Talk to God

March 10, 2016

Talk to God

How long, O Lord, will you look on and do nothing?

    Rescue me from their fierce attacks.

    Protect my life from these lions!

Psalm 35:17

King David was an interesting dichotomy: a poet and a warrior. His skills as a poet began to develop during his solitude as a shepherd. His skills as a warrior were thrust upon him, first when he confronted Goliath, and later when he was pursued by King Saul. The imagery of battle is intertwined in many of his psalms.

In Psalm 35, David draws out our empathy, and for many, painful memories. We experience empathy because we have known people who were betrayed. Trusted friendships were broken. Those who had been loyal supporters were now conspiring in opposition. While our usual expectations for such turnabouts are in the world of politics, regrettably, they are quite common in church as well.

For the many who have been betrayed through divorce, failed business ventures, or other relationships, Psalm 35 invokes painful memories. The psalmist presents a good pattern for processing our empathy and painful memories. Talk to God. Honestly express the depth of our feelings. Trust God. The psalmist pleads for God to avenge; he does not take responsibility for meting out his own justice.

However, the psalmist is writing from the perspective of a poet-warrior living under the Old Covenant. We are living under the redemptive grace of the New Covenant. Therefore, after we have vented to God, we turn to scripture and seek the proper course for the followers of Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount is a good place to start:

“But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!  In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.”

Matthew 5:44-45

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. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

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, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Whose Wife Is She?

March 9, 2016

Whose Wife Is She?

Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.

Matthew 22:29

Whose wife is she? One simple question revealed the utter ignorance of a group of self-righteous scholars. (Matthew 22: 23-33) The Sadducees only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament as authentic scripture and they were convinced there was nothing in the Books of Moses, as those five books were known, about the resurrection. Their question to Jesus revealed their ignorance about God and scripture.

First, Jesus points out how they are limiting God’s power when they presume there cannot be a resurrection. Second, they do not understand God’s purposes when they presumed the ‘after-life’, if there were a resurrection, would simply be an extension of their present culture. (In their question, the woman is treated as a piece of property and in their description of an ‘after-life,’ they assume she is still someone’s property.)  Jesus makes it clear that all things in the ‘after-life’ will be radically different than they are now. In our bodily resurrection in the coming Kingdom, we will have been completely transformed into the image of God.

As I ponder Jesus’ encounter with the Sadducees, I don’t want to be too hard on them. In our present age, we too have difficulty separating the values of our culture from the teaching of scripture. Far too many Christians confuse the American Dream with their Christian ideals. Whereas the American Dream focuses on the wealth and happiness of the individual, the Christian ideal is, according to Saint Paul:   “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4 NRSV).

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. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

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, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The LORD Has Rescued Us

March 8, 2016

The LORD Has Rescued Us

“The LORD redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned”

Psalm 34:22

Psalm 34 refers to the time David was fleeing from King Saul and sought refuge in the land of Abimelech (aka Achish),  "And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath" (I Sam. 21:10). If you keep reading in First Samuel, you will learn that David had leaped out of the pan and into the fire, and had to use some chicanery to avoid death at the hands of Abimelech.

There are several verses in Psalm 34 worthy of underlining and remembering, such as: “⁴ I sought the LORD, and he answered me; ⁸ O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him; ¹⁴ Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it; ¹⁷ When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears; and ¹⁸ The LORD is near to the broken-hearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.”

There is also a bit of a paradox with this psalm. Even though the psalmist acknowledges that the righteous will face many afflictions, he says the LORD rescues them. Actually, the psalmist paints a pretty rosy picture for those who trust in the LORD; a picture that few of us have experienced in reality. He even writes, “He keeps all their bones; not one of them will be broken” (v.20). This verse is our cue to remember that we can ask the Holy Spirit to help us discern when to take scripture literally, and when scripture is speaking in figurative terms. Here, it is a little of both.

First, the literal. When crucifying a person, the Roman soldiers would often break the leg bones of the victim to hasten death. They started to break Jesus’ bones, but stopped. Jesus fulfilled this scripture.

Although the children of God will face many afflictions, persecutions and even death, the LORD has rescued us. God has forgiven our sins and given us new life in Christ. He has given us the Holy Spirit and equipped us with Spiritual armor for our life now. He has rescued us from eternal death and given us eternal life.

The last verse helps us understand the way God has rescued us: ^“The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned” (Psalm 34:22). The Apostle Paul added his “Yes and Amen” to David’s Psalm in Romans 8: 1-2 (Another verse worthy to be underlined and remembered!):

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”

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. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

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, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Christians Behaving Badly

March 7, 2016

Christians Behaving Badly

“For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Matthew 22:14

Although Matthew 22:1-14 is a parable about the final judgment of God, it is certainly relevant to our present age, especially when so many self-described Christians are behaving badly. The parable is meant to be understood as an allegory in which each character or event is representative of something else. Here is my understanding of the cast: the King represents God; the son represents Jesus; the marriage feast is the great feast of the Lamb and God at the end of time, envisioned in Rev. 19:9; the slaves are the prophets of God; those who were invited are Israel; the violence is the rejection of the prophets by Israel; the city destroyed is the fall of Jerusalem; the gathering of all people, good and bad, are those brought into the church through the evangelistic mission of the church; the wedding hall is the church; and the wedding garments represent the Life in Christ. (See Gal. 3:27, Eph. 4:24, and Col. 3:10, 12)

As Matthew remembered the sacrifice Jesus made that gave birth to the church, and the sacrifice so many of the followers of Jesus paid to establish the church, such as the martyrdom of Stephen and the Apostle James, Matthew could not understand how anyone could be glib about their Christian witness and their Christian life. Matthew knew that many responded to the gracious invitation of Jesus with lives of reverence, humility and awe; but there were others who received the same invitation, and responded as though they were at happy hour in their local pub, rather than the marriage feast of the Lamb. Jesus had a stark warning to those who may lay claim to Jesus’ Kingdom, but whose lives revealed nothing of the values and character of a new life in Christ: “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

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. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

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, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.