Category Archives: Psalms

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No-Strings-Attached Faith

Trust When There Is No Visible Evidence

PREVIEW: Neither good times nor bad days should be relevant to our faith, because our lives are anchored in something far better, infinitely stronger, and eternally lasting: the immutable character of God. As a result, we must exhibit profound trust in spite of circumstances and offer unfettered praise in scorn of consequences. Both in private and in public, we must exude organic devotion to God that comes with no strings attached. Only then can we exclaim, “Bless is the one who makes the Lord their trust.”

“Neither good times nor bad days should be relevant to your faith, because you are anchored in something far stronger than your circumstances: the immutable character of God.”

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 40:4

Blessed are you who give yourselves over to GOD, turn your backs on the world’s “sure thing, and ignore what the world worships.

Are you willing to trust the Lord even when it doesn’t make sense? Are you willing to praise him unconditionally? Will you speak of his love and goodness even when, on the surface, circumstances would seem to indicate anything but his loving-kindness toward you?

Of course, committed Christ-followers always answer quickly and resoundingly with a “yes!” to those questions. But what happens when, like David, you find yourself in a “slimy pit” (Psalm 40:2), or when the will of God requires painful and costly sacrifice on your part (Psalm 40:6), or when your personal failings have landed you in deep weeds (Psalm 40:12), or when there are those who want to destroy your life and ruin your reputation (Psalm 40:14-15)? What happens then? Are you just as willing to trust the Lord and give testimony to his great faithfulness?

In a very real sense, neither good times nor bad days were relevant to David’s faith because his life was anchored in something far better: the immutable character of God. As a result, what you witness in David is a profound trust in spite of circumstances and unfettered praise in scorn of consequences. Both in private and in public, he exhibited organic devotion to God that came with no strings attached (Psalm 40:9-10),

I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;
I do not seal my lips, as you know, O LORD.
I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
I do not conceal your love and your truth
from the great assembly.

There have been many spiritual heroes, like David, who have exhibited that kind of organic devotion. Such is the case of one of our Early Church Fathers, Polycarp. In the year 155 AD, 86-year-old Polycarp, a man who had been discipled by the Apostle John, was burned at the stake. When given the chance to recant before the fires were lit, he said, “Eighty and six years I have served Christ and He has done me nothing but good; how then could I curse Him, my Lord and Savior?”

Now that’s bless-able devotion! But you might ask: How was Polycarp so blessed since he was burned to death? Well, Polycarp has been elevated to that eternal cloud of witnesses alongside David, while his executioners have been relegated to the dustbin of history. You see, from this side of life, trust doesn’t always make sense, but from the eternal side, unconditional trusting bears the fruit of eternal blessing.

So yes, blessed is the one who makes the Lord his trust! David was blessed—so was Polycarp. I want to be one of those in the company of the blessed, too! Don’t you?

My Offering of Worship: Re-read the list of people who exhibited organic devotion to God when on the surface, there was no empirical evidence to place truth in God. After you read of their deep water faith, ask God to give you that kind of faith.

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Take Stock

What Will Your Epitaph Say

PREVIEW: Take a stroll through a cemetery when you get a chance and read the epitaphs on the tombstones. On them, you will see the history of those dearly departed ones succinctly packaged by the dash between two dates — the date of their birth and the date of their death. The dash is what we call life. One little dash, but what a story it tells. And often, those who are left behind sum up the departed one’s dash with an inscription left on the headstone, an epitaph. So, here is a question of utmost importance: What will yours say?

“Whatever you hope your tombstone will say means that you will have to live your life that way between now and then.”

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 39:4-7

Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered — how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath. We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it. And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.

One day you will have an epitaph chiseled on a headstone. If you doubt that, take a stroll through a cemetery, and you will see that everyone gets one. Seriously, as morbid as it might sound, I’d highly recommend that stroll because what you’ll read on those markers will tell a lot about the people buried beneath them.

On the headstones, you will see the history of those dearly departed ones succinctly packaged by the dash between two dates — the date of their birth and the date of their death. The dash is what we call life. One little dash, but what a story it tells. And often, those who are left behind sum up the departed one’s dash with an inscription left on the headstone, an epitaph.

