Blog

Passing the Exam

Posted on by korgrocker

“You have tested my thoughts and examined my heart in the night. You have scrutinized me and found nothing wrong. I am determined not to sin in what I say. I have followed your commands, which keep me from following cruel and evil people. My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.”
Psalm 17:3-5 NLT

David points out to God several ways in which he claims he has achieved perfection. God, he says, “You have scrutinised me and found nothing wrong“. David said his speech is sinless and his following of God’s commands faultless. But who can ever make such claims as these? Is David stating facts or is he self-deluded? The one theme threading through these verses today is that David is doing nothing that will cause God to censor him. He is ticking all the boxes required of a follower of God. Of course, that was how God created human beings, sinless beings who would follow Him and would fellowship with Him forever. But after sin entered the world, everything went wrong and God, the perfect sinless and holy Being, had to recoil from contact with His creation and their new-found desire for sin and evil. They had become tarnished and polluted by sin to the point that their evil and wicked ways created an impenetrable barrier between God and man. But there were Davids around in every generation. People who were determined to follow God and His ways, and aspire to be sinless in their thoughts and behaviour.

God gave His people, through men like Moses, laws and regulations that defined how His people should behave, in the hope that this would resolve the problem of sin. And for many it did, with Godly men and women following Him faithfully all their lives, but as we know, the animal sacrifices were replaced by the ultimate sacrifice, God’s Son Himself. Jesus died, taking on the punishment for sin that was ours to bear, so that we could be covered by His righteousness and able to come into God’s presence, pure and holy, acceptable in His sight. So our thoughts and deeds are cleansed by the Blood of Jesus, and we can claim correctly that we are truly without sin.

If only that was how things were going to stay. Sin is always waiting for an opportunity to destroy the perfection God intended. In Genesis 4:7 God said to Cain, “You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master“. But our redeemed hearts and minds are constantly being tempted by sinful desires. The Apostle James wrote, “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” (James 1:14-15). Peter also gave a warning, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith …” (1 Peter 5:8-9a). We pilgrims, like David, live in a hostile environment, where there is always something or someone trying to pull us back into the sinful ways of the world. The battle is incessant, and if it wasn’t for Jesus, it would have been unwinnable. 

We pilgrims must regularly pray David’s prayer at the end of psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. It’s a dangerous prayer to pray, in that something might, in fact it probably will, bubble up to the surface and stare us in the face. We find yet another crossroads in our lives. The way of sin to the left, the way of God to the right. Which path do we take? We know which way we should go, but it’s difficult and costly. At this point so many of God’s people camp out, unable to move on, deferring the decision for as long as possible. Other people take a left turn, hoping for a miracle to happen, with the sin that is consuming us disappearing. However, they are more likely to find the left path circles around and brings us back to the crossroads with the same sin still there. Even more sinners will find that God introduces some discipline. Proverbs 3:11-12, “My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be upset when he corrects you. For the Lord corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights“. God may even allow us to face the consequences of the sin, forcing us to stop procrastinating and instead make us deal with it.

But in it all, we pilgrims are on a journey to Heaven and some of us can see a glow in the sky before us. God wants us to be holy like His Son Jesus, and our journeys we call sanctification. Of course, we will never succeed in our own strength, and it is only by allowing God to work within us that we can clean up our lives, leading us to claim as David did that He has “scrutinised [us] and found nothing wrong“. But we are human and we keep short accounts with God, confessing our sins when we do wrong. And His peace and acceptance will flood over us, once again.

Dear Father God. You see our hearts and we pray that You indeed bring to the surface anything that shouldn’t be there. We’re so grateful for Your love and grace, bountifully available to all who call upon You. Amen.

