Tears in a Bottle

Posted on by korgrocker

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book.” Psalms‬ ‭56:8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Why would the Psalmist write that God collects all his tears in a bottle? To modern readers that will seem a bit strange, but in David’s day, as well as in other periods in history, there was apparently a custom of collecting tears, there being a variety of containers available for such a use. They were called lachrymatories and perhaps were a part of funeral arrangements.

But what did David mean when he wrote this verse? And is it relevant today? I think it first of all points to an intimate relationship between David and his Heavenly Father. At every opportunity he came into God’s presence, sharing what was happening at the time. The good times and well as the bad times. The times of laughter and joy, as well as the times of sorrow and grief. In this verse David was sharing a time of sadness, noting that God was keeping track of all the times a similar situation had occurred in his life. When this Psalm was written, David had been captured by the Philistines – the story can be found in 1  Samuel 21. He realised that he wasn’t in a safe place and pretended to be insane to escape. But in the midst of all this there was one place in which he couldn’t be touched – God’s presence.

So do we think that God keeps a register of all our sorrows? I think that depends on our relationship with Him. David had a full-on relationship with God – nothing held back, good or bad. But what about us? Is our relationship to God limited to a weekly recital of the Lord’s Prayer followed by a couple of hymns? Or do we too, like David, chatter away to our loving Heavenly Father at every opportunity, sharing our life with Him? Perhaps David spent more times in Heavenly places than on Planet Earth. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 is a short verse, and it encourages us to, “Pray without ceasing“. I don’t believe it means we supply God with a continual shopping list of prayers. Rather, we must, like David, develop a conversational and intimate relationship – call it prayer if you like – with our Heavenly Father. Sharing all that is happening to us in our sinful world and receiving the encouragement and advice we need for living. And like David we too will, “….walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light.” ‭‭Psalms‬ ‭56:13‬ ‭NLT‬‬.

Mere Mortals

Posted on by korgrocker

“I praise God for what He has promised; yes, I praise the Lord for what He has promised. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me?”
Psalms‬ ‭56:10-11‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Who hasn’t been concerned about what others think of them? So much of our societal life revolves around being accepted by others. In our families, our communities, our work places – in fact any place where we interface with others. Schools are terrible places for any child who dares to be different, whether they want to be or not. Conformity in dress code is mandated in most schools and non-conformity can lead to peer ridicule. The overweight or behaviourally different child can be cruelly mocked. In my school years I was a very sensitive child and that exposed me to mild bullying and other difficulties. And in our workplaces, the appraisal system demands that a senior person exposes what he or she thinks about a more junior member of their staff. In our communities, who hasn’t fallen into the trap of saying what they think of “the man down the road” or the lady two doors away?

David, though, is in a bubble, impervious to the thoughts and opinions of others. A bubble of trust in his loving God. He knows that God has made promises to him and his faith is such that he believes them all 100%. And that faith leads him to the astonishing statement that because of his trust in God he has no reason to be afraid. Of anything? I believe David totally trusted God with His life. Time and time again he had experienced God coming through for him, saving him in one calamity or another. He had reached the place where he could honestly say that his fellow human beings could not touch him in anything, not by any thought, word or deed. And his backstop, his bottom line, was the expectation that he would transition from this world to the next should his enemies overcome him, to be in God’s presence for ever.

So back to our question. Are we concerned about what others think of us? The First Century Roman church was counter-cultural in its day and suffered greatly from persecution because the early Christians dared to be different in following their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, gave some sound advice. Romans‬ ‭12:14-18‬ ‭NLT‬‬, “Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all! Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honourable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.” And by following Paul’s advice we can stand secure, having done our best to be acceptable to those around us. We can’t change what others think of us as we stand firm in God’s truths. In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus informed His followers that they were to be salt and light in their world. Being so will possibly give us hassles as we promote God’s counter-cultural truths. Regarding our standing in people’s thoughts, we must never lose sight of the reality that the only opinion that matters is what God thinks of us. Speaking of which, the Bible is packed full of wonderful truths. Here are two verses that never cease to bless me. Psalm 17:8, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings”. And Isaiah 49:16, “See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands…” Wow! God thinks so much of me that He has written my name on His hands. What love! What a Saviour!

So we trust in our God. We praise Him and thank Him at every opportunity. Like David, we each live in a bubble of His love,  where “mere mortals” cannot touch us.

Troublesome Thoughts

Posted on by korgrocker

Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught
because of what my enemy is saying, because of the threats of the wicked; for they bring down suffering on me and assail me in their anger.

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.
But You, God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of decay; the bloodthirsty and deceitful will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in You.

