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.

Peaceful Streams

Posted on by korgrocker

“The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honour to his name. Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.”
Psalm 23:1-4 NLT

What an idyllic picture David paints, with his canvas containing green meadows and peaceful streams. We can all let our imaginations build our own versions of what he describes in our minds, personal pictures that would be largely based on our own experiences of farmland and the countryside. We can even visit an art gallery and there we will soon find a landscape or two that could have been lifted right out of Psalm 23. But David’s word picture was based on his own personal experience of the meadows and streams he visited while leading his sheep around the hills and valleys of rural Palestine. 

After the “green meadows” David moves on to the “peaceful streams” that make them green in the first place. Water, pure and clear, bubbling into a steady stream of peace, providing precious water for his flock to drink in a dry and dusty land. But David wasn’t writing about his sheep and their provision. He put himself into the position of being like a sheep with the Lord Himself being his Shepherd. The description of the meadows and streams provides a picture of a journey through a countryside that wasn’t all green and lush, a journey that David would have know well as he travelled with his flock. And here he is, walking along beside a stream of water, peaceful and pure.

We pilgrims are on a journey as well. There are times when we rest in a place of refreshing but other times when we journey onwards, never far from the life giving water that flows from God Himself. The Lord provides for us, body, soul and spirit. These days in the West it is unusual to find physical hunger, with most people having the wherewithal to be able to feed themselves. But spiritual hunger and thirst is a national disease of epidemic proportions, with most people unable to find the Source for which their souls and spirits yearn. There is something within each one of us that longs to be satisfied. God provides all that we need but most people try and satisfy themselves from a source that is man-made and ineffective. A source like alcohol or drugs. Sex or the occult. Sin has so twisted and screwed up people, and the world on which we live, that most will never find the way of true provision, the lush “green meadows” and the “peaceful streams” supplied by God for all to enjoy.

David knew all about the importance of being rooted in a “peaceful stream” somewhere. About God’s people he wrote, “But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do” (Psalm 1:2-3). God has supplied water for us to drink to satisfy our bodies, and He has supplied His Word to satisfy our souls. David could see the connection between people and trees, with those that are planted where they can access His life-giving water functioning just as He designed. Back in Genesis 2 we read about God’s plan, “The Lord God made all sorts of trees grow up from the ground—trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed from the land of Eden, watering the garden and then dividing into four branches” (Genesis 2:9-10). One of the trees was the “tree of life” that supplied everything Adam needed for his existence. But that tree reappears in Revelation 22:1-2, “Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the centre of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations“. David could see God’s provision for him and he knew that he had to stay close to the “peaceful streams” because otherwise his spirit would soon shrivel and die, like a tree planted in the middle of a desert. 

In a sense we pilgrims are living between two trees. The tree of life in the garden of Eden and the trees of life planted either side of the “water of life” that flowed from the very throne of God. God has never stopped the water flowing. It flowed in Eden and it will flow from His very presence in the New Jerusalem that we read about in Revelation 21. We pilgrims know all about God’s life-giving water because of Jesus. In John 7:37b-39a He said, “ … 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.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. …)“.  God promised His supply through a prophetic message brought by Isaiah, “For I will pour out water to quench your thirst and to irrigate your parched fields. And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants, and my blessing on your children. They will thrive like watered grass, like willows on a riverbank” (Isaiah 44:3-4).

On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came with a mighty roar and His presence has never left us ever since. We pilgrims each have living within us God’s Spirit, a Source of living water that Jesus first introduced us to in John 4:10, “Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water””. So in this period of living between the two trees, we pilgrims are the Source of the living water that mankind so desperately needs.

Where is God leading us today? Are we walking besides a “peaceful stream” or have we camped somewhere dry and barren? Perhaps we need to get up and get moving. We may be tired, perhaps resigning ourselves to a dry and waterless existence away from any thought of life-giving spiritual water. We may go through the motions of Christianity but denying its power, as Paul wrote. But there is something in God’s hands that will flow into our souls, empowering us and commissioning us for His Work. We can’t produce the fruit that God requires in a waterless desert. That’s the place where the God-deniers live, a place full of sin and evil. But we can walk by the “peaceful streams”, drinking our fills, and then visit the dry places to tell the inhabitants about Jesus. There is a world out there dying of thirst, but we know where there is water, the water that will refresh their souls.

