Grace Words

A Daily Bible Reader's Blog

Presented by Mike Tune and Amazing Grace International, Inc.

Category: Psalms

Uncompromising Honor

“I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked” (Psalm 26:5)

Between November 28 and December 1, 1943, Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin Roosevelt met in Tehran to coordinate military strategy in the war against Germany. In his podcast “Reflections of History,” Jon Meacham tells about an evening meal the three leaders shared on November 29. During the dinner, Stalin bragged that he planned to execute 50,000 German officers after the war.

When I heard that, immediately I figured everyone laughed, being reminded of an old “lawyer joke” with the punchline “a good start.” Indeed, Roosevelt tried to lighten the comment by saying perhaps only 49,000 should be killed. Churchill, however, was having none of it. He pointedly reproved Stalin and said such talk was barbaric and then, visibly shaken, got up from the table and walked into an empty nearby room to be by himself.

Churchill needed Stalin and Roosevelt. Together, they had a chance against Hitler. Churchill knew that alone, Britain would be toast. And yet, principle and honor and decency was at stake. He could not abide such cruel talk and would not be a part of it.

And I thought “wow.” I then thought of the Psalm text above, as well as Psalm 1:1 and Job’s comment “I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked.” Whatever else history may say about Churchill, there was an admirable moment.

I’m tempted to say “we need more leaders like that, who exhibit in their dealings an uncompromising devotion to justice, honor, decency, and mercy – come what may, cost what it will.” But really, we need to be a people like that. And when we are, we’ll have the leaders we need. For followers of Jesus, such a life is not an option. It is our calling. Nothing less will do.
Mike Tune

Waiting

“Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27:14

Ed Harrell died March 15. For over thirty years he was a distinguished professor of History at the University of Alabama and Auburn University. More importantly (to me), he was a gospel preacher. He wrote the following in Christianity Magazine in 1986 (Vol. 3, #4)

It occurs to me that much of life has to do with waiting.

When I was a teenager, my physician father would pack me off every summer to work on our farm in South Georgia. For three months each year, I did brutal tobacco field labor in one of the most ferocious summer climates in the world. My father was not really trying to teach me a lesson (what I did was a piece of his own life experience), but he did teach me several.

I have often tried to reconstruct my thoughts during the sultry evenings when I lay exhausted on the wooden floors of our farm shanties. I think I was just waiting. I knew the torture that lay ahead in the fields the next day, and week, and month. But I steeled myself to grit it out; I could wait; this would not last forever.

I have waited many times since. I waited while in the Navy and I waited through graduate school. My wife, so she tells me, waited through a series of pregnancies.

All Christians understand that life is a wait. We know that we are “strangers and pilgrims” on this earth (Hebrews 11:13). But too often we forget that we are waiting, thinking rather that we are living. Near the end of his long life, the seventeenth-century Puritan preacher, Increase Mather, received a letter from a friend asking if he was “still in the land of the living.” “No,” he replied, “I am in the land of the dying. I am going to the land of the living.”

If we fail to grasp the transient nature of life, it will throw old age out of perspective. Being old then becomes a discontinuity with the rest of life, instead of being the culmination of our existence. On the other hand, if we know that all of life is waiting, then we come to the end of it more yieldingly.

And so, if you come to visit me when I have become aged and gnarled, and I look upon you with blank and clouded eyes, do not, I ask, regard me with pity or pathos. I shall just be waiting. I have done it before and I am tough enough to do it again. If, by God’s grace, I can still think, I shall have my mind fastened on the object of my long wait. If it is my lot to face the final days without reason, I pray that my body will be so conditioned to waiting that it will do so gently. But, whatever the case, like all waits, this one too will pass and I shall be on my way to what is next.”

The Heart Enshrined Word

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent . . . 16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood (Proverbs 1:10-16).