Justice

Posted on by korgrocker

“O Lord, hear my plea for justice. Listen to my cry for help. Pay attention to my prayer, for it comes from honest lips. Declare me innocent, for you see those who do right.”
Psalm 17:1-2 NLT

We start our journey through another of David’s Psalms, and we find that in Psalm 17 David is pleading “for justice”. In the first verse David asks God to respond to “my plea”, “my cry”, and “my prayer”, so David is setting out his attempts to find justice at the hands of the honest and righteous Judge. It would seem that David is being falsely accused of something and he wants God to vindicate him because, as he reminds God, he is innocent and praying with “honest lips”. 

In many ways our societies today are no different to David’s times, because human nature is riddled with sin, and selfish desires will never be far away. We read the media reports and find that our world seems to be fast losing its moral, God-based, compass, and is becoming more and more confused about what is right and wrong. We find parents who are confused themselves and they are bringing up children equally confused, compounding the problem. A society that has turned its back on God will soon find that justice and righteousness are scarce commodities.  

But in it all, we know that there is a God in Heaven who sees all. He knows when justice is being eroded. He knows who is guilty and who is innocent. And He listens to prayers that cry out for wrongs and injustices to be corrected. Here in the UK the majority of our laws are based on our Judeo-Christian roots, and most cases that end up before a judge are resolved righteously. But there are still some cases that warrant anguished prayers for justice, because innocent people are suffering a wrong. 

We pilgrims pray when we observe a lack of righteousness in our societies. In Psalm 7:11, we read, “God is an honest judge. He is angry with the wicked every day“. We pray that God’s anger is focused on righting the wrongs that blight our society. We pray for those who have been falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit. We pray that laws already passed and those that are still being considered, those that are potentially unrighteous, will be repealed and corrected. We pray for the people who have lost their moral way, and are doing what they consider to be right, in error because they are guided by their own skewed standards. And God will hear our prayers and sooner or later the wrongs will be righted.

But we pilgrims must be careful that we pray with a heart free from sin and from a position of innocence. In Psalm 66:18-19 we read, “If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen! He paid attention to my prayer.” It is easy to take up a cause that, superficially, looks righteous, but inside it contains a different agenda. God  looks on with a holistic view that sees right into the hearts of those involved, so perhaps a starting prayer is to ask God to reveal to us what He, the righteous Judge, sees in it all. Prayers that align with God are powerful prayers indeed, and when He pays attention, righteousness will result. It might not happen quickly. It might not bring about the outcome we expect. But God “sees those who do right”, even us if it applies, and justice will be served.

Dear Father God. You are indeed the Righteous Judge who sees all and will administer justice sooner otherwise later. We trust in Your perfect love and righteousness, and worship You today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Grave Thoughts

Posted on by korgrocker

“No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.”
Psalm 16:9-11 NLT

David was in a good place, assured of God’s presence in his life, assured for his future beyond the grave, and experiencing spiritual blessings with a “glad heart” and “the joy of [His] presence”. 

David also had a prophetic glimpse of what was to come, when Jesus came to this world. We fast forward to when Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch and Paul was preaching in the local synagogue with a message entwining Jewish history with the message of salvation through Jesus, their Messiah. Paul referred to Psalm 16:10 and then explained why David’s prophesy was for Someone else. He said, “Another psalm explains it more fully: ‘You will not allow your Holy One to rot in the grave.’ This is not a reference to David, for after David had done the will of God in his own generation, he died and was buried with his ancestors, and his body decayed. No, it was a reference to someone else—someone whom God raised and whose body did not decay” (Acts 13:35-37). In those years before Christ, I wonder what the Jews made of David’s statement, because they would have been there when David died and was buried, and his body decayed in the tomb like anyone else’s did. Come to that, I wonder what the Jews today, who don’t believe Jesus was the Messiah, make of this prophesy.

David wasn’t fearful of death, because he was totally secure in his relationship with God, and because of that he was assured that God would look after him beyond the grave. The Hebrews believed that after death, a person’s soul ended up in the Place of the Dead, or Sheol. But David faithfully believed that God wouldn’t let his soul stay there because he was looking forward to “the pleasures of living with [God] forever”. 

