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O God of Jacob

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies. They will receive the Lord’s blessing and have a right relationship with God their Saviour. Such people may seek you and worship in your presence, O God of Jacob.”
Psalm 24:3-6 NLT

We pilgrims worship the “God of Jacob” don’t we? The God worshiped by David in Psalm 24 is the same God who sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins at Calvary man years later, and the same God who will come to live with us on the New Earth, as described in Revelation 21:3, “I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them”. The Nicene Creed starts, “There is one God, the Father almighty, the Maker of Heaven and Earth …“. But the God of Jacob? 

Jacob was the son of Isaac and Rebekah, one of a twin, born just behind his brother Esau and appearing in this world with his hand clutching his brother’s heel. But right from the start he appears as a schemer who tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright as the first born son. The account in Genesis records, “But Jacob said, “First you must swear that your birthright is mine.” So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob” (Genesis 25:33). In Genesis 27 we read the account of how Jacob, in league with his mother, Rebekah, fooled his father Isaac into thinking he was Esau, and consequently received the first born’s blessing. When the lies and deceit were exposed Jacob had to run for his life to Haran, to work for Rebekah’s brother Laban. But on the journey, Jacob had a vision of a stairway to Heaven, with angels going up and down, and we read, “At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants” (Genesis 28:13). But Jacob’s scheming didn’t end there. We read, “Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing, and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God“” (Genesis 28:20-21). 

Jacob was the continuation of the promise God made to Abraham, his grandfather, and then to Isaac his father. But there was a line of sinful deceit in the family, with both Abraham and Isaac lying about their wives being their sisters rather than their wives. And Jacob was no better, with his scheming and deceit. It wasn’t until Jacob’s son Joseph that the sinful trait was finally erased. Three generations of flawed men who lied their ways out of trouble. And yet we read Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:31-32, “But now, as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead—haven’t you ever read about this in the Scriptures? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead”. God made a promise, a covenant even, with Abraham, and the promise has continued to this day. Once God made a promise he will never break it. But to have His name associated with Jacob? 

There is much encouragement here for us pilgrims because we too are flawed human beings, corrupted by sin, but accepted by a God who loves sinners. He might not like what we have done, but He loves us anyway, and we read another promise in John 3:16, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life“. That belief in God includes confession and repentance of our sins, as we align ourselves to the forgiveness that came through Calvary. We too are children of the promise as we, “receive the Lord’s blessing and have a right relationship with God [our] Saviour”. We read about the “God of Jacob” but it could equally be the “the God of …” (put in your own name). He is the God who has pursued us with His “goodness and mercy” throughout our lives up until now and beyond into the future as we continue to believe in the One who has made eternal life possible. Jesus said, “ … I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). And so we look ahead, perhaps seeing the glow of Glory starting to appear over the horizon of our lives, we worship the “God of Jacob”, so grateful that God will accept us just as He accepted Jacob all those years ago.

Dear Father God. We worship You today, the God of countless men and women who know You as their Saviour. Thank You for Jesus. Amen.

The Holy Place

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols and never tell lies. They will receive the Lord’s blessing and have a right relationship with God their Saviour. Such people may seek you and worship in your presence, O God of Jacob.”
Psalm 24:3-6 NLT

David asks a question – “Who may climb the mountain of the Lord”? But before we move on to the answer, we must ask what the Lord’s mountain is, or was, and where it actually was. To the Jews there was a sacred place on which the Temple could be found called Mount Zion, a hill located in Jerusalem. So David was perhaps focused on a specific place when he wrote this Psalm. But in answer to the original questionnaire “Who may climb“, the “mountain of the Lord” was a “holy place” and was not to be defiled by anyone who was a sinner. Anyone coming into the Lord’s “holy place” needed to be clean and pure inside and out, and telling lies and the worship of idols were specifically highlighted as impure actions. Not just that, however, their hearts had to be pure. David may have written this Psalm in anticipation of the day when the Temple was finally built by his son Solomon (2 Chronicles 5) and he could foresee a procession of priests carrying the Ark of the Lord into the Holy Place. Or perhaps it was earlier than that, with the Ark brought into the special tent prepared by David to his City, Jerusalem, as we read in 2 Samuel 6. But there was a misconception in those days that to worship God you had to be in a special place, somewhere considered holy, somewhere such as when Jacob had the ladder experience in a dream. We read in Genesis 28:16-17, “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” But he was also afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!”” Before he left Jacob anointed a memorial stone, naming the place the House of God, or Bethel. 