Barry Black grew up on the streets of Baltimore, the son of a devoutly religious mother. She paid her children a nickel a verse for every passage of scripture they committed to memory and Barry quickly learned to game the system. He began looking for the shortest verses in the Bible (“low hanging fruit” he calls them). There was “Jesus Wept” (John 11:35). Then “Rejoice evermore” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). Then “Remember Lot’s Wife” (Luke 17:32) and “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Barry found two for one specials. “Do not kill” was Exodus 20:13, but so was Deuteronomy 5:17. Learn it once, get paid twice. Barry’s mother knew what he was doing, but she also knew what she was doing. In order to find those verses, Barry had to make his way through the Bible. Eventually, his mother capped what she would pay to a quarter a week (five verses), and eventually, Barry found greater value than a nickel a verse.

One afternoon in his 13th year, young Barry was invited by some friends to join them in taking revenge on a common nemesis. Barry remembered Proverbs 1:10-16 and refused, choosing to stay far away from those “friends.” The revenge went horribly wrong, and a boy died. The others were charged and convicted of murder. “That would have been me” Barry says, “had I not remembered the proverb” and taken it to heart.

Today Barry is the Chaplain of the United States Senate and as I listened to him a few days ago (his speech peppered with scripture) I thought: That’s what David meant when he wrote: “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Ps. 119:11).

Give Me The Bible — Part 1

They almost wiped me from the earth, but I have not forsaken your precepts (Psalm 119:87).

In his longest Psalm, David says to God: “I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches.  I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.”  The Psalm, all 176 verses of it, extols the role of the Word of God in our relationship with the Lord.

It’s difficult to explain the power and nature of the Word of God.  Peter said it is living and enduring, powerful enough to grant humans re-birth (1 Peter 1:23-25).  Implanted in our lives, the brother of Jesus said God’s word can save our souls (James 1:21).  It carries with it such intangible qualities as goodness (Hebrews 6:5) and seems to have a mind of its own as it judges the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12).  It is the power of God, resident in His word that holds the universe together (Hebrews 1:3).  It has the power to make things holy (1 Timothy 4:5), to cleanse us from sin (Ephesians 5:26) and is one of the weapons God provides in our battle against the spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:17). God never undertakes to explain how all this works.  He just assures us that it does.

The word of God never originates with humans, but was written by humans as they were carried along by God Himself (2 Peter 1:21).

David tells us the Word of God should not be neglected, but learned, followed, meditated on, hidden in our hearts, and kept.  When it is, we will be empowered to make good decisions, find direction for our lives, and have hope even when almost “wiped from the earth”.

Communal Shepherding — A Work of God

I was struck by this reading a week or so ago in Psalm 141.

“Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies.”

Certainly it’s a prayer we all could pray.  In fact, it sounds very much like Jesus’ model prayer: “deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13).  With Satan described as a “roaring lion” looking to consume us, and knowing only God has the power to defeat him, it’s a prayer we should pray.

But how will God “keep watch over my lips” and keep us from being drawn to evil?

Perhaps it doesn’t matter . . . as long as He does it.

But David doesn’t leave it at that.  He recognized that God acts not only on His own, but within community – the people of God looking out for God’s own.  It’s their job.  And so David continues his prayer in a way most of us wouldn’t: “Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness; let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it . . .”

We’re not wild about communal shepherding . . . are we?  We don’t favor being corrected by others.  And yet, when David was on the receiving end, he considered it blessing – direction from the Lord.  Solomon put it like this: “Whoever disregards discipline comes to poverty and shame, but whoever heeds correction is honored” (Proverbs 13:18).  It’s not the way of the world, but who wants to follow where the world is headed?

Monday, July 7. Psalms 140 – 142

“No one is concerned for me . . . no one cares for my life.”

These words from Psalm 142 are some of the saddest in all of scripture.

The heading of the Psalm helps us to understand the poem in context. David was running from Saul who was trying to kill him. Many saw David as a rebel leader, and a fugitive. Righteous people, not knowing the whole story, were not likely to support him. And so, everyone “in distress, or in debt, or discontented, gathered around him.” They looked on David as a savior. David looked on them as baggage. If they would rebel against the king, they would rebel against him. They were his army, but they were totally unreliable and cared for him only as long as he could provide resolution from their problems.

