God Suffers The Consequences Of Our Sins

May 25, 2017

God Suffers The Consequences Of Our Sins

Help us, O God of our salvation!

Help us for the glory of your name.

Save us and forgive our sins

for the honor of your name.

Psalm 79:9

The setting for Psalm 79 is in Jerusalem after its destruction in 586 B.C. The psalmist is part of the remnant of Israel who was not taken away to exile in Babylon. The psalm reflects the beginning of a major change in God’s relationship with His people. In verse eight, the psalmist pleads for God to not hold the remnant accountable for the sins of their ancestors. At that time, God looked at Israel as a whole. If one member of a family sinned, the whole family was accountable. If one family sinned, all of Israel was held accountable. However, after the exile, the prophet Ezekiel announced he had received a message from the Lord: “And this is my rule: The person who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:4). God no longer held Israel accountable for the sins of their ancestors. Each person was accountable for their own life.

This was great news for the people of Israel. However, there is a difference between accountability for sin and the consequences of sin. Even though God is relating to each person as an individual, many people suffer for the consequences of the sins of others. This was true for Israel after the exile and it is true for us today. (In the midst of such suffering, we remember God doesn’t waste anything. He uses everything in our lives for the good purpose of building His Kingdom. See Romans 8:28-29.)

This psalm makes clear that God also suffers the consequences of our sins. Bishop Stephen Neil said of Jesus, “Invulnerable in his person, but vulnerable because of his friends.” As followers of Jesus, we are responsible for the way we live our lives. We can either attract people to Christ, or repel them away from Christ by our behavior.

(Stephen Charles Neill (1900–1984) was an Anglican missionary, bishop, and scholar from Scotland)

Sē’lah

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(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.

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.

Learning Transparency

May 24, 2017

Learning Transparency

I will teach you hidden lessons from our past — stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.

Psalm 78:2b-3

As I read Psalm 78, I was remembering one of my mission trips to Cuba. We drove to the beach for our Sunday worship service which included baptizing twenty-nine persons in the Caribbean Sea. At the close of the day, we traveled back to Camaguey. Two of the pastors in our group rode in a big truck with approximately forty members of the congregation. The truck had benches down the sides and the middle. To pass their time, they played a Bible game with the children. If the person did not answer correctly they had to duck-walk down the aisle. My friends had to make the duck-walk more than all the kids. Our church in Cuba is taking seriously their responsibility to pass their faith on to the next generation.

The psalmist in Psalm 78 remembered much of the history of Israel in their exodus from Egypt. His history included more than just listing events. He also revealed the moral history of Israel as they experienced God’s judgment for their failures, as well as God’s redemptive mercy and forgiveness.

The lessons of Psalm 78 stress the importance of personal accountability groups. These groups provide a safe setting where we can learn to share our failures and weaknesses with brothers and sisters in Christ who love us. By learning transparency, we can then truly pass on to the next generation our experiences in needing and receiving God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness.

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.

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.

Believing God’s Word about Who We Are

May 23, 2017

Believing God’s Word about Who We Are

O God, your ways are holy.

Is there any god as mighty as you?

You are the God of great wonders!

Psalm 77:13-14a

Many of our hymns, old and new, have been written when the author was in despair. (Examples: Abide with Me, Henry F. Lyle; It is Well with My Soul, Horatio G. Spafford; Blessed Be Your Name, Matt Redman). The author of the letter to the Hebrews defines faith as, “the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1). The prose of author of Hebrews, the hymn writers, and the psalmist express faith securely resting on the Word of God, not emotions and feelings.

In the first ten verses, the psalmist is focused only on his feelings and his circumstances. I counted nineteen personal pronouns in those ten verses. It is perfectly alright to express your anxiety and feelings of depression to God. We learned in Psalm 56 that God keeps our tears in a bottle; He is for us. But it is not a good thing to stay focused on our feelings. There comes a time when we need to say, “Rain on my feelings!” (Bill Gillham, Lifetime Guarantee). What matters most is what God has said in His Word, not my feelings.

How do we come to that place where we trust God’s Word in our lives? How do we find our way to the place where we are content to rest in God’s smile of affection for us? I think Corrie ten Boom answers those questions best when she said, “You’ll never know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.” You will never come to the place where Jesus is all you have until you first exhaust your confidence in your own power and resources. We can only be dependent on God after we have come to the end of our own independence.

Don’t confuse dependence on God and resting in God’s love for you with passivity. God created each of us with our soul, which is our mind, will and emotions. Becoming dependent on God is a matter of allowing our mind to be grounded on God’s word, training our will to be conformed to God’s will, and choosing to believe God’s Word about who we are.

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.

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.

God Rose Up To Establish Judgment

May 22, 2017

God Rose Up To Establish Judgment

From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still when God rose up to establish judgment, to save all the oppressed of the earth.

Selah

Psalm 76:8-9 (NRSV)

All of scripture was written in the context of life as it was unfolding, in what we call today “real-time.” The writers were not isolated away from the fray. The writers were not looking back and writing from hind-sight. The people of God, whose real life experiences are the basis for scripture, lived in very violent times. Appreciation of the sanctity of life has developed only in recent times and is far from being wide-spread. In the psalmist’s world, differences between people and nations were settled with violence. Psalm 76 was written to celebrate a victory.

The attacks against Israel were not only fought to gain the land, they were fought to destroy Israel’s God. The psalmist presents the anger and wrath of God against God’s enemies. We don’t like to think about God’s wrath and anger. We’d rather focus on God’s love, patience, mercy and forgiveness. However, we need to realize that the way God’s enemies strike at God is to strike against God’s people. If God did not respond in anger against those who do violence to His people, God would not be moral and just.

Psalm 76 is ultimately fulfilled in the Cross, where Jesus, equipped with God’s anger and wrath, took on the forces of evil:

“For God in all his fullness

    was pleased to live in Christ,

 and through him God reconciled

    everything to himself.

He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth

    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”

Colossians 1: 19-20

I do not believe we can fully appreciate Jesus’ victory over evil until we accept that the evil within us was included in the victory of Jesus:

“This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

Colossians 1: 21-22

Thanks be to God!

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.

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.