Much later, when Jesus stopped by a well on a journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, he had an encounter with a Samaritan woman who asked him a question, “So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”” (John 4:20).In response, Jesus told her, “ … Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem” (John 4:21). In Matthew 6:6, Jesus said, “But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you”. Jesus set the scene for believers everywhere that the “holy place” in their lives was somewhere private where they could be on their own with the Lord. 

At first glance, these words about mountains, holy places and idol worship seem to be a million miles away from us pilgrims on 21st Century Planet Earth. But there are some lessons to be learned, and some spiritual insights that we would do well to follow. We pilgrims look around our country, the UK, and can see many churches, considered sacred places of worship by many. Apparently, there are over 40,000 “places of worship”, many of them ornate and impressive buildings. But it may come as a surprise to many of our fellow believers that they don’t have to go there to find God. For many years, particularly as a young boy, I was convinced that there was something of God underneath that ornate cloth draped over a table called an altar at the front of the church, the place where the minister went through certain ceremonial functions particularly in the communion service. Every time the minister or church official walked in its vicinity, they genuflected before moving on, further affirming my thoughts. Without a doubt, many Christians are helped in their faith by the stained glass windows, the altar ornately decorated, the carvings and the statues. God may be there but only inasmuch as He is everywhere, always on hand for those who call upon His name. In Jeremiah 23:24 we read, “Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the Lord”. David wrote, in another Psalm, “I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me, and your strength will support me” (Psalm 139:7-10). God is omnipresent. And regarding all the churches, Isaiah wrote, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting-place be?”(Isaiah 66:1). No matter how wonderful and amazing a church building is, it will never be good enough for God to live there. The answer to the question “where is God” is perhaps found in the hearts and minds of believers everywhere, wherever they are.

We pilgrims can draw close to God regardless of our location, latitude or longitude. My favourite place is in God’s creation, the woods and parks that adorn our countryside, because it is there that I find that God listens to my fumbling prayers. Amongst the trees and birdsong I find a “holy place”, where, in His presence, I first confess my sins so that I can indeed “climb the mountain of the Lord” with a pure heart. Others find a place of communion with God in their bedrooms or studies or even a prison cell. But cleansed of our sin, regardless of where we are, we can indeed climb into God’s presence, where we will receive His blessing, and worship Him once again.

Dear Father God. In Your presence we find peace for our souls and comfort in our struggles. You are the only One worth worshiping. Amen.

Who Owns the Earth?

Posted on by korgrocker

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.”
Psalm 24:1-2 NLT

We leave behind the gentle musings of Psalm 23 to move on to the next Psalm from David. He is in a reflective mood and asks some philosophical questions, one of which he answers right at the start of Psalm 24. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it”. A sweeping statement but most of the inhabitants of Planet Earth would dispute it. An individual might point to his property deeds and claim they are “freehold” meaning that he has a claim to the ground on which the property is built. But then how far does that ownership extend? A nation might claim ownership to the land within territorial boundaries, but what about the whole earth? There is no person or entity who can claim to own it. We pilgrims turn to Genesis 1 and see the account of how God brought the earth into being, by a Word “Then God said …”. Over the first four days of creation God made the earth and the heavens, followed by two days populating the earth with animal and vegetable matter, including human beings. And at the end we read, “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31). So to believers there is no doubt about how the earth came into being. Those who claim that the universe, including the earth, was a chance event, have no real answers to the question “Who made the earth?” let alone who owns it. But the earth is real. We are standing on it, and David wrote that it belongs to the Lord. At the other end of the Bible we read, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased” (Revelation 4:11). In the absence of clear ownership of the earth and its contents we can only look to God, who created it all in the first place. 

In Genesis 1:28 we read, “Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground””. That verse is often taken as setting out the responsibilities mankind has over the earth and its contents. The fact that human beings are trashing this world is a sad state of affairs. But having said that, we also read in 2 Peter 3:10-13, “But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness”. This theme continues in Revelation 21:1, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone”. Simply, the earth as we know it will disappear one day in a fire of cosmic proportions, and will be replaced by a new earth. The territorial claims made by human beings won’t be worth the paper they are written on. Anyway, the pieces of paper will be burnt up as well. Will there be souls arguing with God about ownership of a piece of ground on the new earth? I don’t think so.

David moves on to write, “The world and all its people belong to him”. That would be a very contentious statement to an unbeliever, who will claim ownership of themselves and their own little bit of the world, but in a sense their physical body and associated “stuff” ceases to belong to them after they die. But we pilgrims know differently. We read and apply Romans 12:1, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him“. One day these bodies of ours will be of no further use, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:1, “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands”. So our souls will leave our earthly bodies and instead be domiciled in Heaven in a form God has already prepared for us. 

