Good Morning,
It is going to be one of the ten best days of September. Praise the Lord for His bountiful care and abundant grace. There is a powerful and very contextual verse found in Jeremiah 8.
"The summer is ended, the harvest is passed, and we are not saved" ( Jeremiah 8:20). Where we live we often have a beautiful Indian Summer in September - the fine weather goes on and on, then suddenly in the first week in October it’s all over. The gales and the rain come with a vengeance, and any crops that haven’t been harvested are ruined. Jeremiah was talking about one of those moments in time. Israel had been called to be God’s own special people. Jehovah was their real king, the people were his kingdom but something had gone terribly wrong.
The Bible constantly declares God’s Kingship. The Psalms are especially rich in this imagery: He "is King for ever and ever" (10:6); He "has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all" (103:19). The Kingdom of God was a central theme in the teaching of Jesus. In fact, one could say that the whole of Scripture is the account of God’s kingdom - it’s the story of the Kingdom Lost and the Kingdom Gained. It’s true at the national level but also with the individual people.
On a national level the people of God had plumbed the depths and entered into a state of hopelessness. The situation was well summed up in the words of Jeremiah, "The summer is ended, the harvest is passed, and we are not saved" (8:20). The nation had been deceived by the evil one into believing that prosperity came from following the surrounding nations in worshipping the fertility gods and engaging in their corrupt practices. That all took place 2,500 years ago. It’s ancient history - but what about today? The world has moved on; knowledge has increased by leaps and bounds in harnessing the resources of creation. But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed - and that’s the heart of man. C S Lewis put it rather well in an ironic parody of the hymn "Lead us Heavenly Father." His version reads, "Lead us evolution, lead us up the future’s endless stair; / Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us, for stagnation is despair; / Groping, guessing, yet possessing, lead us nobody knows where." That’s a good summary of the Kingdom Lost.
Mankind is still in a state of rebellion against God’s law, as Scripture tells us, "As for you" the apostle Paul wrote to the believers at Ephesus, "you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world" (2:1). Thank God, says the apostle, that your position of the Kingdom Lost is now in the past, but he also says, you are still living in an alien environment with many spiritual dangers ahead. He said of himself that he had to take great care that, at the end of the day, he wasn’t "disqualified for the prize" (1 Corinthians 9:27) of the Kingdom of God.
An admiral was sailing on his flagship on the North Sea. He was on the bridge on a dark night looking through his binoculars. To his alarm he saw a light coming directly towards them - they were on a collision course! He gave an order: "Send a signal; change two degrees south!" Back came the reply: "You change two degrees north!" He reacted rather indignantly, as he wasn’t used to having his orders countermanded. He sent another signal: "I am an admiral - change two degrees south!" The reply came: "I am an Able Seaman - you change two degrees north!" This was too much for the admiral - his professional pride and position was at stake. "I am a battleship," he signaled, "I order you to change course two degrees south!" Back came the irresistible demand: "I am a lighthouse - you can change two degrees north. You change! I can’t!"
The moral of the story is easy to see: the standards set by the word of God do not, and cannot change. It is we who must take care to avoid the hidden rocks that would shipwreck us on our voyage to the Kingdom of God. It would be a tragedy if, at the end of our lives, the sad words spoken by Jeremiah were to be true of us, "The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved." The nation of Israel was grievously damaged by sheer Disobedience to the Lord. Warning is there for all to see.
Jesus illustrated another potential disaster in his Parable of the Ten Virgins. The parable pictures an Eastern wedding, celebrated at night. The bridegroom would fetch the bride from her home and bring her in procession to his own, accompanied by the bridesmaids, each holding a lamp. Perhaps on this occasion there was some delay, and five of the girls kept their lamps burning unnecessarily while they had a sleep. The other five had taken the precaution of conserving their oil or bringing an extra supply. At midnight, the cry came, "The bridegroom is here!" The girls woke up and got their lamps ready for the procession, but half of them found that their oil was running out. So they said to the others, "Quick, quick, lend us some oil!"
The lesson that Jesus was teaching was that each of us has to be ready for our moment of destiny. The five girls left without oil wanted to borrow from the others, but that proved impossible. The truth is that in the matter of personal commitment to Christ, we cannot borrow a friend’s faith in an emergency. Character cannot be transferred from one person to another. Our salvation, our service for Christ, is a very personal matter and delay is dangerous.