Some of those inscriptions are profound. Some express tremendous love or a deep sense of loss. Even those that are quite humorous still deliver a sobering reminder. There are websites dedicated to the more memorable tombstones in history. But whether profound, heartwarming, heart-wrenching, or even funny, each epitaph is quite instructive, like the one that not only made me laugh, it really made me think:

This is what I expected — but not so soon.

Epitaphs like that will remind you of the unavoidable reality that one day, you, too, will have your entire life summed up and chiseled onto a stone for others to read. There is a New England headstone that captured this sobering truth:

As you pass by and cast an eye,
As you are now so once was I.

We will all have an epitaph one day. King David, the author of this psalm, got one. I will get one, and so will you. The only question is, what will yours say? So, here’s the deal: Whatever you hope it will say means that you will have to live your life that way between now and then.

David, who was far from a perfect man, apparently did a great deal of thinking about the end of his life. That’s what this psalm is all about. And it really changed the way he lived out the rest of his dash, so much so that at the end of it, his friends wrote on his headstone:

A Man After God’s Own Heart. (Acts 13:22)

Hmm! I think I’ll take some time today, and while I’m at it, I’ll take some stock, too, on what my tombstone will say. Why don’t you join me? And if our current appraisal is not what we would hope for, let’s make a course correction — beginning today.

My Offering of Worship: As soon as it is possible, take a stroll through a cemetery and read the tombstones. Then, when you get home, write out what you want yours to say.

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Sin-Sick

Consider the Connection

PREVIEW: Be open to the possibility that sickness is the result of sin. I’m not talking about living under a load of paralyzing guilt and spiritual paranoia. God wants you to live in the blessed freedom of forgiveness, the delight of his unmerited favor, and the incredible joy of abundant living. At the same time, be willing to live the examined life. Check in with God a lot, as well as with trusted believers, and open your heart to the things that may be not only blocking the favor of God but actively inviting his punishment.

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 38:3

Because of your anger, my whole body is sick; my health is broken because of my sins.

Is sickness the result of sin? My definitive answer is, maybe!

That question has been on the minds of people for ages. And for a good portion of human history, there was a perceived connection between bad behavior and the disfavor of the local god. Even in the history of the Old Testament Israelites, as well as in Christian history over the last two thousand years, the belief was that personal and corporate sin led to Divine punishment, including sickness.

It wasn’t until the last fifty years or so that we in the Western world have come to the point of view that there is no spiritual-physical link between sin and sickness. And to be sure, the fact that I catch a cold, come down with the flu, or contract a disease does not imply that some egregious sin had been committed.

On the other hand, in a very real sense, all sickness is the result of sin — original sin. Romans 5:12 reminds us that because of one man’s sin, death entered the human race. And since, by virtue of Adam’s sin, we are all sinners, guess what? We will all experience death. And the dying process, which begins at birth, by the way, includes bouts of sickness along the way.

Having said all that, there is truth that sickness is sometimes the result of specific sins in our life. David understood that, and reading this psalm makes it pretty clear that he was associating unbearable physical pain, the symptoms of a debilitating illness, and excruciating emotional distress with the things he had done that had violated the laws of God.

I think we ought to be open to that possibility, too. I am not talking about living under a load of paralyzing guilt and spiritual paranoia — hopefully, you know me well enough to realize I would never suggest that. God wants us to live in the blessed freedom of forgiveness, the delight of his unmerited favor, and the incredible joy of the abundant life.

At the same time, we ought to be willing to live the examined life. We need to check in with God a lot, with trusted believers, too, and open our hearts to the things that may be not only blocking the favor of God but actively inviting his punishment. In Psalm 139:23-24, David invited the Divine searchlight to scrutinize the inner recesses of his life:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

There really is great freedom in taking such an open and honest posture before both God and man. Not only that, it may just prove to be one of the best preventions for both physical and mental health you will ever run into.