Dear Father God, thank You for Your life-giving water, so freely given. Amen.

God is My Strength

Posted on by korgrocker

“O Lord, do not stay far away! You are my strength; come quickly to my aid! Save me from the sword; spare my precious life from these dogs. Snatch me from the lion’s jaws and from the horns of these wild oxen.”
Psalm 22:19-21 NLT

It is almost as though David has suddenly woken up and has now realised that God is there for him, able to save him from whatever caused his terrible vision of crucifixion. In distress and under attack he must have been, but he knew that God was his strength. But what did he mean by that? David spent much time with God, during those years looking after his father’s sheep. Instead of wiling away the time in pointless ways, David pulled out his harp or whistle, and worshiped God in the long hours. In those formative years, David learned much about God and how He helped him in times of need. We read the story of when Goliath was taunting the Israelite army and David ended up in front of King Saul. We can pick up the story in 1 Samuel 17:32, ““Don’t worry about this Philistine,” David told Saul. “I’ll go fight him!”” Saul’s response in the next verse emphasises David’s youth, ““Don’t be ridiculous!” Saul replied. “There’s no way you can fight this Philistine and possibly win! You’re only a boy, and he’s been a man of war since his youth.”” But the next three verses were very telling, “But David persisted. “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep and goats,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God!” (1 Samuel 17:24-26).‭‭ David knew all about his capabilities because God had repeatedly been his strength in a time of need. David knew that when faced with a seemingly overwhelming and fearful opponent, such as a bear or lion, God was his strength, and his relationship was such that he knew God would help him defeat this Philistine. He said to Saul, “The Lord who rescued me from the claws of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine!” Saul finally consented. “All right, go ahead,” he said. “And may the Lord be with you!”” (1 Samuel 17:37).

Psalm 22, however, paints a picture of a different enemy to that of a bear, lion or even a Goliath. In Psalm 22:12-13 he wrote, “My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls; fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in! Like lions they open their jaws against me, roaring and tearing into their prey”. And while facing this terrible situation, David had a vision of what his enemies would do to him. He did what we all do – get bogged down in imagining the consequences and what might happen, before we think of God. And isn’t it amazing that even when our enemies or difficult situations haven’t yet appeared, we start imagining what might happen if they did. The “wee small hours”, while we are supposed to be asleep, can become an imaginary battleground, where we stand in a place of potential danger, like the carpet in the boss’s office, or before the bank manager, and it is there that we generate various scenarios in our minds of the worst possible outcomes, and before we know it, we are living every terrible moment as if we have lost our jobs or are having to face into the consequences of bankruptcy.

There is another Psalm that I have turned to in times of distress in the past – Psalm 91. we read, “Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day” (Psalm 91:3-5). A picture of God’s all-encompassing protection and salvation. But it was verse 7 that God revealed to me one day when the company I was working for had announced the necessity for redundancies. It reads, “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you“. How that promise of God encouraged me, and I indeed was kept safe from losing my job.

The Apostle Paul, like David, also knew about God being his strength. We read in Philippians 4:12-13, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength“. 

We pilgrims are convinced of God’s strength in every aspect of our lives. In fact, we know that God is so strong that He will bring us home one day regardless of our challenges and circumstances. What is there to fear? Yes, our fleshly nature sometimes rises up and gives us grief, but in the end God will prevail over all the odds. We are on the winning side, forever.

Dear Heavenly Father. You are a strong tower and we can always run to You in times of attack. We thank You today. Amen.

