Mary help her. Sadly, I realize sometimes I talk to God that way. Mary had chosen to sit at the feet of Jesus, worshiping Him and learning from Him. She had chosen to dwell in the shelter of the Most High that I talked about last time. Martha, on the other hand, chose to worry and fret and work when she too could have been sitting at the feet of Jesus. That focus on Jesus would have given her the strength she needed when it was the right time to serve. As I thought about this, the insight occurred to me that Mary was demonstrating her need for Jesus by sitting at His feet and learning from Him. On the other hand, Martha's attitude seems to suggest that she felt that Jesus needed her. Don't we sometimes do that? We think, "I have so much to do I don't have time for Bible study and prayer." How often do we get our priorities out of whack by trying to serve God when we have not been "sitting at His feet?" Our relationship with Him needs to be our number one priority if we are to be of any service to Him. Before we try to go out and do great things for God, let's spend time in His word and in prayer. Then He will be able to work through us to accomplish His will. Jesus often went off by Himself to pray. How do we think we can get by with less?

Thoughts on Psalm 91

Hi All. I decided to start this blog as a way to share insights I'm learning in my study of God's word. My prayer is that it leads my readers and myself into a deeper relationship with Him. I hope it blesses you! Psalm 91:1 states, "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty." I always thought that was one thought expressed two ways.This time when I read it I got a different meaning. We have to choose to dwell in the shelter of the Most High and then we will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I think in the past I've seen both statements as being passive i.e. those who are saved will automatically dwell in the shelter of the Most High and in the shadow of the Almighty. Verse 9 says, "If you say, 'The Lord is my refuge, and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.'" Verses 14-16 state, "Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation." These verses reinforce the idea that it is our responsibility to dwell in the shelter of the Most High.What does that mean? I think it means that we make it our goal to seek first His Kingdom and to live according to His statutes. John 14:23 says, "Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves me he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.'" Isn't that awesome, to think of God living with us? God's word says that His commands are not burdensome. On the contrary, His commands are for our protection. How many bad consequences could we avoid by reading His word and doing what it says? Thankfully, we don't have to do it on our own. If we know Jesus as our Savior, then the same power that raised Him from the dead lives in us by His Spirit. Ephesians 1:19-20 It's an amazing fact that through Jesus we can come directly into the presence of God. Hebrews 10:22 says, "let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water." We need to discipline ourselves to dwell in His presence. We must seek Him through His word and in prayer. Then we need to obey. We can't expect God's presence if we are going our own way. Does all of this mean we won't face trials if we do these things? Jesus said, "I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 We live in a fallen world with all kinds of trouble. However, if we choose to dwell in the shelter of the Most High we will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.