Paul starts off his Roman epistle with the verse, “This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News”. A slave is a person who is the property of someone else. They have no rights or claims of ownership themselves, and Paul voluntarily bonded himself to Jesus as a slave. He was an example for us pilgrims to follow, because we are slaves of Jesus as well. Yes, often our “old man” will rise up and try and reclaim ownership of self, but it is no good because we belong to God, and God alone. Before the hackles start to rise, however, we need to think what we have bought into. A slave of Jesus will have access to God’s resources; it is a privilege, especially when we remember that only Jesus is the Way to eternal life.

Father God. What else can we say other than we are sold out for You and Your Son Jesus. There is no other way possible, and we thank You for Your grace and favour. Amen.

The House of the Lord

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

We draw our little journey into Psalm 23 to a close with some thoughts about the “house of the Lord”. We received a key to God’s front door when we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, a door that opened into a very different world to what we were previously used to in our sinful lives. We now live in the Kingdom of God, as children of the Most High, and here a different economy, a different lifestyle and a different culture exist. But on Planet Earth we find ourselves in a strange dual existence, where we physically dwell in a secular world, dark, evil and sin-soaked, but with our spirits loftily positioned in the presence of God, and a constant tussle prevails, as Paul described in Romans 7:23-24, “But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” But David wasn’t thinking of this when he meditated on the “house of the Lord”, where he would find himself in God’s presence away from the physical constraints of human existence. What a place that will be, free from the worldly pressures and sinful pleasures, that have corrupted the souls of mankind.

In our earthly existences, we receive a glimpse of the Lord’s house, through our fellowship with other believers and our praise and worship of the One in whom we trust. It’s not about the church buildings, wonderful though some of them are. They are just there as meeting places, halls of convenience where our worship can take place. And it is there, in the presence of God, that our spirits connect with God Himself, who hears our shouts of praise and prayers of grateful worship. But I also find the “house of the Lord” in His created countryside, in the parks and woods around me, where my spirit joins the birdsong in reaching up to my Creator God. Those early morning walks where a roe deer accompanied me for a few steps, where an owl hooted and flew off, where wood pigeons and many small birds were singing their hearts out in God-ordained praise. A glimpse of the “house of the Lord” yet only a small hint of what was to come.

There will be a day when we cross the Great Divide, our bodies left behind, but our spirits and souls intact and looking forward in anticipation to examine more rooms in the “house of the Lord”. The same God will be there. Jesus will be there, because He said He would be. It was Spurgeon who said that in this life we live on the ground floor of the house, but in the life to come we can explore the floors above (my paraphrase).  John 14:1-3, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am”. The NIV records that the “place” will be “many rooms”. We don’t know what this place will be like, but one thing we can be sure of – it will be beyond our most extravagant and wildest dreams, because Jesus is preparing it. With God there are no half measures. No construction corners cut. No inferior white goods. Just a wonderful place where God will be. Another Psalmist wrote, “A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked” (Psalm 84:10). There’s a line in a Motown song from the 60’s that says “I’d rather live in his world than live without him in mine”. That’s what we pilgrims feel about being with Jesus, forever. Taking all things together, the “house of the Lord” will be quite a place!

There is insufficient space here to include all the things that will happen in the “house of the Lord”. We know that in His presence there will be amazing praise and worship, and not just from a few people in a small congregation. Revelation 19:1, “After this, I heard what sounded like a vast crowd in heaven shouting, “Praise the Lord! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God”. We will be there in that number, caught up in a crescendo, the likes of which has never been experienced here on earth. And as we read on in John’s Revelation, we find that our new home will be in the “house of the Lord” here on a new earth, and in a city called the New Jerusalem. Revelation 21:1-3, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them”. If we had thoughts about dying and spending eternity in a spiritual state in a place we call “Heaven” then we will be mistaken. Somewhere in between our physical dying in this world, and our new home we will acquire new bodies, firstly spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, “It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies”), and then we will receive a resurrected body just like Jesus when He comes again, (1 Thessalonians 4:14, “For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died“).

As we read from Revelation 21, the “the house of the Lord” will ultimately be on the new Earth, and God will be living there with us. That will be amazing, and David knew that all those years ago. Who else will we find there? I don’t think we will care much, because Jesus will be there. That’s all that matters for me.

Dear Father God. Thank You for the new home You are preparing for us. Amen.