Jeremiah had spent all his energies in warning his people to put their houses in order, but they were too busy enjoying the fleeting pleasures of the world and they were too stubborn to repent of their sinful ways. Now it was too late. The summer was over, with no time to sow a new crop; the harvest they were reaping was one of weeds. The only prospect before them was that of winter.
There’s a beautiful, well-known passage in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: "There’s a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries." Don’t miss the tide! Delay to trust in Christ and delay to serve him faithfully, can mean the Kingdom Lost. We never know when the opportunity will be gone forever. The uncertainty of life interjects urgency into our dealings with God as with all else.
An old rabbi was asked by one of his disciples when he ought to make peace with God. The rabbi thought for a moment and then said, "One moment before you die." "But, Master," protested the disciple, "I don’t know when I shall die!" "Exactly," said the rabbi, "Do it now!"
God is Love and it is not His will that any should perish or fail to receive the rewards He has in store for faithful service, but there comes a time when He will appeal no longer. God respects the gift of free will that he has given to mankind. Martin Luther once described God’s grace as like a shower of rain. He wrote, "It came to the Greeks and passed over, then to the Romans and the Jews. You must not think that you have it for ever." How terrible if our Delay in Deciding to Follow Christ should result in missing the summer of opportunity, of seeing the harvest passed.
This need not happen. The Bible has a contrasting message of hope and assurance. The apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, "The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is over; the day is almost here" (13:11,12).
Jeremiah’s sad cry ended with the words, " ... and we are not saved", but Paul’s is one of hope, "because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed." It was their’s potentially, but there was danger that it might slip from their grasp if they didn’t "wake up from their slumber." The believers had made considerable progress in the Christian pilgrimage. It might be said that they were on the last lap of an arduous race, but they could not afford to slack off, to lower their guard against the enemy’s attacks. They were told "to wake up from your slumber." It may be that they had grown a little complacent. They had to get back to basics; to be reminded of the obligation laid upon all believers to obey the Lord’s commands.
When the apostle wrote to the church at Rome, he quoted several of the Ten Commandments, together with the command "to love your neighbor as yourself" (13:9), the command which Jesus also quoted in his teaching. There is a famous saying by Augustine, "Love God - and do what you like." If love is the governing force in our lives, we will automatically keep, or at least try, to keep all the Lord’s commands. Paul summarizes his argument; "Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (10).
For most of us the Christian life is more like a marathon than a race of a hundred yard sprint. Perseverance can be a problem. It’s easy to falter in the hard stretches of the Christian pilgrimage. The apostle Paul wrote to the believers in Galatia, "You were running the race nobly. Who had interfered (hindered or stopped) you...?" (5:7) They had taken their eyes off Jesus. It can happen with us hardly noticing it. We can be too preoccupied with earthly matters, in themselves quite legitimate. We can become downhearted by adverse circumstances. We can become weary in well-doing, disappointed if we don’t feel our service for Christ is sufficiently recognized.
We have a choice as to whether we persevere or not. The Christian life has stretches of unexciting life, even weariness, when it’s easy to give up. We have to trust when we cannot see. Our earthly life is a period of transition, of preparation for eternity. It’s essential we ask ourselves if we are in the position that Jeremiah described: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved". This is negative, leading to the Kingdom Lost. Please God, that this will not be so, but rather, as the apostle Paul indicated, we will be moving steadily towards the Kingdom Gained: "Our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."
In Christ,
Brown
"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."C.L.Lewis
Thoughts on Exercising. . .
I have to exercise early in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.
The advantage of exercising every day is that you die healthier.
If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.
Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000 per month.
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. Now she's 97 years old and we don't know where on earth she is.
The only reason I would take up exercising is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.
I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.
And last but not least: I don't exercise because it makes the ice jump right out of my glass.
You could run this over to your friends but why not just e-mail it to them!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Brown's Daily Word - HALLELUJAH!!! 9/18/07
Good Morning.
It is going to be a brilliant day. Thank You Jesus. During one of our meetings yesterday I read from Ephesians 3:20-21: "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."
The New International Version states, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" – Indeed, God is able to do so much more that you can’t even measure what God is Able to do
The King James Version translates this - "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us"
The New American Standard Version, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us"
The New American Standard Updated Edition Translates this, "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us"
This is a fun phrase in the original language. Paul uses a double compound word; he actually makes up his own word phrase. He is so caught up in the BIGNESS and AWESOMENESS of God, he creates a new word phrase to make his point. He stacks these words upon each other in an attempt to say something to indicate that God is beyond the descriptions available in human language. He is
beyond words. Paul morphs all these words together to make his point,
saying that God is Incredibly Incredible, Extravagantly Extravagant, Awesomely Awseome in His Awesomeness, Outrageously Outrageous, Fantastically Fantastic, Amazingly Amazing, Infinitely Infinite – all the time.