My Offering of Worship: It would be a good idea for you to pray the Psalm 139 prayer—especially is you are sick: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

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Success Guaranteed

Delight Yourself in the Lord

PREVIEW: Make the Lord the center and the circumference of your world. Therein lies the key to success in life — to fruitfulness and fulfillment in all you do. Not just to make things happen for yourself but to actually have God working on your behalf to give you what you have set your heart to do. You see, God wants to grant you success. And success, as he defines it, is far greater, longer lasting, and more satisfying than what the world offers. So, delight yourself in the Lord, and you will find that the Lord delights himself in you!

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 37:4

Trust in the Lord and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you.

I love these verses, particularly verse 4. It’s one of my favorites. Therein lies the key to success in life — to fruitfulness and fulfillment in all you do. Not just to make things happen for yourself, but to actually have God working on your behalf to give you what you have set your heart to do.

But this is no automatic formula to riches, power, and fame that David is talking about. In this verse itself is the essential context that we must grasp and apply if we are to enter into the blessed life the psalmist goes on to describe. Furthermore, the entire chapter of Psalm 37 provides valuable insight that further explains verse 4. You and I would do well to read and absorb this whole psalm in context.

So let me give you a heads up on some of David’s caveats to the success he promises:

First, you’ve got to put God first and make him foremost in your life. Another way of putting it is that God must be both the center and circumference of your existence. I think that’s what David had in mind when he said, “Delight yourself in the Lord.”

God will not grant you willi-nilli any old desire. That would be irresponsible of God and dangerous for you. However, when you delight in God above all else, that in itself will shape the desires that arise in your heart and guard you from foolish, selfish, sinful, and harmful wishes.

Second, you’ve got to delay gratification and practice patience. You will find in the rest of this psalm that, over and over again, David speaks of not getting in a rush to see the plan of God unfold in your life and not getting caught up in the false success of those who are far from God. In due time, God will bring about his promised blessings. Here is how David sees it in verse 7:

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.

And third, you must refuse to cut corners and commit to a consistent walk of uprightness before God. If your life is characterized by incongruent living — saying one thing but doing another — don’t expect God’s deep and abiding favor. Though much of this psalm is dedicated to this truth, notice in particular how David puts it in verses 18, 34 and 37:

The days of the blameless are known to the LORD, and their inheritance will endure forever…Wait for the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, you will see it…Consider the blameless, observe the upright; there is a future for the man of peace.

God wants to grant you success. And success, as he defines it, is far greater, longer lasting, and more satisfying than what the world offers. So, delight yourself in the Lord, and you will find that the Lord delights himself in you!

My Offering of Worship: Take inventory of the things you desire most in life. Are they in line with what should be your top desire: To please God and glorify him above everything? If they are not in line with that, then ask the Lord to sanctify your desires — and cooperate with him as he reshapes you. If they are in line with pleasing and glorifying God, then thank him in advance for bringing them to pass.

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Arrgh, Thar Drivin’ Me Nuts!

Dwell on the Eternal Character of God Instead

PREVIEW: Are you overcome with anger, or if you are distressed, or maybe even depressed because sin and sinners seem to triumph everywhere you turn, do what King David often did in his psalms: write a prayer where you not only pour out your complaint to God, but you extol his eternal character. Dwelling on the eternal character of God is the antidote to the spiritual road rage that threatens to consume you when you focus on the ephemeral nature of both sin and the sinner.

“Dwelling on the eternal character of God is the antidote to the spiritual road rage you feel when you dwell on the triumph of sin.”

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 36:10

Continue your love to those who know you, your righteousness to the upright in heart.

I have to admit it — I was really ticked off! I was fighting back road rage. I was considering intimidating the driver of the other car with hyper-close tailgating, or perhaps speeding up and cutting them off, or maybe even performing the dreaded PIT maneuver (and if you don’t occasionally watch car chase videos, you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about).

So what was my problem? Well, I was on the way to a birthday celebration — a friend had turned 90 — and the car in front of me had about every bumper sticker offensive to Christianity on it you could possibly imagine. The one that sent me over the edge was next to a culturally appropriated “fish” symbol — you know, the one that has feet and the name Darwin on the inside of our beloved fish. Anyway, right beside that bumper sticker was another one that said, “We Have The Fossils — We Win.”