We Christian pilgrims needn’t be afraid of death either because we have been promised that we will spend eternity with Jesus. We will migrate from this evil world, with all its sin and wickedness, into a place of God’s glory, a place of holiness and purity. Jesus said, as we know so well,  “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” (John 3:16). Yes, our physical bodies will be left behind on Planet Earth, where they will eventually be subsumed back to their constituent parts, one way or another, but our souls will live forever in the presence of the Lord. Jesus said to His disciples, and by association to us as well, “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”(John 14:1-3). Jesus never told a lie, because he was the perfect sinless Man, so He would not have said something that was untrue. 

We pilgrims trust in the Lord. What David prophesised about the Holy One’s body came to pass on the first Easter Sunday and the tomb is empty. There is no body rotting away there. No tell tale bones. And in front of witnesses, that Body rose up into the heavens before them, as we read in Acts 1:9, “After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him”. We have faith that there is a Man with a resurrected body in Heaven just now, busily preparing our new home. Like David, we believers won’t find ourselves in the Place of the Dead either after we die. Sheol (or Hades in the Greek) is the place for souls that don’t know Jesus, There is no point in them being in Heaven because it is a place that they know nothing about, a place where they cannot enter because of their unconfessed sins, a place of torment as they mull over their missed opportunity.

For most people, those who don’t know Jesus, the reality of the Place of the Dead should inspire “grave thoughts” indeed, but it needn’t be that way. We pray for our unsaved friends and family, that they too will know the “joy of [His] presence”. 

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You for Jesus, the Holy One anticipated by David all those years before he was born. We pray for our families that they too will come to know Him. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

The Lord’s Guidance

Posted on by korgrocker

“I will bless the Lord who guides me; even at night my heart instructs me. I know the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety.”
Psalm 16:7-9 NLT

Have we pilgrims ever woken up in the morning with the answer to a difficult and seemingly insoluble problem solved, and in the front of our minds? Well, the answer is here before us today. David wrote “even at night my heart instructs me”. How can that happen? Well, we might spend the night sleeping but our wonderful God doesn’t. Psalm 121:3,“He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber“. God is awake and watching over us, night after night. We may toss and turn, fretting over the problem, but quietly and in the background, the Lord is working, and sorting things out for us – if we let Him. And here’s the thing. Why is it that we so often turn to God as a last resort instead of praying, asking for help, and, in faith, sleeping peacefully while God works things out for us. Of course, the solution He gives us might not be the one we would ideally like, but if we trust Him then He will resolve the issues.

David writes some wonderful promises of God in these two verses before us today. The Lord guides us, He is always with us. He is right beside us, and through all of that, we will not be shaken. What a wonderful picture of God’s care for each one of His children. David had no doubts because he knew, a positive statement of fact.

And because of these promises, David “bless[ed] the Lord”. How did he do that? By his praise, his worship. His prayers, his faith, his obedience – in fact by acknowledging all that God had done for him and for all His wonderful attributes. David had a close relationship with God, so close that as he went about his business he was conscious of God beside him, leading and guiding. Was this just for David and the saints of old, and not for us? Was a personal relationship with God just for the times long ago and not applicable in today’s world? Of course not because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), and if that is true of God’s Son then it must be true of Father God as well. 

So, how do we develop a personal relationship with God, as David did? It starts at the Cross of Calvary, where God’s Son Jesus died instead of us taking on the punishment for our sins personally. We confess our need for Him, admitting that we are sinners, and in faith look to Jesus as our Saviour. But this is not to be just a one-off experience. We then need to develop a personal relationship with Him, by prayer and reading all about Him in His only written Book, the Bible. Like David, we spend time with God, including Him in our daily lives, in our decisions, in how we relate to those around us, in our jobs and schools, and not just on a Sunday. It’s a day by day thing. And we find that the Holy Spirit comes to live within us. In John 14:16-17, Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you”. And, of course, we can’t do all of this on our own, because we must join a Bible-believing church where fellow believers can help us to grow spiritually. 