Psalm 55:1-3, 22-23 NIV

Oh dear! David is troubled by his thoughts once again. Sound familiar? Those times when we wake up in the wee small hours, “troubled by our thoughts”. Those times when a small problem adopts larger than life proportions and threatens to derail our sleep for a few hours. Well, this seems to be David’s predicament. Except his problem seems to be what people think of him. He seems to have an enemy who is set on spreading lies about him and adding in angry threats for good measure. And the result is that he becomes distraught and suffers greatly.

As we read through this Psalm, it follows the pattern of our nocturnal sleeplessness as we toss and turn, tormented by our thoughts. David went through a familiar process. 

A pounding heart and shaking with fear.
Wanting to run away, the quicker and further the better.
An attempt at blaming something, in this case the wickedness within the city
Sadness about a friend letting him down.
Concocting in his mind what he would like to happen to his enemies.

You can just feel the distress and discomfort building up to a crescendo. But then reality kicks in. He remembers the Lord and what he has done for him in the past and will do for him again in the future. He looks as his problem more rationally, receiving revelation and objectivity about the battle he is engaged in, the facts about his enemies, and even receives a dose of reality over his friend’s behaviour. And he finishes his rant with a statement of the dependability of God. How He will take care of him, carrying his burdens. Knowing that God will not let His people come to grief. And finally declaring that God can be trusted to save him. Wow! What a journey! 

But what an inspiration to us. It boils down to the simplest of conclusions. No matter what is keeping us awake at night, it will never be too big a problem for God to help us through it. Amen?

The Ziphites

Posted on by korgrocker

Save me, O God, by your name; vindicate me by your might.
You have delivered me from all my troubles, and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes.
Psalm 54:1,7 NIVUK

David is a hunted man, lurking and hiding in the wilderness of Judah. King Saul is after him and there are many opportunists who want to cosy up to Saul to gain his favours. The Ziphites are amongst them and they try and expose David’s location to King Saul, not just once, but on two occasions. And they did this even though they were tribally related to David, but, sadly, they considered him a rebel. Knowing their own territory, they were keeping tabs on David and providing intelligence to Saul about his whereabouts. But as things worked out, one might say they were backing the wrong horse.

Psalm 54 is the record of a part prayer, part chat, part declaration, between David, his Father God and anyone who was listening at the time. David starts in prayer, appealing to God to keep him safe and vindicate his yet to be fulfilled status as Israel’s king, in spite of the grave threats to his life. He then lapses into explaining why he was praying in such a way before finishing the Psalm with a declaration of praise and thanks. Prayers for help to a result in seven verses. Can’t be bad!

Does this Psalm still have validity today? It was written in a lawless society (at least by today’s standards) where a king could do pretty much what he liked. In our Western society, we have much more stability, or so we like to think, but there are still times of peril when God is the only One who can fix things for us. Those calamitous times when we, in our panic and fright, shout out a hurried “Save me” prayer to God, relief flooding in when He answers us. I’ve been there, and I’m sure you have too. But David didn’t write this Psalm on a whim. He wrote it out of a vibrant and personal relationship with his Father in Heaven. And out of that relationship he could say with confidence that God would come through for him. There is no substitute for a life spent in the company of our Creator God. Perhaps time spent with God will lead to a less stressful life, free of perilous situations. Or, more likely, it will lead us through any “valley[s] of the shadow of death” that we encounter, our walk fearlessly accompanied and comforted by the Lord our Shepherd.

So let me ask you a question today. Are you a fearful person worrying that something is waiting to zap you around the next corner, hoping that you will have time to shout out the “Save me” prayer, or are you a person who spends time with God and is confident in His ability to protect you come what may? Hmmm…

Being a Fool

Posted on by korgrocker

“Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil; not one of them does good!” Psalms‬ ‭53:1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

David, the Psalmist, is again in contemplative mode. In a zone of musings, as he thinks about what is going on about him. He is obviously much influenced by people around him, and he sees their hypocrisy, their lip service to God but in reality they deny Him, even His existence, with their thoughts and actions. And he concludes that they are “fools”. But if he is right, there are an awful lot of fools around us today. Nothing has changed from David’s day. Worse, though, there are many more who openly declare that there is no God. That everything happened by chance. Chemical reactions brought about carbon-based life. A Big Bang caused the universe to appear. And these people then sit back in a self-satisfied state of “knowledge”, not realising that they have talked themselves into being fully paid up members of the Society of Fools.