Here is what I believe the point is – There is no box Big enough to hold our God. God is Ably Able in His Ability. Our words cannot fully Express what we know and Feel. There’s no such word that can contain ALL of WHO HE is and ALL of what He can do. Our God is Indescribably indescribable. God is Able – that would be enough said. God Can! God is! God is Able to do! This would be enough to have our hearts beat with Confidence and Faith, but then our hearts would beat a few beats faster when we realize that our God is able to do more than what we ask or imagine. Our hearts should be pounding in Praise because our God is able to do abundantly more.
He provides at just the right time, in just the right way, with everything I need and then more besides. God is the God of the “and then some more”. Lamentations 3:22-23 states, "Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
God is Able to do MORE. His Ability is Incredible, Outrageous, and Extravagant. He exceeds the Expectation. You Get more than what you expect from God. God is Faithful. God is Able..
God didn’t make just a single drop of water He made Oceans of water
God didn’t create just 1 star – God made Galaxies
God didn’t just make a single kind of bird – God created 1,000s kinds of birds
God didn’t just make a hill – God made the Rockie Mountains
God didn’t just make the Sun – God made the Sunsets and Sunrises….
He Exceeds all the Expectations. He is able to do far more abundantly beyond all we ask or imagine, Above and Beyond all. He Exceeds Expectations with His Excellence because He is God.
There are No Limits to His Love, No Boundaries to His Blessing, No Fences withholding His Faithfulness; No Lines drawn separating us from His Salavation
No Guard Rails against His Grace, No Containers holding His Compassion, No Restrictions to Experiencing His Righteousness.
God’s Power - that is to say, God’s “Able to do immeasurably more power!” is “FAR MORE ABUNDANTLY BEYOND ALL I can ask or think”. Power? Guess where this Power is. Guess where this Power works. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.
This word, which is translated as power, if transliterated into English, would be closer to our word for dynamite. It is speaking of the power of dynamite, Explosive Energy, and Awesome Ability. There is Tremendous power given and at work within us. God’s Power is in us,but we have to get plugged in and get connected with God. We need to be wired in. There is a Connection made so that the Power can Flow.
Then we must get turned On, that is to say, Flip the Switch! We say, “YES” to the Lord. “I am ready to Receive You and what You have for Me. You are the Power. You are My Strength. I need You. You are Able – I believe that. I will live that. I will trust that.
God gives us power to do what? In a word – it is the Power to Love! Listen to the Prayer that Paul prays for these believers. It is a Prayer of Power and a Prayer for Power in Ephesians 3:16-19, " I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
Jesus isn’t just taking a Vacation with us. Our Heart becomes His Home. His address is now our lives. He lives with us as a Permanent Residence
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
God gives the Power to be rooted in His Love, the Power to be established, grounded in Love. His is the Power to Grasp His Love, which means to literally “take hold of it with the intent of never letting it go”. to possess it, to seize this Love. He wants us to Comprehend how wide His love is, to grasp how long is His Love is, how far will His Love go to reach to you and to me. His is the power to grasp how High His love is, so High that it came down from the Throne of God, and to grasp how deep is His Love. He wants us to experience every dimension of His Love.
Power to Know that this Love surpasses all that we can know about Love. There is nothing like this love. Not then. Not Now. Not ever. This love surpasses all our knowledge. We can never come to know all that love is but we are spend our lives trying. To know what can never be fully known. The more I learn of His Love for me the more I want to learn…
Power to be Filled with God and to be filled with His Love… Power to Serve in His Love -- Power to Surrender to His Love, that Christ may dwell in your hearts. Surrender to Jesus as Lord… God is Able – There is power through us.Eph 3:21-- to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
To Him be Glory in the Church…means that we, as the Church, the Called out ones of God, are to present God in all His Brilliant Splendor, that He is to be seen in all His Majestic Beauty. To Him be the Glory in the Church -- This is our purpose. This is our mission. This is our desire. This is our value. This is what we live for…this is our essence. Our lives are to be His Glory! Our Love is to be His Glory.
In Christ,
Brown
Psalm 29:2 -- Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis
TEN REASONS ADAM WAS THE LUCKIEST MAN EVER:
1. He is the only man who has never been compared to the man she could have
married.
