19 posts tagged “god”

I will lift my eyes to you,
to you whose throne is in heaven.
-Psalm 123:1 (NIV)
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There's a short poem I remember:

Two men looked out through prison bars.
One saw mud, the other saw stars.

My grandmother had a plaque in her home:
Keep Looking Up

That's still good advice.
Lift up your eyes to God.
See the swirling stars in the heavens.
Keep looking up.

Life is often about making choices.
We can look down at the mud.
Or we can lift up our eyes toward God
and see the swirling stars He has made.

I took a course in Life Planning.
One day we asked: What is an pessimist and an optimist?
I remember the optimist's definition of a pessimist:
A pessimist is a person with potential!

Look at your life today.
Look at the lives of others.
Look at our world.

Lift up your eyes
and see potential.

Ask God to show you what can happen
if you keep looking up today.

In 1983 Jaroslav J. Vajda wrote this beautiful line,
which we sometimes sing in our churches:

God of the sparrow
God of the whale
God of the swirling stars
How does the creature say Awe?
How does the creature say Praise?

Friend, ask yourself:
What will my day look like
if I keep looking up today?

Lift up your eyes to God in heaven!
See the swirling stars He made.
Keep looking up.

Lift up your eyes to God

1 Thessalonians 4:16 (NIV):

The Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
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I like the second one of the three signs of Christ's coming again.

"With the voice of the archangel."

There are only three angels named in the Bible.

• Gabriel, who announced the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. Gabriel is obviously a messenger angel.

• Satan, the fallen angel, told about in Revelation. He leads the bad angels who revolted against God. Paul tells us that Satan fell because of his pride.

• And Michael, the archangel, the chief of the angels, a warrior angel.

Tomorrow's post: The Trumpet Call of God

This week I have been meditating on God's Army of Angels.

Did you know that God has an Army of Angels surrounding you right now?

Psalm 34:7 says so.

Look:

"The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them."

There's other verses like it in Psalm 91:11-12:

"For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways,
they will lift you up with their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."

Just these verses about angels tells us about God and his Army of Angels.

God sends angels to encamp around believers, like a Heavenly Guard.

The Army of Angels is sent by God to deliver us.

I like that about God. I need his protection. I welcome his guarding. I invite his deliverance.

God is doing it for me and for you, with his heaven-sent Army of Angels.

There are angels all around us.

Take comfort in that amazing thought today.

Thank God for sending his angels to keep watch over you, guard and protect you, and, if necessary, deliver you from trouble.

The God of Grace who sent Jesus Christ to be our Savior and Lord likes to be thanked.

Amazing Grace sculpture from Zimbabwe at Norfolk Botannical Garden

Here's the next part of Psalm 90, verses 7-12:
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We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.

You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.

All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.

The length of our days is seventy years --
or eighty, if we have the strength;
yet their span is but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Who knows the power of your anger?

For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
_______________

According to Moses, the author of Psalm 90, at times God gets angry and indignant at us. I believe his anger is holy, righteous, and warranted for our many sins. God's anger consumes and terrifies believers, driving them to repent, confess, and receive forgiveness and absolution for their offenses. The best part is Christ has shown us how much God loves us. Yes, God is our heavenly Father, a Father who loves us unconditionally and will not stay angry at us long, if we repent and confess our sins. Remember, God sent Christ not to condemn us, but to save us, and that He did!

Still, our iniquities are ever before God. The word iniquity means gross injustice and wickedness. We like to think of ourselves as good people, but Moses points out that we often are unjust and downright wicked. The light of God's presence reveals all our secret sins. Again, in humility and with a contrite heart, we need to pray daily, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Moses underlines that God's wrath is real. We pass under it each day, in danger of divine anger, indignation, and possible retribution. This makes our humility, contrition, confession, and repentance all the more important, to get right with God each day. It makes a mockery of the Cross to sin without thinking about it, taking stock of our lives, and asking God to forgive us for our sins and make us his new creations. It's a daily task, so we do not "finish our years with a moan," as Moses says.

The length of our days ... quckly pass, and we fly away.

How long is the human lifespan? Moses here says it is 70 years, or, by reason of strength, 80 years. We only get a few years on this good earth. To many, they are years of trouble and sorrow. The years pass quickly, and "we fly away." It makes me think of Alfred E. Brumley's bluegrass Gospel hymn "I'll Fly Away." In 1929 he wrote:

"Some bright morning when this life is over, I'll fly away.
To that home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away.

Chorus: "I'll fly away, O glory
            I'll fly away (in the morning)
            When I die, hallelujah, by and by,
            I'll fly away!

"When the shadows of this life have gone, I'll fly away.
Like a bird from these prison walls, I'll fly away.

"O how glad and happy when we meet, I'll fly away.
No more cold shackles on my feet, I'll fly away.

"Just a few more weary days and then, I'll fly away.
To a land where joys will never end, I'll fly away."