David draws the conclusion that without an open acceptance of God and His ways, the God-deniers, the atheists and agnostics of his day, are corrupt and evil in all they think and do. They adopt a life that is biased towards their own personal gain, selfishness being fuelled by an evil desire not held in check by the thought there is a God in Heaven looking on. Deep within us is a God-shaped hole that yearns and aches for Him to fill it. And today there will be those who, in spite of their God-denying, will try to fill their internal ache by doing good things for their society, perhaps helping out at a fund raising function, putting out their neighbour’s bins, visiting sick in hospital, or donating to a charity somewhere. 

But David’s musings remain in the zone of the foolishness of denying God, and the impact such denial will have on thoughts and actions, extending as they do into evil, and general corruption. Worldliness on a global scale.

So what about us. Christians can’t sit back and believe they have nothing to fear from Psalm 53. To the contrary, perhaps there is a wake up call here, for us to review and examine our hearts, bringing to the surface all that is God-denying. All that is evil and corrupt. And then bring it under the Blood of Jesus, in sorrowful and heart-felt repentance. Then the grace of God will flood over us once again. Praise His Name!

Olives

Posted on by korgrocker

“Why do you boast about your crimes, great warrior? Don’t you realise God’s justice continues forever? All day long you plot destruction. Your tongue cuts like a sharp razor; you’re an expert at telling lies. You love evil more than good and lies more than truth.
But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love. I will praise You forever, O God, for what You have done. I will trust in Your good name in the presence of Your faithful people.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭52:1-3, 8-9‬ ‭NLT‬‬

A Psalm about two people. A great warrior who tells lies and the Psalmist who likens himself to an olive tree. It could be the actor list for a stage play or the character list in a fantasy novel. But then the seriousness of the message unfolds. David, the Psalmist, was recording the wrongs of a man called “Doeg the Edomite”, a man who massacred priests at Saul’s behest. We can read about the event, and his evil, in 1 Samuel 21 and 22. But what can we learn from this Psalm? I think the main message is that there is an eternal reality about God and His righteousness and justice. There have been many men and women, past and present, who are self-serving, mirroring the behaviour of the “great warrior” and thus assuring themselves the fate reserved for evil people. Perhaps David introduced a hint of sarcasm when he referred to Doeg as being a “great warrior”, because anyone with that title would be expected to be brave and courageous, and with a character befitting the word “great”. David referred to Doeg’s tongue as being like a sharp razor; he was apparently no stranger to boasting about his ruthless deeds and he used his mouth as the vehicle for underpinning his evil reputation. But Doeg was a man without a conscience and his one motivation in life was to maximise his own selfish rewards – an original “what’s in it for me” person – and he came to a early end, dying, according to Jewish traditions, at the age of 34. In today’s culture, the spirit of Doeg lives on, and many a person, not just those in a position of power or leadership, shipwreck their lives on a sea of lies and deceit. 

But David turns away from his rant to more personal matters. He likens himself to an olive tree. Why an olive tree? Why not an oak tree? Or one of those cedars of Lebanon? Perhaps he saw an olive tree planted close by while he wrote down his thoughts in God’s house, and was impressed by its fruitfulness. He saw the blessings of God manifested in this vigorous, long lasting tree; it was perhaps getting close to the time of a rich harvest of olives, and he equated it to his own life of trust in his loving Heavenly Father. A life full of “olives” of praise and thankfulness, a life founded on his relationship with God.

The moral of the story is that sooner or later, a life of deceit will face a time of reckoning. Lies will be exposed before the almighty Judge. And those people who commit to a life of righteousness will be amazed at how blind such deceitful people can be. They will laugh about the fate of even the most mighty of “warriors who do not trust God“. The righteous look on and observe godless, self-seeking evil people as they tumble down the slippery slope leading to the ultimate home of the father of lies.

Thankful Hearts

Posted on by korgrocker

“Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on Me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give Me glory.” 

But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honours Me. If you keep to My path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.””

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭50:14-15, 23‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Psalm 50 starts with the picture of God sitting in judgement over His people. I love the poetic language, for example, in the words of verse 1, where God summons everyone “from where the sun rises to where it sets”. That is, everywhere in the world. And here is God, surrounded by fire and storms, coming to be the Judge on Mount Zion. He lays out the problem. It’s not about the sacrifices His people bring. It’s not about the value placed on animals used in sacrifices, the bulls or the goats. He points out that everything belongs to Him anyway; after all, all life wherever it is belongs to Him. So He doesn’t need anything His people can supply. No. God was pointing out that the promises made to Him by His people must be backed up by thankful hearts. Hearts that truly honour Him by keeping to His teaching with the right attitudes. And the benefits are plain to see; a relationship where God’s protection and salvation are echoed by His people’s expressions of giving glory to Him.