2. He had no in-laws to drop in.
3. There were no Jones for him to keep up with.
4. There were no credit cards OR shopping centers.
5. He never had his dinner interrupted by a telemarketer.
6. He got away with wearing a simple wardrobe.
7. He never had to shovel snow!
8. If he had gone bald, who would have known that wasn't normal?
9. There was no "standard weight and height" tables - and the word FAT meant
good.
10. When God asked "Adam, where are you?" He replied, "The woman you gave me
was reading the map."
It is going to be a brilliant day. Thank You Jesus. During one of our meetings yesterday I read from Ephesians 3:20-21: "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."
The New International Version states, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" – Indeed, God is able to do so much more that you can’t even measure what God is Able to do
The King James Version translates this - "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us"
The New American Standard Version, "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us"
The New American Standard Updated Edition Translates this, "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us"
This is a fun phrase in the original language. Paul uses a double compound word; he actually makes up his own word phrase. He is so caught up in the BIGNESS and AWESOMENESS of God, he creates a new word phrase to make his point. He stacks these words upon each other in an attempt to say something to indicate that God is beyond the descriptions available in human language. He is
beyond words. Paul morphs all these words together to make his point,
saying that God is Incredibly Incredible, Extravagantly Extravagant, Awesomely Awseome in His Awesomeness, Outrageously Outrageous, Fantastically Fantastic, Amazingly Amazing, Infinitely Infinite – all the time.
Here is what I believe the point is – There is no box Big enough to hold our God. God is Ably Able in His Ability. Our words cannot fully Express what we know and Feel. There’s no such word that can contain ALL of WHO HE is and ALL of what He can do. Our God is Indescribably indescribable. God is Able – that would be enough said. God Can! God is! God is Able to do! This would be enough to have our hearts beat with Confidence and Faith, but then our hearts would beat a few beats faster when we realize that our God is able to do more than what we ask or imagine. Our hearts should be pounding in Praise because our God is able to do abundantly more.
He provides at just the right time, in just the right way, with everything I need and then more besides. God is the God of the “and then some more”. Lamentations 3:22-23 states, "Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
God is Able to do MORE. His Ability is Incredible, Outrageous, and Extravagant. He exceeds the Expectation. You Get more than what you expect from God. God is Faithful. God is Able..
God didn’t make just a single drop of water He made Oceans of water
God didn’t create just 1 star – God made Galaxies
God didn’t just make a single kind of bird – God created 1,000s kinds of birds
God didn’t just make a hill – God made the Rockie Mountains
God didn’t just make the Sun – God made the Sunsets and Sunrises….
He Exceeds all the Expectations. He is able to do far more abundantly beyond all we ask or imagine, Above and Beyond all. He Exceeds Expectations with His Excellence because He is God.
There are No Limits to His Love, No Boundaries to His Blessing, No Fences withholding His Faithfulness; No Lines drawn separating us from His Salavation
No Guard Rails against His Grace, No Containers holding His Compassion, No Restrictions to Experiencing His Righteousness.
God’s Power - that is to say, God’s “Able to do immeasurably more power!” is “FAR MORE ABUNDANTLY BEYOND ALL I can ask or think”. Power? Guess where this Power is. Guess where this Power works. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.
This word, which is translated as power, if transliterated into English, would be closer to our word for dynamite. It is speaking of the power of dynamite, Explosive Energy, and Awesome Ability. There is Tremendous power given and at work within us. God’s Power is in us,but we have to get plugged in and get connected with God. We need to be wired in. There is a Connection made so that the Power can Flow.
Then we must get turned On, that is to say, Flip the Switch! We say, “YES” to the Lord. “I am ready to Receive You and what You have for Me. You are the Power. You are My Strength. I need You. You are Able – I believe that. I will live that. I will trust that.
God gives us power to do what? In a word – it is the Power to Love! Listen to the Prayer that Paul prays for these believers. It is a Prayer of Power and a Prayer for Power in Ephesians 3:16-19, " I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
Jesus isn’t just taking a Vacation with us. Our Heart becomes His Home. His address is now our lives. He lives with us as a Permanent Residence
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
God gives the Power to be rooted in His Love, the Power to be established, grounded in Love. His is the Power to Grasp His Love, which means to literally “take hold of it with the intent of never letting it go”. to possess it, to seize this Love. He wants us to Comprehend how wide His love is, to grasp how long is His Love is, how far will His Love go to reach to you and to me. His is the power to grasp how High His love is, so High that it came down from the Throne of God, and to grasp how deep is His Love. He wants us to experience every dimension of His Love.