Of course, our relationships with God don’t end with the grave, and we know that we continue to live with God, enjoying eternal life with Him forever. I had the privilege of being able to pray with a dear lady lying in a hospital bed, in her last hours yesterday. She had had a life full of troubles and problems but through them all, she had remained firm and vibrant in her faith in the Lord. And as my wife and I prayed, the peace that came over her was remarkable. She received a glimpse of Jesus, I’m sure, a preview of what was to come just two or three hours later. What a wonderful God we serve, and, as David did, we bless Him today, and every day.

Thank You Father, that You are with us day by day, Your presence always there. Amen.

A Wonderful Inheritance

Posted on by korgrocker

“Lord, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine. The land you have given me is a pleasant land. What a wonderful inheritance!”
Psalm 16:5-6 NLT

A mixture of allegorical events this morning? What was David thinking about? The Israelites were indeed given a pleasant land by God, and David, as king, would have inherited its domain from the previous king, Saul. There was a time when David could even relax a bit, secure that God was looking out for him – 2 Samuel 7:1, “When King David was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all the surrounding enemies”. And we can just imagine David getting up in the morning and looking out over the land around him, feeling blessed by God’s provision. It was indeed a “wonderful inheritance” and one promised to Moses during his blazing bush encounter with God. God said to Moses, “So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey—the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites now live” (Exodus 3:8). 

But David also looked to God as his spiritual inheritance. In a sense He was, and is, everyone’s inheritance – well, for believers that is. We have come to know God because of an “inheritance” granted us through His Word, the Bible, and word of mouth by faithful servants who have shared the Gospel with us. David came to know God more directly, through spending long hours with his harp and flute watching his father’s sheep. And praise welled up inside David, as he declared that God was his “cup of blessing”. 

Do we pilgrims agree with David, and similarly declare that God has indeed blessed us, and, more, is our “pleasant land”? Do we enjoy our relationship with God? Or is it something we do by rote, going through religious motions on a Sunday, our minds dwelling on the roast dinner cooking in the oven at home? I’m sure that anyone reading this today knows that they are blessed by God and they too find within them a well of praise and worship, even a hint of excitement perhaps, as they drink the cup full of God’s blessings. To a worldly person, they have no idea of the blessings that could be waiting for them if they only opened the door into a relationship with God. The demands placed upon someone today, the busyness, the emotional draining, the struggle to fund their lives – all of this conspires to blind a person’s eyes to the reality that in a corner of their lives is a gateway into a new life. A life with God. An inheritance that is theirs for the asking. The invitation to this new life can often be seen in the wayside pulpits located outside churches, or even on the side of buses. Imagine receiving a letter one day, asking you to collect your inheritance from a lawyer somewhere, but not even bothering to turn up to find out what it is. Such is the response from people today, and in the process they are missing out on the same “cup of blessing” that David enjoyed, a cup that never runs dry.

And of course we remember that the “wonderful inheritance” we enjoy is not just for this life on earth. There will be a day when we find that much of what we glimpsed and yearned for will burst into an amazing panorama of God and all that He is, in a place we call Heaven. We have an “inheritance” that is without end and without limit.

Paul wrote, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). We believers have the potential to do mighty things for God with the resources that He has made available to us in the “pleasant land” located just a prayer away. We might not feel we have much power, as the demands of life drain us. We might not even believe that this verse is meant for us, preferring to think that it is only there for the real saints. But Paul wrote something profound and life changing about the “inheritance” we have available to us. Let us pause and reach out to God today, even daring to believe that His “cup of blessing” is limitless and will never run dry.

Dear Father God. You are the Source of all that is good in the land where You have placed us. Thank You for the many blessings poured out upon us. Amen.