I always feel sorry for those people who do not believe in a Creator God. Who believe that the world happened to be what it is by chance. Those people who appreciate the beauty of a sunset over the Isle of Jura, in the West of Scotland. Who look at the stunning colours displayed by flowers such as the poppy. Who look at the perfection of a new born baby. And in their gaze they acknowledge the wonder but have no one to thank for it. And those of us who do believe in a Creator God, we have to be careful that we don’t become too familiar with what God has done, failing to offer Him the thanks He deserves for His countless wonders, His countless blessings. Instead we can fall into the same trap as the people we read about in the Psalm, people who were going through a religious ritual, without having thankful hearts turned towards Him.

So how is our relationship with God? Do we try and do things for Him to gain His favour? Do we worship our denominational liturgy instead of the Person the liturgy points to? Do we sit in a Sunday pew allowing our minds to wander to what we are going to eat for lunch or what we are going to do after church? Do we rush our way through our morning prayer time, reciting our prayers by rote without touching the Person we are praying to? Or do we kneel before our wonderful Creator God, offering Him a sacrifice of our thankful hearts, acknowledging all that he has done for us, honouring the Person who loves us so much? Worth a thought? 

Jesus Calling our Name?

Posted on by korgrocker

“They trust in their wealth and boast of great riches. Yet they cannot redeem themselves from death by paying a ransom to God. Redemption does not come so easily, for no one can ever pay enough to live forever and never see the grave.
But as for me, God will redeem my life. He will snatch me from the power of the grave.” Psalms‬ ‭49:6-9, 15‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The Psalmist was obviously having a bad day. He looked around his community, perhaps his nation, and observed that there were a lot of rich people, who arrogantly lived a life of luxury. But he pointed out that there was one thing that their money could not buy and that was eternal life. He said, correctly, that they couldn’t take their wealth with them to the grave and beyond. They could not, as one of today’s verses points out, pay God a ransom to keep them alive forever.

In the world today there is a growing business in cryopreservation, where rich people or their families pay large sums to enable their bodies, or the bodies of their loved ones, to be preserved in liquid nitrogen in the hope that advances in medical science would one day enable them to be resurrected from their frozen state and brought back to life in a Lazarus-like resuscitation. An added twist sees some just having their brains frozen, perhaps in the hope of adding their intelligence to a robotic entity. But all with a faith that one day they will suddenly find themselves lying on a slab, waking up in a new age. It begs the question, would I really want to wake up in this sin-ridden, war-striven, disease-ravaged world? Will mankind ever get its act together to save this world and assure a future for Planet Earth? And all by effectively cocking a snoop at God by saying we can achieve what is needed without His help?

But I can’t help thinking how stupid the cryopreservationists are. God Himself has given everyone the opportunity to live forever through His Son Jesus. And it won’t cost them a penny. Rich or poor, we can embrace a hope for the future purely by accepting that God is who He says He is, the Creator of everything. That He loved mankind so much that He sent His Son Jesus to die for us at Calvary, offering the breathtaking exchange of our sins for His righteousness. And the Psalmist records his personal assurance that God has redeemed him from death, from the power of the grave, such was His faith in his relationship with his Father God.

And the Psalm ends with the following, “So don’t be dismayed when the wicked grow rich and their homes become ever more splendid. For when they die, they take nothing with them. Their wealth will not follow them into the grave. In this life they consider themselves fortunate and are applauded for their success. But they will die like all before them and never again see the light of day.” Psalms‬ ‭49:16-19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather put my faith in the Creator of Everything, than in the hope that one day someone will wake me up from a frozen state. After all, why would they want to anyway?

The story of Jesus and His friend Lazarus is interesting. Lazarus dies and is buried and has languished, wrapped in his grave clothes, for four days before Jesus came to see his tomb. And we have the amazing spectacle set out in John 11, of Jesus commanding that the stone sealing the mouth of the tomb is rolled away. We then read in verses 43 and 44, “Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in grave clothes, his face wrapped in a head cloth. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”” These few words can never adequately describe the drama that unfolded before the observers. Gob-smacked would be too tame a phrase to describe it. Here was a man physically dead and starting to rot in the heat of that climate, and yet the power of God working through His Son Jesus was able to resurrect him from his dead state. Lazarus died and the next thing he knew was Jesus calling his name. Now I don’t believe for a minute that God has special favourites. He treats His children equally. As some have said, the ground is level at the foot of the Cross. So I sometimes wonder, after we die, will the next thing we hear be Jesus calling our name, waking us up to a glorious future with Him forever?