Power to Know that this Love surpasses all that we can know about Love. There is nothing like this love. Not then. Not Now. Not ever. This love surpasses all our knowledge. We can never come to know all that love is but we are spend our lives trying. To know what can never be fully known. The more I learn of His Love for me the more I want to learn…
Power to be Filled with God and to be filled with His Love… Power to Serve in His Love -- Power to Surrender to His Love, that Christ may dwell in your hearts. Surrender to Jesus as Lord… God is Able – There is power through us.Eph 3:21-- to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
To Him be Glory in the Church…means that we, as the Church, the Called out ones of God, are to present God in all His Brilliant Splendor, that He is to be seen in all His Majestic Beauty. To Him be the Glory in the Church -- This is our purpose. This is our mission. This is our desire. This is our value. This is what we live for…this is our essence. Our lives are to be His Glory! Our Love is to be His Glory.
In Christ,
Brown
Psalm 29:2 -- Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
C. S. Lewis
TEN REASONS ADAM WAS THE LUCKIEST MAN EVER:
1. He is the only man who has never been compared to the man she could have
married.
2. He had no in-laws to drop in.
3. There were no Jones for him to keep up with.
4. There were no credit cards OR shopping centers.
5. He never had his dinner interrupted by a telemarketer.
6. He got away with wearing a simple wardrobe.
7. He never had to shovel snow!
8. If he had gone bald, who would have known that wasn't normal?
9. There was no "standard weight and height" tables - and the word FAT meant
good.
10. When God asked "Adam, where are you?" He replied, "The woman you gave me
was reading the map."
Monday, September 17, 2007
Brown's daily word 9/17/07 & BIRTHDAY!!
Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the beautiful day, and for this week that promises to be full of some of the "ten best days". Praise the Lord for this my birthday. Thank you for your prayerful thoughts and cards. I am blessed dearly and deeply.
The Psalm for yesterday's reading was Psalm 51. It is one of the few psalms where we are given its historical background. The inscription reads, "A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." That identifies clearly for us the incident out of which this psalm arose. It was the time when David became involved in the double sin of adultery and murder while he was king. He had walked with God for many years. He had gained a reputation as a prophet, a man who understood the deep things of God; and he had established himself as the long time spiritual leader of his people. Then suddenly, toward the end of his reign, he became involved in this terrible sin.
The interesting thing is that David himself records this sin for us. It must have been a painfully humiliating experience for the king. In Psalm 32 David records how he felt during that terrible time when he was trying to cover up his sin. He said, “When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long.” (Psalm 32:3, ). For about a year, he tried to live with a guilty conscience.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Telltale Heart” the main character has committed murder and he buries the body of the victim in his basement. However, the murderer is unable to escape the haunting guilt of his deed. He begins to hear the heartbeat of his dead victim. A cold sweat pours over him as that heartbeat goes on and on, relentlessly, getting louder and louder. Eventually, it becomes clear that the pounding which drove the man mad was not in the grave below but in his own chest.
God sent a prophet to David. God loved this king; He loved him too much to let him go on covering up and thus damaging himself and his entire kingdom by this hidden sin. So God sent the prophet Nathan to David. When David was confronted, he acknowledged the terrible sin he had committed. He fell on his face before God and out of that experience of confession comes this beautiful fifty-first Psalm. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10).
The concept of forgiveness, of being made right with God, is pictured in the Bible in many different ways, sometimes as a new birth, sometimes as the crossing out of a debt, sometimes as the breaking off of a heavy chain. The picture of forgiveness that David uses here is perhaps the most common picture throughout the word of God -- he describes it as a cleansing. “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” A few verses earlier, he wrote, “Wash me thoroughly from my sin, and cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51:2). Then, in verse 7, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:7).
Sin is dirty. It’s filthy; it stains our lives. Isaiah put it this way: “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6).
There is the need for us to be cleansed. Thus David says, “Purge me, purify me, wash me.” The words he uses imply a thorough scrubbing. You can almost picture an old-time mother with her child at the sink scrubbing him until his skin literally shines and squeaks, getting behind the ears, getting rid of every bit of dirt.
It’s a common image in the Bible. In Ezekiel 36:25, God says to Judah, “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.”
“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (I John 1:7)
`“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart -- These, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17). David truly was contrite. To be contrite means more than to be aware of our spiritual condition. It means that our inner self is crushed with a sense of its guilt. It does not mean merely feeling bad or remorseful about sin. It means that we have a genuine and deep sorrow for our rebellion against God. You see, our tendency is to rationalize or explain or excuse or defend or justify our sin. A contrite heart does not seek to blame circumstances or other people or God for our own failure.