Unfailing Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

David identified God’s goodness and includes with it His “unfailing love”. Other translations translate verse 6 as “Surely goodness and mercy and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life …” (AMP) or “faithful love” (CSB) or “love” (NIV). But we get the picture. God’s love is faithful and unfailing and it will pursue us “all the days of [our] lives”. The theme of God’s love is impregnated within the Bible from cover to cover. A favourite mention of God’s love for me can be found in another Davidic Psalm. We read in Psalm 36:5, 10, “Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. … Pour out your unfailing love on those who love you; give justice to those with honest hearts”. We enlightened men and women in the 21st Century know that the extent of the “heavens” have not yet been discovered , adding weight to the extent of God’s love. More and more powerful telescopes just find more and more of the universe, with no end in sight. And we know that the region “beyond the clouds” has no end to it either. 

There are some human examples of “unfailing love” in the Bible, and the Book of Ruth tells the story of an extraordinary woman who uttered the statement to her mother-in-law, “ … Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” (Ruth 1:16-17). We could also turn to the Book of Hosea, a man who went to extraordinary lengths in love for his wayward wife, Gomer. But Jesus told a parable about a father and two sons, one a waster who squandered his inheritance before finally realised that his way of sin could not be sustained and that he had to repent and get things put right with his father. The son put together a humble and repentant statement and started for home. We read in Jesus’ parable what he was going to say, “I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant“” (Luke 15:18-19). But look at the unfailing love of his father, who daily kept watch just in case his wayward son was returning home, “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). That’s “unfailing love” pursuing a sinner.  That’s human love, so imagine how much greater God’s love is. In fact, we know it’s extent from John 3:16, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life“. There is no greater love than that, and throughout the Bible the theme running through is God pursuing mankind, His love unstinting and so extensive that it would not stop at anything to restore His creation back to its rightful place. 

Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:17-19, “Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God”. Paul wrote about the extent of God’s love with an unlimited three dimensional picture of width, length and height, which we know from Psalm 36 completely fills an infinite universe. But Paul added an additional dimension, “depth”, and I take from this that Paul was referring to a fourth dimension, time. God’s love not only fills the universe but it is also eternal and timeless, and it pursues us whatever the age in which we have been born. 

And there is more about God’s love. Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord”. 

Do we pilgrims feel God’s love today? Even if we don’t, we know it is there. There is nothing we can do to stop it. We can deny it. We can refuse it. We can even throw it back into God’s face. But we can never stop it. God’s love for us humans knows no bounds and He keeps on loving us day after day, hour after hour, and forever. And in worship we offer our grateful hearts, in an offering of love and service, “forever and ever”.

Dear Father God, thank You for Jesus, the One who loved us so much that He was prepared to die for us. Such love! Thank You Lord. Amen.

The Pursuing Goodness

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

The last verse of Psalm 23 wraps up this wonderful poem of God’s provision. After writing down all the wonderful things God has done for him, David concludes that they will be there for him for the rest of his life. God’s provision, His giving, was not just a one-off for David; he knew that there was no limit to God and His resources. God keeps on giving and giving, on and on, until the Earth-years draw to an end. And David knew that even then, there was a feast prepared for him, ready and waiting to be shown to his place at the table. 

I love the NLT translation of verse 6 – “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life” (emphasis mine). Other translations use the word “follow” rather than “pursue”, but the word “pursue” builds for me a picture of an active God, not just intent on keeping up with what I am doing, but influencing my thoughts, and leading and guiding my life in the right paths.

In a little village near St Andrews in Scotland, there is a church, its architecture seemingly at odds with the houses around it. A bell proudly displayed on a simple tower at the top, the walls constructed of stone probably cut in a nearby quarry, a slate roof immune to the storms that occasionally blast their way over that part of Fife, and a wayside pulpit declaring the denomination and the next Sunday service. Walking past one day, I saw that the front door was lying open, so I thought I would take a peep inside to see what it was like. There were two ladies cleaning the pews and other surfaces, and in subsequent conversations I discovered that the following Sunday service was the last to be held there. The congregation had dwindled away to a handful of elderly members, and the services were no longer viable. An air of gloom was present because those ladies loved that church and they were mourning its passing, not sure what they themselves were going to do. I shared with them the thought that God was always going to be there for them because He had promised them that His “goodness and unfailing love” is going to “pursue [them] all the days of [their] lives”. That will always be the case, because God doesn’t live in buildings, no matter how nice they are. He lives in the hearts and minds of His followers, pursuing each and every one of them every day of their lives, with “goodness and unfailing love”. Hopefully I was able to encourage them in the next season of their walk with God.