Trust In The Lord

Posted on by korgrocker

“Your victory brings him great honour, and you have clothed him with splendour and majesty. You have endowed him with eternal blessings and given him the joy of your presence. For the king trusts in the Lord. The unfailing love of the Most High will keep him from stumbling.”
Psalm 21:5-7 NLT

Just a simple statement lacking drama, almost written as an aside – “For the king trusts in the Lord”. It stands as the tip of an iceberg, with much implied explanation and background information hidden beneath it. The sentence doesn’t include the how or why of David’s trust. It’s just a statement of fact. But David’s journey to the point when he could state that he trusts in the Lord began at the moment when Samuel anointed him in front of his father and brothers – “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 …” (1 Samuel 16:13). In those pre-Messiah days the Holy Spirit didn’t live in each of God’s people all the time; instead He visited and empowered chosen people for certain tasks when the need was there. So, for David to experience the indwelling Holy Spirit was remarkable. From that moment forward, David learned through his life experiences how to trust in the Lord. Day by day, battle by battle, crisis by crisis, and David went on to write that “the unfailing love of the Most High” would keep him from ever stumbling.

But what does it mean to “trust in the Lord”? Proverbs 3:5 provides a clue, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding“. Our own understanding is flawed because so much of our humanity gets in the way. Our sins, wrong choices, lack of wisdom, and many other factors can all combine to skew our understanding and put us on a path that is far away from what God has planned for us. And, sadly, it is often the case that when we find ourselves in a place of difficulty, there through our own choices, we then turn to God for the guidance that we needed right at the beginning. Proverbs 14:12 reminds us, “There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death“. 

To be able to trust in someone, we need to get to a place where we can find something in that person that inspires that trust. I trust in my wife of many years because I have come to know her and have experienced her wisdom on many occasions. I know her Godly ways and her willingness to spend long hours in prayer to find God’s will. So before any important decisions are made, I trust her to have the wisdom needed. But can I say the same thing about our politicians? But we won’t go down that rabbit trail today. There is only one way to say, as David did, that we trust in the Lord, and that is through spending time, a lot of time, with God, and trusting Him with everyday matters, in the process building up a relationship on which we can depend. We make sure that we honour and treasure our “Quiet Times” in God’s presence, reading His Word, and engaging Him in prayer. We bring before Him all the hassles and problems, the decisions to be made, our difficulties and stresses, that we face in the day ahead. 

God has made many promises to us. Let us consider one from Philippians 4:6-7, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus“. In another Psalm David wrote, “Once I was young, and now I am old. Yet I have never seen the godly abandoned or their children begging for bread” (Psalm 37:25). God said that He will supply all our needs and, as David said, if we look around at our fellow believers we see that this is indeed a true statement. But we do see those suffering around us as the result of choices influenced by their own understanding, tainted as it is by sin and a lack of wisdom. We pilgrims search out God’s promises in His Word and apply them in our daily lives, finding that God is indeed unchangeable and true to His Word.

When we trust in God, we are handing control of our lives to the One who knows what is best for us. God sees the End from the Beginning, and when Jesus asked His disciples if they wanted to leave Him, Peter replied, “ … Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life” (John 6:68). There is no other way to complete our journey through life. There is no other ideology, or doctrine, or religion, that will assure us a place in the Home our spirits desire. Only God knows the way we need to take in our lives and we trust Him in the process.

Dear Father God. We proclaim our trust in You today and every day. We praise and worship You. Amen.

Pleasing God

Posted on by korgrocker

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”
Psalm 19:14 NLT

David ends his Psalm with a lovely prayer that, although few in words, contains essential advice for any pilgrim on the road to Glory. David once again acknowledges and affirms that God is his Rock and Redeemer, after a journey through initial thoughts about God and His creation, His commandments that “make wise the simple”, and dealing with sin. And here he is winding things up with a prayer that must have warmed God’s heart. And there is also a prophetic indication that the coming Messiah will be the Redeemer. But it’s a prayer that, if we apply it to our lives, makes us feel a bit uncomfortable. Do what we speak and think really please God? All the time?

There is a connection between what we think and the words that come from our mouths, as Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees in Matthew 12:34, “You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say”. The Pharisees were a good example of the human tendency to rationalise behaviour to a place where what is thought feels right, and then a Scripture or two is found to back it up, with consequent actions following. Jesus saw right through them, and their house of cards came tumbling down when God’s spotlight showed them up for what they really were. Later in the same passage, Jesus warned the Pharisees about the words they spoke – Matthew 12:36-37, “And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you”. So before we feel a bit smug because we aren’t Pharisees, can we really claim that we have never spoken an “idle word” or had thoughts that were wrong?