Multiplied Troubles

Posted on by korgrocker

“I said to the Lord, “You are my Master! Every good thing I have comes from you.” The godly people in the land are my true heroes! I take pleasure in them! Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. I will not take part in their sacrifices of blood or even speak the names of their gods.”
Psalm 16:2-4 NLT

Just a few words previously, David wrote about the “Godly people in the land” but here he is now pushing back at “those who chase after other gods”. He exposed a dichotomy between believers in God and the unbelievers around him who believed in false gods. If I was an extraterrestrial alien looking at the behaviour of the Israelites spanning a few hundred years, I would have observed a bountiful and merciful God who had miraculously fed a large number of Israelite slaves, after parting the Red Sea to facilitate their escape from Egypt, for a period of forty years. I would have observed how time and time again God had helped them overcome their enemies, after bringing them into a land this same God had promised to them, and He even parted the River Jordan, then in flood, to allow everyone to cross over to the other side. And yet I would have now been very puzzled, because so many of the descendants of the favoured people had now rejected the very God who had helped and supported them. What had gone wrong? 

The alien would have probably shrugged his shoulders (if he had any) at this point and moved on elsewhere, not wanting to have anything to do with such an irrational people. But the answer to the question can be found in a single, three-letter word – sin. David observed that in his day, those of his fellow Israelites who had abandoned the God of Israel would soon find the trouble that God had warned them about. In Deuteronomy 28 there is a list of all the troubling curses that will be incurred by those who choose to reject God and stop following His laws and precepts. The curses start with Deuteronomy 28:15, “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you“, and the chapter continues with a list of troubles that will come upon them. As we read on we find that troubles do indeed multiply. The lure of the sinful practices that accompany the worship of idols was so strong that many Israelites chose the way of evil, but soon afterwards they experienced the fruit of their idolatry.

Today, a secular society finds that life is afflicted with modern day equivalents of multiplied troubles. I’m saddened by David’s statement referencing the “sacrifices of blood” that were taking place in the name of the other gods, wondering if the same sacrifices are continuing today in the abortion clinics and in our hospitals. I observe a society increasingly at odds with itself, with strange ideologies emerging, with economic woes endlessly appearing both at the macro and micro levels, with people trampling over each other in their race to fulfil their selfish desires. By default, those people who do not follow God will reap their rewards at the altars of their own false gods. 

Paul wrote in Romans 1 about “… God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused” (Romans 1:21). Paul continued, “Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:22-23). But here’s the thing that applies to the times in which we live, “So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies” (Romans 1:24). It’s a terrible thing to be abandoned by God, and what He said through Paul has come to pass, with “multiplied troubles” appearing in the idolaters lives. Paul finishes Roman 1 with these verses, “Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarrelling, deception, malicious behaviour, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too“. Soberly, we know that their troubles won’t end at death, with another appointment waiting to be kept and the ultimate judgement taking place.

David wanted to have nothing to do with the people who “chased after other gods” with good reason, and neither must we pilgrims. We of course continue to try to draw the idolaters back from their sin with our stories of what God has done for us, and the Good News of what Jesus did for every human being at Calvary, should they choose to believe in Him. These days, idols might not be a wooden or stone edifice located in a home or shrine somewhere, but they exist in peoples’ lives. If we asked an unbeliever today if they instead have an idol, they worship, they would probably say of course not. An idol can be anything the takes the place of worshipping God. An idol can be another person, particular an actor or a pop star, (popular saying – “he worships the ground she walks on”). Or perhaps a motor car, or a mobile phone. Some people spend a lot of time playing computer games. The list is endless.

It might be a good idea if we pilgrims ask God if there is anything in our lives that shouldn’t be there, things that could lead us into idolatry. Paul’s instructions were clear – he wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:14-15 “So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols. You are reasonable people. Decide for yourselves if what I am saying is true“. And having decided we move on, in worship to the only God worth the name.