I was beginning to hum “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Stand Up For Jesus” and I would intermittently mumble, “the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.” (Judges 7:18) I was ready to pounce — in Jesus’ name, of course. But I didn’t do any of that. Rather, I eventually settled for calmingly passing the car that was causing my upset and giving the “Philistine” occupants my most righteous stare.

Drats! They didn’t even see me.

Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad, but I was more than a little ticked off. You, too, get that way sometimes when you see the unrighteous flaunting their disregard of God and their disrespect for Christians. As followers of Christ, we often long for the day God steps in to judge sin with a display of Divine justice that will leave no doubt )although when we consider the lives of the sinners we know and love, that prospect is rather frightening).

David was feeling that way in this psalm. Out of the twelve verses that make up Psalm 36, six are used to complain about the wicked (Psalm 36:1-4,11-12). But as David is venting, I think he comes to grips with the fact that there was not much, if anything, he could do about the evil residing in the hearts of those wicked people who were ticking him off. So, as he often does, he talks himself out of his “road rage” by focusing on the character of God: his love and faithfulness (Psalm 36:5), his righteousness and justice (Psalm 36:5), his protection and abundance (Psalm 36:7-8), and life itself (Psalm 36:9-10) that the godly find when they make the Almighty their sanctuary.

Dwelling on the eternal character of God is the antidote to the spiritual road rage that threatens to consume us when we focus on the ephemeral nature of the sinner. You’d think I would get that by now — but I guess, like David, I have to relearn it just about every other day. I’ll bet you do too!

My Offering of Worship: If you are overcome with anger, or distressed, perhaps even depressed because sin and sinners seem to triumph everywhere you turn, do what David did: write a psalm where you not only pour out your complaint to God, but you extol his eternal character.

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Worship His Majesty

The Most Beautiful of God’s Creation Is His Re-creation of You

PREVIEW: as amazing as God’s work in nature was, it wasn’t even his best work. You see, you are his best work! You are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10). The best of God’s power and majesty, glory and strength were on display when he redeemed you from your sin, made you a part of his forever family, and gave you a divine purpose for this life and the one to come. And none of that due to your own worthiness, mind you! It was all because of his great love! So whether you live in a place of beauty or not, why don’t you do what David did by falling to your knees to ascribe to the Lord glory and strength that he so richly deserves?

Worship His Majesty - Ray Noah

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 29:1-6 (TEV)

Praise the LORD, you heavenly beings; praise his glory and power. Praise the LORD’s glorious name; bow down before the Holy One when he appears. The voice of the LORD is heard on the seas; the glorious God thunders, and his voice echoes over the ocean. The voice of the LORD is heard in all its might and majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, even the cedars of Lebanon. He makes the mountains of Lebanon jump like calves and makes Mount Hermon leap like a young bull.

If you are a big fan of nature, like I am, you will love this psalm. David is extolling the indescribable majesty and awesome power of God in the ongoing witness of nature: The vastness of the deep blue oceans, the breathtaking beauty of the mountain peaks, and the chest-rattling sounds of the thunder complete with fear-inducing fierceness of an electrical storm.

Truly God was doing some of his best work when he created the cosmos.

The work that I now do requires more air travel than I ever imagined doing. Whether it is to Africa, or to some city in the Midwest or East Coast of the United States, each trip, along with navigating the unpredictability of air travel these days, the process of getting to, through, and home from airports, sleeping in hotels, all of which imposes physical and mental exhaustion on me, I never tire of flying back to the pristine beauty of the Pacific Northwest where I live. Nor does flying over the majestic Rocky Mountains. Seriously, when you see such grandeur, you wonder if God was just showing off when he created these places — the stunning beauty of Mt. Hood or Mt. St. Helens or Mt. Rainier, or the snow-capped wonder of the Front Range with its unhindered view of several 14,000 footers all the way from Pike’s Peak on the South to Long’s Peak on the north. Truly, it is hard to beat the views!