Indeed, our days on earth quickly pass away. That's all the more reason to confess our sins daily and receive God's forgiveness, new life, eternal life, and salvation in Christ, who has made the once for all sacrifice for our sins. so that when our time comes, we too may fly away to God's celestial shore, free as a bird!

So I join with Moses in his prayer that God will teach us to "number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

That's a beautiful prayer. Today I will repeat it to myself, and, to God. Will you join me?

Psalm 90 begins,

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Mountain

To me these first two verses of the psalm reveal that God is our dwelling place. We live in God, who made us. We're His. He's our Creator and our loving heavenly Father. He loves us with a love which will not let us go!

I like God as my dwelling place. I need to live in Him more and more each day, to enjoy being in His holy presence, and to imagine myself resting in the palm of His hand, safe, secure, and happy.

God as our dwelling place.

We have the psalmist to thank for that image of God.

It's said that Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. We know that Moses lived until he was 120 years old.

So thank you, Moses, for Psalm 90.

From Exodus 16:2-15 NIV:

Verse 3: The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."
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"If only ..."

How many times have you said that about something? How many times have you heard others say it, too?

In verse 3, above, we see the Israelites were grumbling to Moses and Aaron as they camped in the Desert of Sin.

We always remember well what we had in the past. When we suddenly have less, we grumble about it, like the Israelites did.

It comes to mind that people grumble a lot about gas prices. We'd like to blame foreign leaders, or the oil companies, or the Congress, or even the President for our troubles.

I remember in college in the late 1960s when I paid thirty cents per gallon for leaded regular gas for my car. I could get three gallons and change for less than a dollar. Sometimes all I had was a dollar.

A couple of days ago I filled up the tank in my nine year old car. Gas was $3.49 per gallon at a Shell station in nearby Hampstead, Maryland. I was glad to get it at that price, having seen it much higher at other stations lately.

The Israelites were not grumbling about having money or the price of anything. They left Egypt laden with silver and gold, but had little food and water. They fled Pharoah's chariots and army in haste.

I can understand their grumbling about their lack of food and water. They wanted to blame it all on their leaders, Moses and Aaron. But these brothers were only following God's orders to lead them out of Egypt and head for the Promised Land.

So the people were projecting their anger on their leaders, but it really was meant for God. And do you know what happened next?

Before Moses and Aaron could even turn to God and ask for help, God promised to help the people with meat and bread.

God told Moses:

"I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days."

If only, the people said. Little did they know, right then, that God was listening and God wanted to help them. Indeed, God had a promise to make and a plan to fulfill.

The next time you hear yourself or someone else say "If only ...", then remember that God hears you and others when we grumble.

God not only hears us, but God deeply cares for his own and already has a promise and plan to help us.

Do you think you can trust God to provide for your needs, even as God did it for the Israelites?

I'm willing to trust God like that. I think they still call that "Faith."

Will you, too?

Exodus 16:2-15 NIV:

Verse 2:

"In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron."
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The whole Israelite community, God's chosen people, have been on the march, out of Egypt, where they were slaves, on their way to freedom in the Promised Land, "a land flowing in milk and honey."

And along the way, they grumbled.

Strange people of God, aren't they?

Here they are, freed of slavery's cruelty, slavery's bondage, and slavery's dehumanization.

And what do they do?

What is their primary occupation as free people?

They grumbled at their leaders.

God must have wondered about them.

God must have greatly wondered at their behavior, their attitudes, and their forgetfulness.

After all, God had just freed them from short, meaningless lives in Egypt, as vassals of the Pharoah.

They were free!

But what did they do?

They turned immediately on their leaders.

The people God called to lead them out--they wanted to kick them out!

Strange people of God, strange behavior, and strange attitudes.

Sad, isn't it?

And yet, God did not give up on them.

When Pharoah's army pursued them to the water's edge, they saw the waters part, divinely, so even the soles of their feet did not get wet.

But when Pharoah's army of chariots pulled into the river bed, the waters returned and they saw their worst nightmare drowned!

They sang that day to celebrate. All the women turned out with tambourines and they sang and they danced, and they danced and they sang, and they shook their tambourines in celebration!

And then, three days later, in the Desert of Shur, they were thirsty. They found water, but it was bitter, until God made it sweet by another miracle.

Funny people of God. There were no songs, no dancing, and no tambourines that day, when God gave them sweet water to drink.

Then God made a decree and a law for them and tested them with a proposal:

"If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you."

I am the Lord who heals you.

Strange people of God, to grumble.

Funny people of God, to neglect to celebrate the precious gift of sweet water in the desert.

But how wonderful that God only asks that we listen to his voice.

How marvelous that God only asks us to pay attention to his commands and decrees.

How amazing that God loves us enough to not bring on us any of the diseases of the past.

Wonderful, marvelous, amazing God, who heals you, who heals me, who heals us.

I like these things about God.

Don't you?

Exodus 16 NIV:

Verse 13: That evening quail came and covered the camp ...

Verse 31: The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.