Dear Heavenly Father. We pray, “lead us not into temptation”, and today we pray that we will not be tempted to run after idols, of any persuasion. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

True Heroes

Posted on by korgrocker

“I said to the Lord, “You are my Master! Every good thing I have comes from you.” The godly people in the land are my true heroes! I take pleasure in them! Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. I will not take part in their sacrifices of blood or even speak the names of their gods.”
Psalm 16:2-4 NLT

David’s thoughts seem to be leaping about in these verses. After acknowledging that God is the Source of all his good things, David moves on to consider the Godly people around him, defining them as his “true heroes”. The dictionary defines a hero as “a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities“, but does that definition apply in David’s thoughts? Certainly, to be a God-follower in an environment where other gods proliferate, takes courage, and “noble qualities” are required. But the outstanding achievements are more associated with successful exploits in battle, such as when David defeated Goliath, or when Samson  “ … found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up and killed 1,000 Philistines with it” (Judges 15:15). 

So, how can a Godly person become a hero? In the various Bible translations, the words “Godly people” and “hero” are only used by the NLT. Other translations refer to “holy ones” or “saints” being “noble” or “excellent”, but we get this picture of David’s admiration of people, God-believers, who stand firm in the face of a wicked and sinful environment, with idolatrous practices rife, and societal behaviour distinctly anti-God in their content. David took “pleasure in them”, he wrote.

In Biblical times, many examples of people acting as “true heroes” are recorded. Just turn to Hebrews 11 to find a few examples. But the essence of being a hero is having faith in God, because that will lead to a life spent at variance with increasingly secular points of view. We read in Hebrews 11:1-2, “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation“. Look at the abuse Noah must have experienced when he spent 100 years building his ark, in faith that this was God’s will for him and his family, and there are other examples of the “true heroes” in the rest of the chapter.

In David’s view, perhaps we pilgrims are heroes in today’s world, but are we anything special? Today’s society is very tolerant of people who are considered to be on the fringe in terms of beliefs and behaviours, as long as it does not impact the way that they go about their lives. But when the behaviour of those with particular ideologies clashes with mainstream views then there can be a process involving the law courts to resolve the issues. In my view the heroes of the faith in today’s society can be found protesting outside abortion clinics, even if it means arrest and fines, or in turning their backs on denominations that violate Biblical principles, even if they have been members for a considerable time. Today’s heroes of the faith stand up for righteous practices in the workplace even if it means dismissal from their jobs. Recent legislation has seen justice being pursued in law courts over the right to wear a cross necklace at work, or a baker refusing to bake a cake with homosexual overtones, for a gay couple. These are the “true heroes” today.

So, fellow pilgrims, we are men and women of faith, standing up for what we believe in an often hostile and sinful world. We live lives of faith, believing that  ” … it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). In the face of evolutionary science now taught as fact in our schools, “ … we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen” (Hebrews 11:3), believing this because of our faith.

David had a lot of admiration for the “Godly people” around him, and he called them “true heroes”. I know people, Godly people, who I would count as being heroes. I’m so grateful for their courage and inspiration. Some have passed and I remember one man who is now part of that Hebrews 12 great cloud of witnesses. He was a hero to me and I know to others, and I thank God for him, and his unstinting and unwavering witness here on Planet Earth.

Dear Father God. You know the man I am referring to, and I pray that his witness will carry on, even though he is no longer with us. And I pray for the Godly people who I know, that You will uphold them in their lives of faith. Amen.

Good Things

Posted on by korgrocker

“I said to the Lord, “You are my Master! Every good thing I have comes from you.””
Psalm 16:2 NLT

We all have our own understanding of what we think a “good thing” is. We might consider a treasured family heirloom, or a gift from a friend. We might also think about good things that happen to us, like a legacy from a deceased relative, a tax rebate, or so other gift of money. And in a moment of romantic enthusiasm, a young wife might look at her husband and consider him a “good thing” (or vice versa of course). I’m writing this on Valentine’s Day and many today will look on their relationships, real or hoped for, as being “good things”. But any positive experience we have can be considered good because that is something we can discern and enjoy. And David, the Psalmist, attributes all his good experiences to God. Perhaps he was looking around at his property, his many wives, his silver and gold, or was there something far more significant?