But what is God’s goodness all about? The word “good” is one we use when things are going our ways. A bonus is paid at work and we say, “that’s good”. Someone does a favour for their neighbour, and they get the reputation for being a “good” person. But none of these acts come anywhere near what God’s goodness is all about. Jesus was asked a question that started with the respectful greeting, “Good Teacher”, to which He responded, ““Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “Only God is truly good” (Luke 18:19). And that’s the thing – God’s goodness is unique and only He can make the claim for being “good”. God’s definition of “good” is one that includes all the aspects of His character, including His love, His righteousness, His holiness, His truthfulness, and so on. We know that if God’s goodness pursues us, then there is no higher standard. We will experience the best of the best. We may feel at times that the valley we are walking through doesn’t have much of what we could describe as “good” within it. Look at what happened to Joseph, kidnapped, sold as a slave, imprisoned, falsely accused, but in the end he could say to his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people” (Genesis 50:20). Paul wrote in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them“. God will always pursue us to ensure our highest good, no matter what. And I’m sure that as we look back on our lives, we can see hard times, but with a good outcome afterwards.

God’s goodness pursues us, and that is always been the case. When Adam sinned what did he do? He and Eve ran away from God and tried to hide. but we read, “Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”” (Genesis 3:9). God has been pursuing mankind ever since, and the Bible records God’s extraordinary efforts to woo mankind back home. God desires our highest good and He pursues us throughout our lives. Perhaps we need to stop sometimes and listen to what God wants to say to us. It won’t harm us and will do us much good.

Dear Lord and Father, we humbly thank You today for Your loving kindness, Your goodness and mercy, and Your many blessings. Amen.

The Overflowing Cup

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

We continue out journey through Psalm 23 with the thought about a cup. In this context, we’re not considering a tea or coffee cup, receptacles made of clay or something similar, an ornately decorated item with a handle glued to the outside and glazed and fired in a kiln. In my mind the cup used would have been more like a goblet, used for wine drinking, and with connotations of grandeur because of its contents. For fear of being poisoned, kings and royalty used someone they trusted to supply them with wine, employing them as cup-bearers. Nehemiah had this role, being engaged by King Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 1:11). The “cup” fits in well with the feast prepared earlier for David, food and drink supplied by the Lord, David’s “Good Shepherd”. We earlier read, “In Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat” (Isaiah 25:6). Our imaginations consider the plates full of our favourite foods with the best of wines to supplement the experience of being a guest at the ultimate banquet with the Lord Himself. 

However we consider the spiritual aspect of the cup, and why it is overflowing. To David, the cup wasn’t full of wine but instead overflowing with blessings. We look through Psalm 23 and we find that it is all about being blessed. Green pastures, peaceful streams, God’s presence as he journeys and His protection and comfort available through the dark valleys, and here we are at a banquet with an overflowing cup of blessings. The culmination of a poetic description of living a life connected to God.

The cup overflowed with blessings, and in the Bible there is sometimes an association made between the contents of a cup, normally wine, and the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit gave the impression of drunkenness.  Acts 2:13, 15, 17-18, “But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!” … These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. … ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike— and they will prophesy“. What a blessing that day was! Not just a cup full for David, but many cups full for the believers there in that upper room. In those days of poor sanitation, an alternative was necessary, and wine was the commodity often suppled. Jesus drank wine, much to the embarrassment of teetotal Christians (“Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom” (Matthew 26:29)). Perhaps Jesus was alluding to the Heavenly Banquet yet to come. We also remember that Jesus’ first miracle was the turning of water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. 

We also remember another liquid that would have been drunk from cups – water. In John 4 we read about Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, who had come to draw water from a well outside the village of Sychar. Jesus told her, “ … Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life” (John 4:13-14). Not long after, Jesus spoke out in the temple at the Feast of Tabernacles, “On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’”” (John 7:37-38). 

But David wasn’t thinking about wine or water when he said “My cup overflows with blessings”. His heart was full of gratitude to the Lord, who had supplied all his needs, not in a grudging or stingy fashion, but so bountifully that the cup wasn’t big enough to hold all the blessings supplied. But that is our God. Most of the time the problem isn’t that God lacks supply, but that we lack demand. I’m not talking about physical blessings, financial or otherwise, but the spiritual blessings that continually pour from Heaven filling our cups and more. Ephesians 5:18-19, “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts“. The Holy Spirit is ready and willing to fill our hearts, but how willing are we to allow Him? What is the state of our “cups” today? Are they full to overflowing or are they only a quarter or half full? Or even empty and dry, dusty with a lack of use. An infilling of the Holy Spirit will not cost us any money (although a man called Simon tried that, as recorded in Acts 9:18). But it cost Jesus everything, His life. We only have to ask, and keep on asking, because God is always willing to provide all that we need. Jesus made it all possible that day on Calvary’s hill, and God’s overflowing blessings of the Holy Spirit haven’t stopped pouring into the cups of believers ever since. 