Sometimes it seems as though the pilots are flying the aircraft so close it seems as though you could reach out and touch God’s handiwork. Words can’t do justice to its overwhelming wonder. No artist’s canvas comes anywhere near God’s unequaled artistry, or in the case of St. Helens, his unequaled power. Without fail, each time I take in these scenes, I feel compelled to do what David did in Psalm 29:1,

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!

But as amazing as God’s work in nature was, it wasn’t even his best work. You see, you are his best work! You are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10). The best of God’s power and majesty, glory and strength were on display when he redeemed you from your sin, made you a part of his forever family, and gave you a divine purpose for this life and the one to come. And none of that due to your own worthiness, mind you! It was all because of his great love!

So whether you live in a place of beauty or not, why don’t you do what David did by falling to your knees to ascribe to the Lord glory and strength that he so richly deserves?

My Offering of Worship: If it is possible, get out in nature today, or this weekend, and not only off your praise the Lord for the beauty of his creation, but thank him for the beauty in you, his new creation.

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Whew! That Was a Close Call

He Delivers Me Out All My Troubles

PREVIEW: When David wrote, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them,” he was coming off a life-threatening episode that was the result of a major lapse of judgment on his part. Yet God had pulled his bacon out of the fire, and David was not only relieved, but he was also very grateful. Now, I am not advocating that the mistakes we make are no big deal. They are…and they can be very costly. But friend, we serve a God who trumps our mistakes with his grace and turns our goofs into glory for himself and good for us. We may take a few lumps along the way, but at the end of the day, even on our best day, it is God who makes something beautiful out of it. I love how the famed hymn writer, John Newton put it, “We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.”

Whew! That Was A Close Call - Ray Noah

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 34:4-7

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

You’ve got to notice the title of this psalm to really appreciate it:

A Psalm of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.

David was on the lam…just a step ahead of death due to King Saul’s maniacal and murderous hatred. On this particular occasion, out of desperation, David sought refuge, of all places, in the Philistine city of Gath. Gath, you might recall, was the hometown of a famed warrior-hero that David had killed in stunning fashion on the battlefield: Goliath.

David is seeking refuge in the city of his enemy rather than in the shelter of the Almighty. Now to be fair, David has done a lot of things right up to this point in his life. He has depended on the Lord, day after day and night after night for years, patiently enduring and deftly avoiding Saul’s relentless posse. But now he makes a big mistake — and it almost costs him his life.

The people of Gath recognize David for what he is: the chief warrior of their archenemy Israel, and they want the Philistine king to have him executed. Suddenly, realizing the pickle he’s gotten himself into, David comes up with a crazy idea: He’ll go postal. So he feigns insanity, starts scratching at the door, drooling in his beard, and howling at the moon (okay, I added that last one). When the king sees David in this deranged state, he says, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”(1 Samuel 21:14-15)

With that, David beats a retreat back to the cave of Adullam, and there as before, he finds God in the cave. That is where the much-relieved David penned these immortal words: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.”

Now I am not advocating that the mistakes we make are no big deal. They are…and they can be very costly. But friend, we serve a God who trumps our mistakes with his grace and turns our goofs into glory for himself and good for us. We may take a few lumps along the way, but at the end of the day, even on our best day, it is God who makes something beautiful out of it. I love how the famed hymn writer, John Newton put it,

We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to His glory and our own advantage.

Come on now, aren’t you glad for that? Along with me, on a few occasions you have said, “Whew, God pulled my bacon out of the fire on that one!” That being translated, is “the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them!”

You might want to thank God for that little fact, by the way. I think I will!

My Offering of Worship: Neither David nor the writers of scripture tried to sanitize David’s self-inflicted wounds. Rather, they included them in the enteral Word of God for our benefit. You probably have a self-inflicted wound or two where God not only rescued you but turned your certain disaster into victory. Since that is true, share your story with another and encourage them with this truth: Even when we make mistakes, God still encamps around us, and even though our mistakes might be painful, he is still there protecting, preserving, and perfecting his plan for us.