Yesterday we considered the words of James, “And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. …  And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!” (James 3:6, 10). But what we say starts with a thought in our minds. That would be bad enough but to then verbalise that thought can cause untold damage to others. The advice in Proverbs 21:23 is blunt and to the point, “Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble“.

The secret to wholesome speech starts with getting our thinking aligned to God’s thoughts and ways. David wrote about the “meditation of [his] heart” and that is the centre of the problem. What do we meditate on? A blunt question but the answer is one that could make us feel quite uncomfortable. The purification of our thoughts is something we will never really achieve in this life, no matter how hard we try. But we can get better and better in thinking God’s thoughts and getting His perspective on what we think about, as the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. So do we pick up a media report and meditate on that, or do we pick up the Bible instead? The world events that can cause us so much distress become less troublesome when viewed through the lens of Scripture. We behave in response to what we meditate on. We pilgrims must look beyond our circumstances to the Kingdom yet to come, and in the meantime we pray that God will help us clean up our thoughts and speech. A final word from Paul. “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them” (Ephesians 4:29). Before we say anything we must stop and think. 

Dear Father God. You know our predisposition to say what we shouldn’t. Please help us to follow Paul’s advice and analyse what we say before we say it, to ensure that it is only a blessing to others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Sparkling Eyes

Posted on by korgrocker

“Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die. Don’t let my enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!” Don’t let them rejoice at my downfall.”
Psalm 13:3-4 NLT

David, once again, is giving God a hard time. Is he getting frustrated with God for a lack of answers to his prayers, or a lack of action to sort out the problems he is having with his enemies, whoever they are? But whatever the issue, David does seem to be trying to twist God’s arm, by telling Him that unless He does something about the situation then He will lose the “man after His own heart” that He had already installed as King, or, if the Psalm was written in the days when David was on the run from Saul, who was the King designate.

David prays that God will “restore the sparkle to [his] eyes, or [he] will die”. It has been said that our eyes are windows into our souls. And it is true that when we look into someone’s eyes we see life. We see a living person with eyes that tell what is going on within them. If someone won’t look us in the eye then we know they have something to hide. In their eyes, we see their mood, be it happy or sad, anxious or self-assured. David obviously suspected that his eyes were giving out signs of worry about his enemies, or stress about the situation in which he was in. And, understandably, he wanted to return to that state of health and vitality, where his eyes sent out a message of positivity to those around him. 

In Matthew 6:22-23, we read what Jesus taught about our eyes. He said, “Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is unhealthy, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!” What Jesus was saying was that someone with a healthy eye was a person who understood the things of God and who could discern right and wrong, and knew all about living God’s way, saved by His grace. Conversely, a person with an unhealthy eye represents most people around us, who know nothing about God and don’t want to know anything about Him either. They want to continue to live in their sin, effectively living with unhealthy eyes in a world of darkness. These are spiritually blind people and, sadly, we can even find them in our congregations and fellowships, people who Paul warned Timothy about, “They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!” (2 Timothy 3:5).

So, dear fellow pilgrims, how are your eyes this morning? Sparkling or dull? Bright or dark? David seemed to imply that it was God’s responsibility to make his eyes sparkle. But is it? We can obviously pray as David did, for restoration, and God will indeed answer our prayers, perhaps by taking us to a cross at a place called Calvary. There His Son died for our sins, taking on the punishment that we deserved instead. And as we stare into His loving face, we feel “the things of earth [going] strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace”. We will find that our eyes are sparkling again, our spirits revived, perspectives restored, sins forgiven.

Dear Heavenly Father. Thank You that we can look forward with sparkling eyes, to a life with You for all eternity. We pray that those around us can see in our eyes a reflection of the Heavenly shores, twinkling in the distance. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Anguish In My Soul

Posted on by korgrocker

“O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? How long must I struggle with anguish in my soul, with sorrow in my heart every day? How long will my enemy have the upper hand?”
Psalm 13:1-2 NLT

David starts the thirteenth Psalm with a lament concerning the “anguish in [his] soul”. It was almost as though he was outside of himself looking in and sees a condition in his soul that was causing him acute distress. So, in a semi-detached sort of way, he was able to write about his feelings and apportion the cause to God forgetting that he was there. He was in a place of discomfort, unease, stress and anxiety and he asked the question “How long?”. “How long” is this going to continue? Will it continue “forever“? And who was this enemy David was referring to anyway? A physical foe, armed and ready to end his life? Or were there gremlins in his head, causing his distress?