Dear Heavenly Father. The cup You supply will never run dry. We drink deeply and hold it out for more. Thank You Lord. Amen.

Anointing With Oil

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

The custom of anointing with oil was an important part of the Jewish faith, and the first mention of anointing oil appears in Exodus 25:6, “olive oil for the lamps; spices for the anointing oil and the fragrant incense“. In Exodus 30 there are detailed instructions supplied for how to make anointing oil, with choice spices to be added to the olive oil base. Its use was described in verses 30-32, “Anoint Aaron and his sons also, consecrating them to serve me as priests. And say to the people of Israel, ‘This holy anointing oil is reserved for me from generation to generation. It must never be used to anoint anyone else, and you must never make any blend like it for yourselves. It is holy, and you must treat it as holy“. But the oil David described in Psalm 23 was not of the priestly anointing variety. David will have remembered that occasion when he was anointed with oil, and we can pick up the story in 1 Samuel 16:1, “Now the Lord said to Samuel, “You have mourned long enough for Saul. I have rejected him as king of Israel, so fill your flask with olive oil and go to Bethlehem. Find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king””. We can read how David came to be selected as the future king in the intervening verses, but we then come to verses 12-13, “So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes. And the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him.” So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah“. So perhaps when David wrote Psalm 23 he remembered that time when he was honoured before his father and his brothers. 

Olive oil was an essential commodity in Israel in those days, being used as a base for food as well as oil for lamps, but it came to be regarded as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. David was anointed as king of Israel and we are told that when that happened “the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on”. Jesus told a parable of ten virgins or bridesmaids in Matthew 25, with five of them having planned ahead for the wait for the bridegroom with an ample supply of oil for their lamps, and the others not having enough. For some reason the bridegroom was delayed and the oil for the five “foolish” bridesmaids ran out, meaning that their lamps went out as well. They had to go out and try and buy some but unfortunately for them the groom arrived back before they did and doors were locked. Their knocking at the door got them no where, because the groom denied even knowing them. It’s an important story because it reminds believers everywhere that they need to be ready for Jesus’ return, even if it is delayed. And if we add into the mix that oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, then it perhaps indicates that only those who are filled, and who are continually being filled, with the Spirit will be truly ready for the Second Coming of Jesus. 

The Apostle James made a connection between the Holy Spirit and prayer for the sick which we can read in James 5:14, “Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord“. Apart from that, there seems to be no clear reason why anointing with oil should be necessary in these years of our Lord. But the principle remains in spiritual planes, as the Holy Spirit anoints us with His presence. 

Are we pilgrims filled with the Spirit? There are some who minimise the presence of the Spirit and who fail to honour Him and His gifts in the way the New Testament describes. In John 1:32-33 we read about the anointing of the Holy Spirit, or as referred to in the Scriptures, the baptism in the Holy Spirit. “Then John testified, “I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove from heaven and resting upon him. I didn’t know he was the one, but when God sent me to baptise with water, he told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit”. Jesus is the Baptiser, the One who anoints all believers with the oil of the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1:4-5 we read, “Once when he was eating with them, [Jesus] commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptised with water, but in just a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit””. I firmly believe that Jesus still baptises us with His Spirit because He is still alive and working in the lives of men and women everywhere. I can find no Scripture verse that conflicts with this view.

So today, we believers, pilgrims on the journey to Glory, have an opportunity to once again receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit, as we reach out to God. Luke 11:13, “So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him”. Ask away, folks. God won’t say no.