“For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.” (Psalm 51:3-4a).
The most beautiful part of this story is that God did cleanse, forgive, restore, and renew David and he’s willing to do the same for any of us. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
In Christ,
Brown
Two historian, one Chinese, one Jewish, are comparing notes.
Says the Chinese historian: "You know, we have the world's oldest culture. It goes back 4,000 years!"
"Sorry, we have that beat," the Jewish historian. "Our culture is 5,000 years old!"
The Chinese historian's mouth gapes. "Wow! Where did your people eat for 1,000 years?"
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
C. S. Lewis
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
C. S. Lewis
Praise the Lord for the beautiful day, and for this week that promises to be full of some of the "ten best days". Praise the Lord for this my birthday. Thank you for your prayerful thoughts and cards. I am blessed dearly and deeply.
The Psalm for yesterday's reading was Psalm 51. It is one of the few psalms where we are given its historical background. The inscription reads, "A Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba." That identifies clearly for us the incident out of which this psalm arose. It was the time when David became involved in the double sin of adultery and murder while he was king. He had walked with God for many years. He had gained a reputation as a prophet, a man who understood the deep things of God; and he had established himself as the long time spiritual leader of his people. Then suddenly, toward the end of his reign, he became involved in this terrible sin.
The interesting thing is that David himself records this sin for us. It must have been a painfully humiliating experience for the king. In Psalm 32 David records how he felt during that terrible time when he was trying to cover up his sin. He said, “When I kept things to myself, I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long.” (Psalm 32:3, ). For about a year, he tried to live with a guilty conscience.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Telltale Heart” the main character has committed murder and he buries the body of the victim in his basement. However, the murderer is unable to escape the haunting guilt of his deed. He begins to hear the heartbeat of his dead victim. A cold sweat pours over him as that heartbeat goes on and on, relentlessly, getting louder and louder. Eventually, it becomes clear that the pounding which drove the man mad was not in the grave below but in his own chest.
God sent a prophet to David. God loved this king; He loved him too much to let him go on covering up and thus damaging himself and his entire kingdom by this hidden sin. So God sent the prophet Nathan to David. When David was confronted, he acknowledged the terrible sin he had committed. He fell on his face before God and out of that experience of confession comes this beautiful fifty-first Psalm. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10).
The concept of forgiveness, of being made right with God, is pictured in the Bible in many different ways, sometimes as a new birth, sometimes as the crossing out of a debt, sometimes as the breaking off of a heavy chain. The picture of forgiveness that David uses here is perhaps the most common picture throughout the word of God -- he describes it as a cleansing. “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” A few verses earlier, he wrote, “Wash me thoroughly from my sin, and cleanse me from my sin.” (Psalm 51:2). Then, in verse 7, “Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (Psalm 51:7).
Sin is dirty. It’s filthy; it stains our lives. Isaiah put it this way: “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6).
There is the need for us to be cleansed. Thus David says, “Purge me, purify me, wash me.” The words he uses imply a thorough scrubbing. You can almost picture an old-time mother with her child at the sink scrubbing him until his skin literally shines and squeaks, getting behind the ears, getting rid of every bit of dirt.
It’s a common image in the Bible. In Ezekiel 36:25, God says to Judah, “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.”
“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (I John 1:7)
`“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart -- These, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17). David truly was contrite. To be contrite means more than to be aware of our spiritual condition. It means that our inner self is crushed with a sense of its guilt. It does not mean merely feeling bad or remorseful about sin. It means that we have a genuine and deep sorrow for our rebellion against God. You see, our tendency is to rationalize or explain or excuse or defend or justify our sin. A contrite heart does not seek to blame circumstances or other people or God for our own failure.
“For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight.” (Psalm 51:3-4a).
The most beautiful part of this story is that God did cleanse, forgive, restore, and renew David and he’s willing to do the same for any of us. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
In Christ,
Brown
Two historian, one Chinese, one Jewish, are comparing notes.
Says the Chinese historian: "You know, we have the world's oldest culture. It goes back 4,000 years!"
"Sorry, we have that beat," the Jewish historian. "Our culture is 5,000 years old!"
The Chinese historian's mouth gapes. "Wow! Where did your people eat for 1,000 years?"
A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.
C. S. Lewis
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
C. S. Lewis
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.
C. S. Lewis
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