And so, surrounded by malcontents, David felt utterly alone. He turned to God, the only one he could truly trust and prays for deliverance. He knows, if God will grant him his request, he can have a different set of companions – the righteous.

Reputation is important. Reputation is not who we are. It is who people think we are, and what they think is important. When our reputation falters, no matter what the reason, our real friends are not those who support us and excuse us. Our real friends are always the righteous, and it is their acceptance and company we should seek. The only way to receive it, is through the company of God. We should seek Him first.

Wednesday, July 9. Psalms 146 – 148

Psalm 145 speaks to the comprehensive nature of God. God is good to all, faithful to all His promises, loving, near and watchful over all He has made. He upholds all who fall, and lifts up all who are bowed down.

Psalm 146 continues this description noting that the Lord even watches over the alien, one who is not a part of Israel.

It is true, in both Testaments, that God has a particular affinity for those who constitute His people. The promises of God belong to them. But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care for anyone else. He cares for all His creation. If He does so, can we do any less?

It is precisely because God shows this care for His creation that the reader is urged to praise the Lord. In fact, beginning with Psalm 146, the rest of the chapters all end with the same phrase: “Praise the Lord.”

Tuesday, July 8. Psalms 143 – 145

When you have time, compare the reading of Psalm 18 to the one here in Psalm 144. The opening lines are quite similar. In fact, scholars have often remarked that this psalm is cobbled quite a bit from other poems in the psalter.

And yet, the writer here expresses something quite different.

In Psalm 18, the writer recalls his desperate cry to the Lord for deliverance. He then recounts the glorious appearance and work of God in which God in all His fury parted the heavens and came to rescue His servant.

In this Psalm however, using many of the same expressions, the writer once again finds himself in a desperate situation. But his cry is not one of desperation. It is one of confidence. Because the Lord has helped him before, the psalmist knows God can do so again – and he believes God will.

We must confide our struggles and fears to God and ask His help. We must wait for His response and have our eyes open to the many ways He might answer our prayer. We must remember God’s replies.

Why?

Because this is one of the ways that faith is built, so that the child of God in desperate times does not despair, but confidently believes God will care for him. “Blessed are the people of whom this is true.”

Monday, July 7. Psalms 140 – 142

“No one is concerned for me . . . no one cares for my life.”

These words from Psalm 142 are some of the saddest in all of scripture.

The heading of the Psalm helps us to understand the poem in context. David was running from Saul who was trying to kill him. Many saw David as a rebel leader, and a fugitive. Righteous people, not knowing the whole story, were not likely to support him. And so, everyone “in distress, or in debt, or discontented, gathered around him.” They looked on David as a savior. David looked on them as baggage. If they would rebel against the king, they would rebel against him. They were his army, but they were totally unreliable and cared for him only as long as he could provide resolution from their problems.

And so, surrounded by malcontents, David felt utterly alone. He turned to God, the only one he could truly trust and prays for deliverance. He knows, if God will grant him his request, he can have a different set of companions – the righteous.

Reputation is important. Reputation is not who we are. It is who people think we are, and what they think is important. When our reputation falters, no matter what the reason, our real friends are not those who support us and excuse us. Our real friends are always the righteous, and it is their acceptance and company we should seek. The only way to receive it, is through the company of God. We should seek Him first.

Sunday, July 6. Psalms 136 – 139

In the last part of the 1800’s, Francis Thompson wrote a poem based on Psalm 139 entitled “The Hound of Heaven.” Like the hunting dog sticks to the trail of his quarry, so God sticks with His people. Even though we try to elude Him, still he presses on. Nothing can hide us. No thought of ours escapes His attention. No place is to far from His presence.

It’s scary, is it not, that someone should know this much about us, should stick this close to us?

And yet, the writer finds comfort in God’s company. In fact, He invites God’s scrutiny. Which of us would say: “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?”

But the Psalmist says it because He trusts God to use that knowledge to mold his life and make a relationship with the divine better.