On the other hand, we humans also experience bad things. We lose a job, or get involved in a road traffic accident. We catch a nasty illness, or break a leg skiing. A child gets sick and dies. These we would refer to as bad things, so if good things come from God, where do they come from? Simplistically, people would refer to the bad things in life as coming from the devil, sent to annoy and harass us because we have perhaps misbehaved in some way.

The good and bad experiences in life are all part of living as human beings. A world, fallen because of sin, is not a predictable place to live in, apart from one factor – God. And that is the point that David was making. God is the source of the good things in life, whether or not the people who receive them know Him. In Matthew 5:45b, Jesus said, “ …  For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike”. In other words, God has taken steps to ensure that this world, and everything within it, is sustained by “good things” originating with Him.

To come back to our verse from Psalm 16 today, David starts by acknowledging his relationship with God, his Lord and Master. To him, this is real, vibrant, and life-changing. David’s relationship with the Lord has made him a different person to what he could have been, and the result brought him a totally different perspective on life. When a “good thing” happened to David he had Someone to thank for it, and he realised that even if bad things happened to him, he could turn to God for the comfort and solace he needed. David was a man who lived a life of closeness with God, and although there were times when he failed, he always returned to his place of safety. 

James wrote, “Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17). David knew this of course, and he also wrote Psalm 23, the last verse of which reads, “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”. 

We all know people who, although not believers, claim to be “good” people, and because of that they see no need to repent of sins. They live lives blissfully ignorant, or so it seems, of the concept that Paul wrote, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But we pray for them, that God will open their eyes. We pilgrims are tasked with presenting the Gospel and we know that it is up to the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin. Referring to the coming Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment”(John 16:8). 

In the meantime, we pilgrims look around and see the goodness of God. All our lives He has pursued us with His goodness. All our lives He has blessed us with so much, even when at times we fail to see it. And He will continue to do so until we draw our last breath. In Heaven, we will see the Source of all “good things” at last and, prostrate before Him, we will be able to truly thank Him for all He did in our lives. We will be amazed, I’m sure, about the extent of all the “good things” that God has done.

Dear Heavenly Father. On our knees this morning we offer up our prayers of thanks, in praise and worship of the One who made it all possible at Calvary. Thank You. Amen.

Safety in God

Posted on by korgrocker

“Keep me safe, O God, for I have come to you for refuge.”
Psalm 16:1 NLT

A short verse this morning that starts our contemplation of Psalm 16. Safety is something we all yearn for, but in our physical lives it is not always achievable. There is something wired into human beings that desires a safe place and we often talk about “home”. There is something reassuring about entering our front doors, turning the lock and relaxing in what we perceive as a safe place. People with substantial means can afford to employ people to keep them safe, or they can afford to live in places where they think that their wealth will defend them.  But there are many in the world that don’t have that safety and security, people with limited means living in hostile nations, people who are tent dwellers, or refugees, and so on. 

David was a man who knew what it was like to be in places of danger. He always seemed to be fighting someone, both inside and outside Israel, and not just Goliath. There was a time when he found safety in a cave, “So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. Soon his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there” (1 Samuel 22:1). David also made Jerusalem a place of safety, “So David made the fortress his home, and he called it the City of David. He extended the city, starting at the supporting terraces and working inward” (2 Samuel 5:9). Of course, at other times, David did not need to run and hide in a place of safety, because, with the Lord with him, he was able to fight off his foes and ensure his own safety following victory in battle. In fact, David prayed to God many times for safety and God answered his prayers, and, as we know, David died of old age, not being killed by his enemies in a vulnerable place.