Dear Father God. We pray for a fresh infilling of Your Holy Spirit in us today, and every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Enemies

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

Who are these enemies, and why are they worthy of mention in this otherwise God-focused Psalm? David’s Psalms make frequent mention of his enemies, For example, Psalm 3 starts, “O Lord, I have so many enemies; so many are against me“. We could be forgiven for thinking that David went about his life permanently looking over his shoulder in case there was some malign attacker coming after him. We know that there were nations around Israel who were hostile to David, nations such as the Philistines and the Moabites, and there were also enemies of David within Israel, people such as Saul and David’s son Absolom. So David wasn’t short of an enemy of two, and it caused him no end of distress. Often David was upset because the hostile words directed towards him maligned his Lord as well. Psalm 3:2, “So many are saying, “God will never rescue him!”” In his next Psalm David railed against enemies intent on destroying his standing in his community. He wrote, “How long will you people ruin my reputation? How long will you make groundless accusations? How long will you continue your lies?” (Psalm 4:2). At other times, David’s enemy would seem to be himself. The first three verses of Psalm 6, “O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage. Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me?” In the light of God’s holiness, perhaps he was regretting his sinful humanity. Or he may just have been physically sick. But in it all, David had enemies, and he was looking forward to the day when God’s favour was publicly displayed for all to see. In a sense, it happened in his time on Planet Earth because David turned Israel into a strong and prosperous nation, in full view of the nations around him, the “feast” being a description of God’s blessings and provisions. Or perhaps David was also looking forward to another time when he would be living “in the house of the Lord forever”. But whatever the context, David was musing on the thought that it would be nice if he was vindicated in full view of all those who otherwise tried to do him harm, physical or verbal.

Today, we pilgrims look around and, at least here in the West, we don’t have enemies as such. There are no marauding bands of reprobates, intent on doing harm to us. The most we will experience is the occasional abusive or malign social media post, if we are stupid enough to engage with Facebook or similar. Or perhaps someone will shake their fist at us if our driving falls below an acceptable level of competence. But then we pause to think. Paul wrote, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). We will find these “evil rulers and authorities” both inside and outside of ourselves. Paul addressed his internal “demons” in Romans 7, “So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. …  I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. … But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me” (Romans 7:14, 21, 23). Perhaps we get a picture of an angel perched on one shoulder and a demon on the other, warring with each other as they whisper in each ear. There is a battle going on inside of us as we try to live sin-free in God’s Kingdom but our “old man” still insists on climbing out of his coffin, causing us to sin once again. And of course we remember that the devil is out to get us as well. 1 Peter 5:8, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour”. We pilgrims live in a hostile environment, our sinful humanity pulling us down, and the devil himself making it hard for us to get up again.

So, how do we pilgrims deal with our enemies, whatever their origin, spiritual or otherwise. The first step is to identify our foe, because often we will rationalise or ignore a problem. For example, sometimes a particular temptation comes our way and our sinfulness prevails and tries to tell us that perhaps just a peep at a particular picture won’t really matter. Or, “it’s not really a lie, because I want to protect another person”. 1 James 1:14-15, “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death”. As someone once said – you cannot stop birds flying over your head but you can stop them nesting in your hair. Sometimes, the devil will oppress us. For example, something will happen that seems just plain “bad luck”. A car accident or a falling out over something trivial. A series of events that seem inexplicably linked. At such times we pray and ask God for protection and remember what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:9a, “Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith ...”. And if the foe is a physical one, then we must exercise wisdom, avoiding situations that could be dangerous. For example, it makes little sense to walk in dark and lonely places late at night.

Paul helpfully wrote about the whole armour of God, in Ephesians 6. There he was in a Roman jail, chained to two Roman soldiers, and he couldn’t help noticing their armour, and from that he developed a word picture of the spiritual armour available to us. Ephesians 6:13, “Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armour so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm”. And we mustn’t forget Ephesians 6:18, “Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere“.

We pilgrims have enemies. It would be foolish to think otherwise. But we mustn’t become complacent. Instead we must be diligent praying for ourselves and for our families and loved ones. One day we will indeed sit down to a wonderful feast, and all those who have maligned us, spiritually or physically, will only be able to look on. It will be too late by then for them to join us at the table, and so we do what Jesus asked us to do while there is still time. Matthew 5:44, “But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” It may be hard but until we release those who abuse us into God’s hands in prayer, we will be bound by their threats.

Father God. Please help us not to be complacent and fall into error because we forget about our enemies. We pray for Your protection for ourselves and for our loved ones. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Feast is Prepared

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

The first four verses of Psalm 23 provide an analogy of how the Good Shepherd looks after His sheep, using the model of a shepherd in David’s day. In those days a shepherd ensured that the sheep in his care were protected from predators, were fed and watered, were kept safe from danger, and even regularly examined to ensure that tics and other nasties were removed from their coats of wool. A complete package for the sheep, just as the Good Shepherd, Jesus Himself, totally looks after His sheep, pilgrims such as you and I. 

