August 17 – Faithfulness, Choosing That Way

“Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law! I have chosen the way of faithfulness; I set your rules before me.” – Psalm 119:29-30 (ESV)

These days, for those who are paying attention, there is a clamor about what is true or what is not true. The challenge is that there are two or three, even more sides on many matters and each claim to be true and the others false. What is true and what is not do not naturally get along very well. Telling which is which is not easy. The trend is to decide what one “thinks” is true and declare contradictory opinions to be untrue. Global and national media are filled with accusations and declarations. The psalmist in our selected verses gives us a better option. It begins by committing to put what is false far away.  How are we to know which ways are  the false ways? We can acknowledge and learn truth from what God teaches us. And when God teaches a willing heart and mind, He does so graciously and lovingly. Then we can be wise and do what the psalmist did: he chose the way of faithfulness and set God’s rules and commandments as his objective truth to know and learn. Let's place God’s teaching always before us and make His rules our standard to follow.

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July 26 – Taking God at His Words

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:9 (ESV)

Our God has compassion on all who in faith believe in Him for forgiveness and salvation. Many people do not believe and do not understand God’s ways. We as human creatures, while created by God, use our reasoning and try to fit God into it. Such an exercise does not work at all. Our minds and our ability to reason are limited. It is what we think and say that is finite and flawed. God has no limitations. He is omniscient (knows all things) and omnipotent (all powerful). He does perfectly whatever He wills and it is all good. When we try to understand God by using our limited facilities to think and reason, we are actually trying to compel God to fit into our convenient box of understanding. God is omnipresent (everywhere present) and cannot be contained. To make God’s ways fit our reasoning, we change the definitions of God’s words giving them a different meaning – a meaning which does not exist in what God has said. We’re pretending our ways are higher than God’s ways and we’re putting our words into God’s mouth, words that He has never spoken.  Let’s not do that. Let’s take God at His word.

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October 24 – Hope For The Discombobulated All Day Long

“Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.”  Psalm 25:4-5 (NIV)

King David wrote many songs that we have as psalms in our Bible.  Most often they were prayers he offered to God in this way. This psalm is a prayer that should be appropriate for us today as our world seems to be going crazy with many things happening that upset us.  We can get  (a favorite word of ours) and God knows so well that we all need His help in knowing how to live our lives here in this world.  That, of course is one reason why He sent His Son into this world. But even before that He had inspired writers of the Old Testament to reveal to His people how they should live. And He has for all the centuries provided for us His guidance in the Word which show us His ways, teach us His paths, and guide us in His truth.  Our promise is that God is our Savior and our hope for every day all day long. Let us thank Him for His provision and then remember that it is God Himself who is guiding us through His Word.

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September 12 – Go, Say, Think

“You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all.” Psalm 139:3-4 (NASB)

We do need to remember often how great our God is and how involved He is in the details of our lives from the very beginning of our being.  David says much about this in Psalm 139.  Today's verses show us what David had learned about God's involvement.  Knowledge and awareness of us is complete.  God knows instantly and even more than that, He knows before we think, before we speak, and before we act.  He knows were we go when we go and where we are when we're in one place not moving about.  He takes intimate interest in all we do.  He not only hears all we say, he knows our thoughts that form what our speaking is going to be about.  Unlike a magician's magic trick of pretending to read minds, God reads our thoughts perfectly.  So let's watch our movements today, and watch our words when we speak, and especially watch our thoughts that they may be pleasing to Him. 

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September 10 – Know, Teach, Lead

“Make me know Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths.  Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day.” Psalm 25:4-5 (NASB)

The truth we find in today's verse reminds us that we need guidance from our Lord every day of our lives. When we are tempted and distracted and try to manage the circumstances and situations of our lives on our own, we find that we need God's help.  How good it is that when we sense the need of God's guidance, we can look to Him as David did.  We know the He has many ways to teach us and one of them is in the truth that He has given us in  the Scriptures.  Let's listen to it today and let's learn from what God is teaching. He directs our paths when we trust in Him.  David expressed hope in God when he declares that he waits on God all the day.  We too can wait on the Lord with a hope that is assured expectation.  We acknowledge we need guidance and teaching from God.  We ask Him to lead us in His truth because we know our Salvation is from God alone. Let's look to Him and ask Him to make us know His ways which are perfect.

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August 6 – Depth of All Things

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Romans 11:33  (ESV)
“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”  Romans 11:36  (ESV)

Worship is most often associated with services in church on Sundays, special meetings, or even in our homes as we view and listen to worship services on television or radio.  But, worship can happen wherever we are anytime of the day or night.  In the letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul finds reason to express words of worship as he is writing the letter.  We do need often to be reminded how great a God we have.  All things are from Him. He made the universe. He made us.  Everything that we have has come to us through Him.  We don't really produce anything by ourselves apart from God.  The riches and wisdom and the knowledge of God is a deep resource without end.  We acknowledge that we cannot fully comprehend His ways.   And, all this is for the purpose of giving glory to Him.  That is the promise of this verse – from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  

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July 19 – Meditate, Fix, Delight, Remember

“I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.  I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.”  Psalm 119: 15-16 (ESV)

As we mentioned, this is the third posting which is from Psalm 119 and it is about the Word of God. The Psalmist uses ten different words to reference God's Word and today there are three besides the word 'word'.  This may differ in various translations but the one we have today uses, 'precepts', 'ways', 'statues', as well as 'word.'  The messages which we find in the Bible were not conceived by human beings.  The human writers were just passing on to us what God knew we all need.  And that is how the psalmist reacted to what God had said.  We notice that he mediated on God's messages, focused or fixed his eyes on what God had said and noticing how He dealt with people.  As a result of thinking about all this, it brought him delight and gave him a desire to pay attention to what God said.  We can do  the same. Meditating, focusing, delighting and determining to not forget what God has given us to help us on our journey with Him. 

Note on Psalm 119 

January 7

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

It is good to be reminded of truths which we have known before. It is good to come back to words in the Bible which we have read before and may be very familiar to us. It is good to be reminded that God’s way of looking at things is far superior to our way. God’s way of solving our problems is far superior to anything we could come up with or imagine on our own. So, when we are reminded of a truth like the one in our verse today, let us be sure that we trust His divine wisdom to work things out for us. Nothing can be better than to know that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than our ways and His thoughts than our thoughts.