For You Are All One In Christ Jesus

July 18, 2017

For You Are All One In Christ Jesus

Praise the Lord, all you nations.

    Praise him, all you people of the earth.

Psalm 117:1

Psalm 117 is very short; only two verses. Yet it is incredibly profound in its truth. First, a bit of context will help us appreciate the power of this psalm.

When sin entered God’s creation, God began a plan of redemption, a way of restoring His creation to Paradise. Abraham was called by God to be set apart, to be the first of God’s people in His plan of redemption. However, God’s plan of redemption was for all creation, not just the Israelites. Isaiah’s prophesy of God’s Messiah says, “You will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

Jesus, God’s Messiah, affirmed this prophesy when he said, “And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world—from east and west—and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 8:11).

The Apostle Paul affirmed this prophesy for the New Covenant church when he wrote, “For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us… He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, . . .” (Ephesians 2:14-16).

I believe the greatest mission of the church today is to fully embrace God’s vision of redemption and live by the truth of God: “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you” (Galatians 3:28-29).

When we live this way, we’ll join the psalmist in praising God,

“Praise the Lord, all you nations.

    Praise him, all you people of the earth.

For he loves us with unfailing love;

    the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever.

Praise the Lord!”

Psalm 117

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2017 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Good Counsel for Every Day of Our Lives

July 17, 2017

Good Counsel for Every Day of Our Lives

“Precious in the sight of the Lord

   is the death of his faithful ones.”

Psalm 116:15 (NRSV)

When I was serving as a pastor, I often included Psalm 116 in funerals and memorial services. As I noted in my mediation for Psalm 115, God is not limited to just our mortal lives to fulfill His promises. From God’s eternal perspective, through our mortal death, He gives us rest from our sufferings, our labor and for some, the weariness of long lives. Eternal life is life uninterrupted by death:

“Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.

 O death, where is your victory?

    O death, where is your sting?”

1 Corinthians 15:54-55

Psalm 116 is also a psalm for the living. The psalmist had a near death encounter and is giving thanks to God for saving his life. This experience was literal and in the psalmist’s present time. However, all Christians have had a near death encounter. Apart from Jesus we were near death, “For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:56-57).

The Apostle Paul concludes 1 Corinthians 15, his great proclamation of the victory won by Jesus over sin and death, with a call to “be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). The writer of Psalm 116 includes this same theme through four “I will” statements:

“I will lift up the cup of salvation

    and praise the Lord’s name for saving me.

I will keep my promises to the Lord

    in the presence of all his people.

I will offer you a sacrifice of thanksgiving

    and call on the name of the Lord.

I will fulfill my vows to the Lord

    in the presence of all his people—“

Psalm 116:13-14, 17-18

I believe this is good counsel for every day of our lives.

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2017 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Lord Remembers Us

July 14, 2017

The Lord Remembers Us

The Lord remembers us and will bless us.

    He will bless the people of Israel

    and bless the priests, the descendants of Aaron.

He will bless those who fear the Lord,

    both great and lowly.

Psalm 115:12-13

The themes in Psalm 114 are carried forward to Psalm 115. (In some of the older manuscripts, Psalm 115 was included in Psalm 114.) In Psalm 115, the psalmist contrasts the nature of Israel’s Living God against the inanimate pagan gods, thus emphasizing the faithfulness and trustworthiness of the LORD.

I believe there are times in the life of all Christians, when the Lord seems distant, silent and absent from our life. As much as we want our God to protect and provide for us, into every life comes the despair carried by terminal illness, lost jobs, foreclosure, divorce and a myriad of other crises. It is to this place in our lives that the psalmist speaks:

  “The Lord remembers us and will bless us.

    He will bless the people of Israel

    and bless the priests, the descendants of Aaron.

 He will bless those who fear the Lord,

    both great and lowly.”

Psalm 115: 12-13

In these times, the Holy Spirit will remind us that “faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1). This psalm affirms that as the children of God, we will live forever and God is not limited to just our mortal lives to fulfill His promises. As we wait in faith for God’s blessings, our hope is an eternal hope,

“The dead cannot sing praises to the Lord,

    for they have gone into the silence of the grave.

 But we can praise the Lord

    both now and forever!

Praise the Lord!”

Psalm 115:17-18

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2017 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

How Different Would Our Lives Be?

July 13, 2017

How Different Would Our Lives Be?

When the Israelites escaped from Egypt—

    when the family of Jacob left that foreign land—

the land of Judah became God’s sanctuary,

    and Israel became his kingdom.

Psalm 114:1-2

Psalm 114 is a celebration of God’s presence with His people, the Israelites.

For almost one thousand years, Israel was blessed with the presence of the LORD in her midst. God’s presence was manifested through Moses when he pleaded with Pharaoh to release the Israelites from slavery. After the Israelites were released and crossed through the Red Sea, God was made manifest as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. The Israelites constructed the Ark of the Covenant as a depository for the stone tablets, whereon God had inscribed the Ten Commandments. The Ark represented the presence of God wherever the Israelites traveled. When Solomon built the Temple, the Ark was placed in the Holiest of Holies of the Temple. When the Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C., the abiding presence of God in the midst of Israel was lost. When the Israelites returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity, they longed for the coming of God’s Messiah, knowing one of the missions of the Messiah was to restore the presence of God in the Temple.

What has distinguished the people of God from every other form of religion in the world is the actual, abiding presence of the Living God. In Psalm 121, the psalmist asked a rhetorical question, “I look up to the mountains—does my help come from there?” Looking to the mountains was his way of contrasting God with the worshippers of the pagan god Baal, who believed Baal lived in the mountains. The psalmist answers his question with “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (Psalm 121:1-2) The best illustration of Israel’s Living God and Baal, who was worshipped by the Canaanites, is in the great story of Elijah and the Prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:17-40).

Jesus, the Messiah of God, did restore the Temple of God. However, it is no longer a building of stone: “Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Still today, the followers of Jesus are not distinguished by our church buildings, liturgies, or good deeds. We are distinguished through justification by faith and thus, the presence of the Living God is with us: “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20).

How different would our lives, our churches, our worship be, if we believed this?

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2017 by Alex M. Knight

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.