Memories of Zion

Posted on by korgrocker

“Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, His holy mountain.
Walk about Zion, go round her, count her towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation.”
Psalms‬ ‭48:1, 12-13‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

Many years we used to sing the song derived from the first two verses of Psalm 48, and written by Steve McEwan in 1985. It’s one of my favourites still, over 30 years later. The contemporary Christian music genre is full of good songs, from worship powerhouses such as Bethel and Hillsongs, but also from individuals hearing from God and writing down what they receive through the Spirit. In it all, though, there is something significant about singing Scripture. It has already been “God-breathed” through Godly men and women, many centuries ago, and has stood the test of time in one of the most important written works mankind has ever had the privilege to hold, The Holy Bible.

Psalm 48, though, enthuses over Zion, the city of God. But what is all this about this place called Zion? It initially appeared in the Bible as a fortified part of Jerusalem, to which was added the Temple area, but became extended in scope to eventually mean a figurative description of the people of Israel, the Jews. And then in the New Testament it took on a spiritual significance as God’s spiritual kingdom. Today the word “Zionist” has become synonymous with the Jewish nation, and sadly has become a derogatory term for Jews adopted by anti-Semites everywhere. A situation which is not really surprising because the enemy of God’s people, Satan, does not like to think that there is a physical and spiritual domain belonging to God in this world, which he claims for himself. And so he whips up anti-Jewish feelings among other nations and peoples everywhere.

However, the Psalmist ends his Psalm with the instruction to “walk about Zion”. Imagine if someone had said to you that they want you to walk around, say, Edinburgh Castle or Westminster Abbey, observing and recording the layout, with all its artefacts and architectural features, making notes so that you can share everything that you have seen with your children, your next generation? It could be quite a project, I think you will agree. But what about doing the same with our spiritual Zion? Where God lives? That would be a project that will take a lifetime and more, because no matter how hard we try, and how much time we can devote, we will never plumb the depths of God and His Kingdom. We will never find the limits of His domain. But we can share the glimpses of His home that the Holy Spirit reveals to us. Sharing a physical picture of an earthly edifice is only of limited value to the next generation, but sharing a spiritual picture of God’s Kingdom, particularly through our own experiences of His grace and love, will save their lives.

So today, join me in “walking around Zion”. I find my “Zion” in the pages and verses of Scripture. In the highways and byways of my local prayer walks in Dean Woods. In the company of God’s people. But where do you find your “Zion”? The amazing fact about God’s Kingdom is that it is everywhere. No matter where we are, where we live, who we are with, even when using technology such as WhatsApp or Zoom, we will find God and His presence. If we look for Him.

Praises

Posted on by korgrocker

“Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth; sing to Him a psalm of praise.”
Psalms‬ ‭47:1, 6-7‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

Imagine a whole nation clapping its hands! And shouting joyful shouts! All to our wonderful God, our Creator. But in our secular society, clapping and shouting is retained for sporting events or concerts, temporal activities that provide a brief time of pleasure, soon to be replaced by the more humdrum activities of everyday life. In our church we are sometimes encouraged to offer up a clap offering to the Lord, or make a vocal contribution in praise. But a whole nation…?

The Psalmist goes on to encourage his readers to sing praises to God. And he provides a reason – God is King over all the earth. Praising God produces a peculiar effect within us, because it lifts us out of ourselves into Heavenly places with Him. I recently heard a quote saying, “Praise is the spark plug of faith”, and that is true because you cannot praise God if He isn’t who He says He is, doing the things He says He does. And in the praising process our faith grows and something changes within our spirits.

Saying that God is King over all the earth is disputed by most people. They ask questions such as, “How could a loving God allow that accident to happen?”, or “Why does God allow such evil people to flourish?” And many more similar questions. But in our sin-soaked world, where mankind seems set on self destruction in so many ways, there is still a King behind the scenes. A loving King who breaks His heart over the rebellion of mankind, a righteous King who has to allow man to make choices, no matter how devastating they can be. A faithful King who continues to supply all we need for human life. And a redeeming King who sent His Son to die for us at a place called Calvary, where He took on the sins of the world, past present and future.

So as His people what else can we do other than praise Him? Other than shout our praises to a wonderful God, the King over all the earth. In the quiet of my early morning prayer walks in Dean Woods I sometime shout out the name of Jesus, listening to the echo from the created world around me. Listening to the trees and plants joining with me in a time of praise. I’m not alone in singing my psalm of praise to my wonderful God.

So will you, my reader, join with me today, clapping your hands, shouting and singing your praises to God? If you have never done so before, give it a try. And feel the lift in your spirit as you connect with our wonderful creator God.