Have any of us pilgrims been in such a place a David was? Where the heavens seem impervious to our prayers? Where everything seems to be falling apart? Where we wake up depressed and tired, dreading the day ahead? And we cry out as David did – where are You God? Are we facing enemies, real or imagined, that always seem to put us down and who we seem unable and powerless to stop? 

Such conditions will also cause “anguish in [our] soul[s]”, as they did with David. Daily “sorrow in [our] heart[s]” speak of a continued battle with the causes of depression and anxiety, something which many never seem to overcome. The bottle of pills seems to be the only remedy for many and a drug-induced calm takes over lives. The anguish in our souls is a human condition that threatens to take us down an ever-deepening spiral that dulls our minds and takes away our potential for a spirit-filled life.

There was a prophet called Elijah who had made a stand against the prophets of Baal and won, but he too succumbed to “anguish in [his] soul”. Following threats against his life from Jezebel, the queen at that time, he ran away, as we read in 1 Kings 19:4, “Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died””. After being refreshed with food and drink supplied by an angel, he journeyed to Mount Sinai, where God asked him “What are you doing here Elijah?”. He response in the next verse was, “Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”” (1 Kings 19:10). Was Elijah experiencing “anguish in [his] soul”? God answered with a miraculous demonstration of His power through wind, fire and an earthquake, and then came the “still small voice”.

God is always there for us. He was for David and He still is for us today. Like Elijah, it may take us forty days of journeying in dark places of sorrowful anguish. It may be that we are looking for the miraculous when all we need is that “still small voice”. But however we feel just now, God is right there beside us, reaching out to us through the self-imposed walls that we have hidden behind. We analyse our feelings but draw the wrong conclusions. The enemies we face are powerless before God and He lives within us. 1 John 4:4, “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world”. So today we take down the walls and stride into the day, assured of God’s presence within us through His Spirit. 

Dear Father God. By Your Spirit we are overcomers – please help us never to forget that. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Foul Talk

Posted on by korgrocker

“My enemies cannot speak a truthful word. Their deepest desire is to destroy others. Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with flattery. O God, declare them guilty. Let them be caught in their own traps. Drive them away because of their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.”
Psalm 5:9-10 NLT

The smell that emanates from a rotting corpse is disgusting, and it is just as well that bodies are buried today in a box or cremated and not left to decompose where there are people. However, in his day David was obviously aware of such a smell and he compared it to the “foul talk” that comes from the mouths of his enemies. But who are these enemies? There is nothing to say that they are foreign forces or nations on Israel’s borders. David’s enemies are probably those within Israel who don’t like the way he rules the country. You will always find a group of people, usually a minority, who think that the only important thing in life is their own particular ideology and anyone who disagrees with them, especially the governing authorities, then become an “enemy” of the state. Or there may have been a political party who disagreed with David and were intent on stirring up trouble in the hope that a new government could be formed, more sympathetic to their politics. And in David’s days, as in our modern societies, truth becomes a scarce commodity. But David wasn’t fazed by such people. He knew what they were about, their lies, their flattery, their plotting and scheming. If only, he thought, God would get rid of them, and then he would’t have to put up with them.

But David somehow associated what came out of their mouths with the “stench from an open grave”. The Apostle James had another view of “foul talk” In James 3:5-6, we read, “ ... the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.” In David’s day, in James’ day and even in our 21st Century societies, what comes out of the mouths of human beings can, and often will, be “foul”. Jesus put His finger on the problem in Matthew 15:18-19, “But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander“. The tongue is just a tool that expresses what is happening inside someone’s head, because it is here that the “foul talk” originates.

“Foul talk” has no place in a pilgrim’s life, and the Apostle Paul wrote about the remedy in Ephesians 4:21-23, “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.” Our minds, soaked and renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit, will find it more and more difficult to generate the lying thoughts that irritate the nostrils of those around us. Instead, truth will emanate graciously from our lips, pleasing our wonderful Heavenly Father.