But there is a spiritual side to David’s appeal to God for safety as well. We read in Proverbs 18:10, “The name of the Lord is a strong fortress; the godly run to him and are safe“. We also read in Proverbs 29:25, “Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety“. As we read these and similar Scriptures, a picture builds of the ultimate place of safety as being in God. 

With Jesus came the ultimate route to a safe place for our souls in Heaven. There will be no conflict or danger there, just peace and love in a dwelling place where no door locks are required. We pilgrims of course know the way to find that place of safety for our souls. Romans 10:9-10, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved“. 

With God we find the safety for which our souls crave, and a place we can call home. That’s what the saints of old called Heaven – they used to say that when they die they will be going “home”. David realised that and he finished Psalm 23 with, “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“. We can’t move on today without reading a few verses about our ultimate place we will call home. Contrary to popular opinion, there will come a time when God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth, where a new Jerusalem will be formed. God’s people will live there, not in Heaven, and we read 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”. In Heaven we will have spiritual bodies, but eventually we will have physical bodies like that of Jesus, bodies as God originally intended, bodies that will never wear out, and we, in our new bodies, will find a new home with God on the new earth. 

Too much to take in? Suffice to say that God is indeed our place of safety, now and forever.

Dear Father God. There will be a day when You will come to live on the new Earth with Your people. We look forward to the time when there will be no more death, crying and sickness, and we repeat the words uttered by many saints over the years – come Lord Jesus. Amen.

Standing Firm Forever

Posted on by korgrocker

“Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? … Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.”
Psalm 15:1, 5 NLT

David winds up his list of required characteristics for those who wish to worship the Lord in His sanctuary. Inevitably, he turns to money, which can be a trap for unwary believers. Paul wrote to Timothy, “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10). The requirement that those who lend money should not charge interest is perhaps, at least superficially, a problem in this day and age, where borrowers expect to be charged interest. But if we dig down a bit further into this requirement, we find Exodus 22:25, “If you lend money to any of my people who are in need, do not charge interest as a money lender would“. So perhaps David was just meaning that money should only be loaned interest-free to poor people in need. Obviously, in Biblical days, it was expected that interest would be received on investments. Jesus said to the third servant in His parable of the Ten Servants, “Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?” (Luke 19:23). So, perhaps, David was meaning that those who loaned money should be charitable when it came to the poor, and not guilty of usury, the charging of interest at exorbitant rates, to everyone else. Banking today charges one rate of interest on loans, but a lower rate on deposits, the difference between the two rates providing sufficient money to fund the bank’s operations. But sometimes the size of banking profits makes us pilgrims wonder about usury.

David went on to write about those who accept bribes for lying “about the innocent”. Perhaps David was repeating Exodus 23:8, “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.” We read about how the guards at Jesus’ tomb were silenced, bribed by the Jewish religious leaders, in Matthew 28:12-13, “When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep””. Bribery was common in those days, and still is today, with corruption in some nations reaching epidemic proportions. Bribery is a sin, there is no doubt about that, and anyone guilty of giving or receiving a bribe excludes themselves from being able to worship God.

In Psalm 15, David lists all the characteristics that need to be present to qualify someone for God-worship. The person concerned must:
Live a blameless life 
Not do anything unrighteous
Speak the truth
Not slander or gossip about anyone
Not wrong their neighbours
Not speak evil of their friends
Despise and avoid those who openly sin
Honour their brothers and sisters in Christ
Keep their promises, come what may
Be charitable and fair when lending money
Refuse to give or receive bribes

David concludes with the thought that the believer who ticks all these boxes will stand, upright and strong, a God-worshipper beyond reproach forever.

Dear Heavenly Father. We understand that there are things we have to do in our lives to qualify us for being able to worship You. We pray with the Psalmist, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life”. In Jesus’ name. Amen.