But now we move on to the future, and David wrote that the Lord is preparing a feast for him. What an invitation! It is great when a friend invites us to have a meal with them, especially when he or she is a good cook, such as one of my friends. We know that there will be an enjoyable time of fellowship over the meal, and we Christians have much to talk about as we share our experiences from our journeys to the Promised Land. But what if we receive an invitation from the Lord Himself? Isaiah wrote about such a feast, “In Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat” (Isaiah 25:6). This verse was part of an End Times prophesy, of which there is more in Revelation 21. But God has always been generous to His people. We think of how He fed them for forty years in the wilderness with a complete food called “manna”. Just for one meal a day for the estimated two million Israelite slaves who left Egypt, that adds up to nearly three billion meals! The God we worship is anything but stingy! God then brought His people into a land flowing with milk and honey, signifying a land capable of providing all the food needed for the Israelites. But David wrote that there is another feast being prepared, and Jesus provided more details.

In Matthew 22:2 we read, “The Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding feast for his son“. We pilgrims know, of course, that the “Son” is none other than Jesus, and the wedding will take place between Jesus and the church, His bride. We read about it in Revelation 19:7-9, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and let us give honour to him. For the time has come for the wedding feast of the Lamb, and his bride has prepared herself. She has been given the finest of pure white linen to wear.” For the fine linen represents the good deeds of God’s holy people. And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “These are true words that come from God””. In Jesus’ parable of the Great Feast in Matthew 22, we read that when the King’s banquet was ready, His servants were sent out to notify those who were invited. But the servants were rejected, violently in some cases, and the invitation was ignored by most guests. So the servants went out again, but this time the King’s instructions were, “Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’ So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests” (Matthew 22:9-10). In the parable, Jesus implied that God’s people, the Jews, were invited to the wedding feast, but they had rejected Him. John wrote, “He came to his own people, and even they rejected him” (John 1:11). So the wedding list was expanded to include the Gentiles as well, something we are eternally grateful for.

David was sure that God was preparing a feast for him, because he knew the Lord. He was David’s Good Shepherd, and, as Jesus said in John 10:14, “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me“. There was that relationship there and David, through his faith and trust in God, just knew that something good would happen to him one day. We pilgrims also have that same faith and trust in our gracious and loving God and we too can look forward to the Heavenly wedding banquet. David was going to be a willing participant in the coming feast but the tragedy in Jesus’ parable was that those initially invited had insignificant excuses as to why they wouldn’t come. It wasn’t that they couldn’t come but they chose not to. And that’s a tragedy of the first order for the people concerned because one day they will find out that they had seriously made the wrong choice. But worse than that, for some reason they abused the servants, the messengers holding their personal wedding invitations. It was bad enough that some ignored the invitations, but to then, for some inexplicable reason, kill the servants was a crime so bad that it provoked the King to send out an army to destroy the murderers. It begs the question, why would human beings prefer to make a short term temporal choice at the expense of the eternal blessings of God? An alien looking on would be scratching its head (if it had one) in puzzlement, wondering about the intelligence of the human race.

In the banqueting hall there is unlimited room, and God will wait until He has enough guests to fill it. He is more willing to accept sinners than they to be accepted, it seems. But there is a place laid for each one of us, complete with our names. In the Matthew 22 parable, we read that the banqueting hall was filled with guests, but there was a problem. One of the guests turned up wearing the wrong clothes. It is a fundamental fact about Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins, that when we come to Him in repentance and receive His forgiveness, He takes on our sins and in exchange provides for us His righteousness. So perhaps the man wearing the wrong clothes was dressed in his own righteous, a self-righteous individual thinking he had the right to a place at the wedding feast when clearly he hadn’t. Isaiah 64:6, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind”. What arrogance the man had, to think his filthy rags would be enough. Revelation 7:9, “After this I saw a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes and held palm branches in their hands“. In his dirty clothes the man must have stood out like a sore thumb, amongst all those white-robe-clad saints, so no wonder he was unceremoniously ejected from the feast about to take place. Sadly, though, Jesus ended the parable with the statement, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). 

We pilgrims are heading for our Heavenly home and a great feast with Jesus. The angel said to John,  ““ … Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.” And he added, “These are true words that come from God”” (Revelation 19:9). On the mantel piece behind the clock do we have our invitation to the Great Feast? If not then in faith write one out, because for us pilgrims the only unknown is the date. The feast will be a great celebration for all those who are in Christ, and we wait for that awesome time, trusting in the One who deserves all the praise and all the glory, Jesus Himself.

Dear Father God. Thank You for all Your servants who have invited us to be with You. We accept Your invitations through them wholeheartedly and gratefully. Amen.