God has delivered the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Now they are camped in the Desert of Sin. It has been about six weeks since they were liberated.

Only, they grumbled at not having water and not having food to eat. So what did God do? He gave them seven springs of sparkling water at Elim. Then at the Desert of Sin, he gave them quail to eat at dusk and bread to gather at dawn.

My wife and I have had quail a few times. She remembers fixing quail for dinner one night, years ago. It was wild quail from a church member who made a gift of his hunting success right here in Carroll County. That was 28 years ago.

Then another time she bought frozen quail at the meat section of a supermarket. She prepared it at home.

Then I remember we had quail at a fancy, romantic French restaurant at Epcot in Florida in July of 2000. That was a treat. I like quail. Have you ever had it?

When I was growing up, I remember having honey graham crackers and milk as a snack at Kindergarten. I still like them. They are tasty and good. Do you like honey graham crackers?

At summer church camp, we made s'mores at a campfire one night. Then we camped under the stars on campfire hill. There's nothing like sleeping out under the stars. It's awesome!

This week my wife is going to fix quail for dinner one night. Maybe we'll have s'mores some time this week, too. Too bad Moses and the people of Israel didn't have s'mores back then. They might have stayed in the Desert of Sin for a really long time.

The whole point of this chapter in Exodus seems to be that God takes care of His own. I mean, He does, doesn't He?

Even when we grumble and complain.

Especially then!

God is taking care of me, every day. Meat at dusk, bread at dawn.

I like that about God.

Don't you?

Exodus 16:2-15 NIV:

Verse 11:

The Lord said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.'"
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The whole Israelite community is on the march again, heading for the Promised Land, under Moses' leadership. They have left the seven sparkling springs of Elim and its seventy palm trees. They are camped in the Desert of Sin. It's been just 15 days since they left slavery in Egypt.

And already they begin to complain. The Bible tells us they grumbled. We're gonna die of starvation! We coulda stayed in Egypt, yes, in slavery, but at least we would have all the food we wanted.

So the Lord speaks to Moses and tells him to tell the people that God will provide for them. He will give them meat at dusk and bread at dawn. It will be the Lord's doing. God does take care of His own.

I think it was in college that I first learned of Abraham Mazlow's Hierarchy of Needs. First on Mazlow's list of needs is the biological. We must have water and food. Next on the list is safety. Without either one of these two needs met, we are going to grumble. It's just human nature. We want to survive. That's a basic human need.

Moses was obedient to God and led His people out of slavery in Egypt. They were on their way, together, under God, to the Promised Land, "a land flowing with milk and honey." They weren't there yet.

What they soon found out was how shallow was their trust in God's provision. We soon forget the parting of the seas and the drowning of our pursuers. But we remember well every creature comfort we were afforded "back in the day."

For the next few days I will be exploring this passage from Exodus chapter 16. I invite you to explore it with me.

Today's lesson, from verse 11, tells us several things about God.

First, God hears our grumbling and He cares about us.

Next, God has a message for us: a promise to provide for our daily needs.

Last, God wants us to know He will never leave us or forsake us. He's our God.

The test of any promise is in the keeping of it.

As the Israelites soon found out, God's promises are real and He keeps His promises to His people.

That's a good thing, a very good thing, indeed.

I like that about God.

Don't you, too?

For the past three days I have explored in this space Jesus' parable of The Unmerciful Servant.

Now I am ready to explore it further by considering the question, Am I forgiving? This is a question that every believer must ask, because it is something of vital importance to Jesus.

He taught, simply, that our forgiveness from God is great. Then he linked, forever, God's forgiveness and our forgiveness of others.

If God has forgiven you, you should forgive others. For by the measure of your forgiveness of others, you will be measured by God in the last Day.

The Unmerciful Servant parable should give one pause to ask the question, Am I forgiving? Do I really "walk the walk" of actually forgiving others, repeatedly?

We are to forgive others not just seven times, but seven times seventy. That's a very large number. Who would keep track of each instance of forgiveness? No one would, is the answer. The number of times we forgive others is so large that we can be sure it was Jesus speaking in hyperbole (exaggerated comparison) again, to make his point.

I am still thinking about Jesus' teaching in this parable. I am beginning to soften my harder edges and give people around me more benefit of a forgiving spirit. I am going to need God's help in this, because if I try to do it merely in my own strength, I know I will often fail to be forgiving.

Notice that it is not just the act of forgiveness that Jesus demands, but to be forgiving of others "from the heart."  That means the decision is made in our minds and hearts before it is ever played out in our lives. On the other hand, it is possible to re-train our spirits by just taking action, even if the feeling of forgiveness is not yet in our hearts. At least then we are taking a step in the right direction.

Feelings sometimes follow our actions.

Today, and tomorrow, and for the rest of my life, I pray that God will help me become a more loving and forgiving follower of Jesus Christ, as a pastor, a husband, a family member, neighbor, and fellow believer.

It's a start. God's still working on me.

Will you make a similar commitment, today?