Dear Father God. We pray David’s prayer in Psalm 19 before You today, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Amen.

Groundless Accusations

Posted on by korgrocker

“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 NLT

How do we rate our personal reputations? Important or not? We live in a world where what people think of us matters. Our reputation is coupled with character traits such as integrity and honesty. So if someone trashes our reputations it can do us a lot of harm. Sadly, today in the UK, if someone goes up to a policeman and makes an accusation against another person, whether it is true or not, then the accused person will often be investigated. Such accusations can be trivial, like the recent real-life situation where a person of one type of skin colour accused another of a different colour, of racism, purely because the second person picked up the last bunch of daffodils in the supermarket. Really? But this actually happened and was recorded as a NCHI (Non Crime Hate Incident) by the police. Today, teachers and social workers, foster carers and many others in professions that interface with children and the public in general have to be very careful to avoid “groundless accusations” and “lies” levelled against them. 

But it was no different in David’s day. As David wrote Psalms 3 and 4 he was dealing with his son Absalom’s rebellion, and false stories fuelled by lies abounded against him, purely to bolster his son’s position. But we shouldn’t be surprised by such events. Jesus Himself was convicted and executed through an illegal court believing lies. The Son of God, sinless and innocent of any crime, suffered the ultimate penalty because of “groundless accusations” and “lies”.

In the end, what really matters to us pilgrims is what God thinks of us, and if we become the focus of false allegations, or lies spread about us, we can of course enter God’s presence and claim that we are innocent (if we are of course!) through God’s grace and mercy. Sadly, many Christians have become the focus of “groundless accusations” because of a lack of wisdom. They have managed to put themselves in situations where they were vulnerable to all sorts of abuse from unscrupulous individuals out to cause trouble to God’s people. But wisdom is ours for the asking (James 1:5) and the Holy Spirit will lead and guide us in the right paths. However, should the unthinkable happen, we can pray as the Psalmist did in Psalm 43:1, “Vindicate me, O God, And plead my cause against an ungodly nation; Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!” Deliverance will come, as surely as night follows day.

Dear Father God. You know what is within us, and You will deliver us from evil people. Please help us live lives of honesty and integrity and grant us the wisdom we need every day of our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The End

Posted on by korgrocker

“This disciple is the one who testifies to these events and has recorded them here. And we know that his account of these things is accurate. Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written.”
John 21:24-25 NLT

The world today has an insatiable desire for information. Vast quantities of data flow along cables and radio waves throughout the world, a global information highway that transport data in fractions of a second. Telephone calls can be made across the globe. News reports become immediately available. In a sense the world is shrinking. But back at John’s desk, as he was penning his final words, he felt a sense of being overwhelmed. Have I written enough? What about that time when …? Did God want me to mention about …? These were all questions that could have been going through his mind, but in the end he concluded that he had done enough. Mission accomplished. We must also remember that what he wrote was inspired by the Holy Spirit so he would have felt a peace within as he added the final “full stop”. But John was right over one thing, if all that Jesus had done had been recorded in the way we have come to expect today, then there would not have been enough storage media available to record it all. 

In recent years, a device called a “lifelogger” has been produced that would take a snapshot every thirty seconds or so, providing a log of someone’s life. And then there was the Spanish scientist who started logging every detail of his life in a notebook when he turned forty. Now, nearly ten years later, he has filled 307 notebooks and there are more to go. But it begs the question about what value this could ever have to anyone. But it is different with Jesus. Superficially, the Son of God’s thoughts and deeds would be of immense value to humanity, but then we have to consider that He, through John and the other Bible writes, had divulged all the needed principles for life that would leverage our human understanding and intelligence. Jesus taught using parables, and the benefit of these is that they make people think, bringing understanding and direction for the way they live their lives. And the Holy Spirit brings enlightenment and direction. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). 

John concluded that his Gospel account was “accurate” and his testimony recorded. Job done. Book finished. And we’re grateful for the Bible writers like John who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote down just what God intended. 

Dear Father God. The Bible is Your own work, recorded by Your human servants. Thank You for John and men and women like him, who devoted their lives for the benefit of others. Amen.