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Yearly Archives: 2020
Boast About This…
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The Righteous Will Not Be Shaken: Psalm55:22
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Strength Shall Rise
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What Is Knowledge?
Photo by Christina Wilson
The psalmist has just asked God to give him knowledge and good sense. What is knowledge? The same verse answers that question: the teachings of God are knowledge. Further, the psalmist asks for good sense, so that he (or she) can understand the knowledge contained in Scripture and apply it rightly. This word for “good sense” is “taste, judgment” in Hebrew and “training, discipline” in Greek. In other words, Give me your knowledge, God, and teach me to discern it rightly.
Especially in today’s chaotic world, where information is as cheap as dust on a pavement, the child of God needs God’s discernment to sort through what is from him and what is not. Especially prevalent is the temptation to get drawn into politics and to take “sides.” Listen, with God there are no sides. God loves people, not positions. God calls his children from all political persuasions and beliefs.
The child of God can never go wrong by focusing on the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ. First, know that God is love. He is for us, not against us. Know that all people, including ourselves, are sinners who can never please God without the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the Son of his love, the only human ever who had no sin. Know that Jesus the Son is God–holy, divine, powerful, omnipotent, yet humble as a lamb. Christ died for our sins and was raised again. Because he was raised from the dead–the only person ever to be so permanently raised–we who identify with him will be raised from the dead. How does someone identify with him? By believing his word revealed in Scripture. Then apply that knowledge! Since I am to be resurrected, that should pretty much compensate for all the difficulties I may experience today. Finally, love others–all others–the way Christ loves us. That’s it.
Give me knowledge and good sense, for I have put my faith in your teachings. –Psalm 119:66
Prayer Is…Letting God Know
“Just a phone call away,” sounds very trite, especially when we know that the Lord wants us to plead with God, sometimes again and again and again. We see this by Jesus’s parables of the widow in Luke 18:1-8 and the man asking to borrow bread from his neighbor at midnight in Luke 11:5-13. Nevertheless, as James tells us, “You do not have, because you do not ask,” (James 4:2b). At some point, we need to pick up that phone and cry out to God for his help. (Don’t let the bright red color put you off.)
Humble yourselves therefore…
What could be lower than a thistle? But God created thistles, and at the right moment, in due time, he makes even them beautiful to see. I passed this lowly thistle on the path, and I was struck how the light lifted it away from its background, giving it a beauty that popped.
One thing troubles can be good for is to help us find that lowly spot before the Lord. But even troubles don’t bring about lowliness before the Lord automatically. It’s how we respond to the troubles…with bitterness, fear, doubtful complaining, or with faith, thanking God even for these troubles, laying them all down at our Savior’s feet? God is great, and his movements are hard to predict, but one thing we can always be sure of is that He cares for us.
One Small Voice 