Psalm 139: Search Me and Know Me, O God

God knows all about us: the good and the bad, the beginning and the end, our need for protection, our need for confession and forgiveness. He is intimately acquainted with each one of us, and our best place is to be open about it all with Him. Here is another prayer for our lips and hearts, authored by the Holy Spirit Himself.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me.
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.
Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God!
Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.
For they speak against You wickedly;
Your enemies take Your name in vain.
Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
Amen.

Solid Ground

“Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:9, 10)

God began the third day by fashioning a home for man. We are not sea creatures, as much as we may love the roar of ocean waves crashing upon the shore, or as much as we may love to spend a day out in the boat, line in the water, today’s catch in the bucket. Every kid who loves to swim also loves, at some point, to get back to the side of the pool. I always wondered which was worse for the condemned in “The Man without a Country”: to be without a nation to call home, or never to set foot on dry land again the rest of his life. Thank God for creating dry land, fixed land, solid ground beneath our feet, the kind upon which one can stand upright.

God repeats Himself with the joy of creation. In Noah’s day the world is taken back to its all-watery stage, and He reforms it, re-creates it, slowly pulling the waters back again to reveal the new world, a new home for humanity. In the days of Moses, when God takes Abraham’s seed from the old world of slavery to a new world fashioned by Jehovah just for them, God pulls back the waters of the Red Sea, and a nation is born again walking through on dry land. When Joshua takes the helm and God is ready to bring the children of Israel into the Promised Land, God commands the waters of the Jordan as He did the waters at creation—dry land appears—and they march-step, amazed, into the new home God has prepared for them.

Thank God for dirt. Everything is made from it, including you and me. When God creates man, He does it by taking a handful of dust, swept up from the dirt floor of Adam’s new home, fashioning “dry land” into something even better, breathing the wind of God into this newly formed “world” of dirt and water. With every new “man-child” born, the waters are pulled back once again and a whole new world appears—one solid and dry, full of air for the lungs and ground to lie on, crawl on, learn to walk on, run on, ride bikes on.

When God re-creates us in Jesus Christ, we also come through the water—through the waters of baptism—and as we emerge like dry land out of the seas, we are a new world, a new creation in Christ. The old world unformed has passed away; behold, all things have become new. In this new dirt, this new man, full of the Holy Spirit, every good thing can now grow and bear fruit.


“Lord God, Creator of the Earth and the Seas, and all that is in them, we give You thanks for the wonders of the world You have created for us, including Your gift to us of dry land. We give You thanks for dirt in which to grow our food and shelter, the beauty of flowers and shrubs and every green thing. We give You thanks for mountains and valleys, marshlands and deserts, city parks, backyards, and old dirt roads. Grant to us this day that we might reflect Your glory, living and walking and working and playing on the Earth You have given us as our home. And recreate us in the image of the Second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

Look to the Heavens

“Then God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.” (Genesis 1:6–8)

In most of our minds there are “the heavens,” and then there is Heaven. One is the sky, and the other is the “place” where God “lives.” The birds and the stars and the moon fly in the one, and angels fly in the other. God’s throne is in heaven, the earth is His footstool, and the sky fills up the space in between.

The Bible doesn’t always make this sort of distinction (although at one point it does mention different levels of heaven). At any rate, the Bible here says God created Heaven on the second day—Light on the first, Heaven on the second—and, as with all of His creation, it was a glorious masterpiece, a canvas upon which He continued splashing creation-color for several days after.

Not only birds but bats and bees and pterodactyls made heaven their home when they were created on the fifth day. The fourth day of creation saw the sun launch his first footrace across the heavens—over two million such races later he is still going strong (although he has never improved his time). “Waters below” replace “waters above” through the ongoing miracle of evaporation; thunderstorms and blizzards enthusiastically return the favor, flooding the earth again and again and again and again, ad infinitum, keeping the earth’s tank topped off and her occupants happy (for the most part).

Among other things, God created the heavens (along with the rest of creation) to be our teachers, and mostly our teachers about the Creator Himself:

The heavens declared the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 19:1–4)

God the Son Himself came from heaven, and when He left, He ascended back into the heavens, accompanied by clouds and angels, after He rose from the dead. When He comes back at the Last Day, He will come from heaven. Jesus is in heaven right now, praying to God the Father in heaven for us; and our own prayers ascend to heaven where they are heard by God and from which the answers drop like rain upon our thirsty ground.

Hope and salvation, in other words, come from heaven. Morning sunshine, ministering angels, life-saving rains, even stars that announce Messiahs are all so many heavenly teachers proclaiming that our best and only hope comes from Heaven to Earth, and we are fools to look elsewhere.

“God, we give thanks for the heavens You have so masterfully created and given to us as a glorious gift: for sun, moon, and stars; for birds and rainbows; for thunderclouds and lightning; for sunsets and faraway galaxies. We give You thanks, and we pray You would give us eyes to see Your glory written in the skies, that we would be faithful to give You that glory and continual thanks and praise. We pray You would cause the sun to shine on us and the rain to fall on us as Your gifts of life to us, and we give You thanks above all for sending Jesus from heaven and for pouring out Your Holy Spirit from above that we might have eternal life. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.”

A Little Help along the Way

“In Your presence is fullness of joy. (Psalm 16:11)

In my sermon on Sunday, I mentioned that two of the ways for retaining the joy of the resurrection in our lives is through reading/believing/applying the Scriptures and through prayer. More than a few in our congregation have mentioned that they have a desire to do better with family devotions or with their own personal prayers. As we see in Luke 24, joy is found in the presence of a risen Christ, and the discipline of “being in His presence” is foundational to living before Him with joy at all other times. Here are a few suggestions and ideas to help get the pump primed again if the works have gotten gummed up in your devotional life.

1. Use the daily “Matins” article from this blog for your family devotions. You can find better, but doing something handy, even if it is not the best, is better than putting off (i.e., “doing nothing”) until you find “the best.”

2. Browse the local Christian bookstore or online booksellers for a good devotional book to use—and then purchase it and use it.

3. Get ideas/recommendations from others in the church and follow up on them.

4. Use portions of the liturgy guide used in Sunday’s worship as a guide for your family worship (emphasis on portions—don’t try to recreate the whole thing!).

5. Pick a book (e.g., the gospel according to Mark), start at the beginning, read a few verses, and then pray a simple prayer about what you just read, etc. This done daily is better than 100 devotional books on your shelf.

6. To say it again, whatever you do, do it consistently. It would be far better to read one verse of Scripture, pray a fifteen-second prayer, and do it daily than to fall into the habit of doing nothing. If you are in that habit (i.e., of doing nothing), ask God’s forgiveness, receive it, and then jump in with both feet, fully expecting not to feel like changing back to better habits. (Follow the side of your heart that is telling you to do what you know is right, not those pesky feelings to the contrary.)

7. Keep it simple but sincere, respectful but not oppressive, fervent but not tiresome.

8. Read with a desire to listen, understand, believe, and apply. Pray for God to speak to you, teach you, comfort you, guide you, etc.

9. Let the Scripture guide your prayers. Pray in light of the Scripture you read.

10. Ask for God’s help—for the desire to read the Scriptures and pray, for the grace to do it consistently, for direction in the how and the what and the when, and for the joy and other good things that come of it.

Be faithful in this “little thing” of spending devoted time in the presence of God every day, and God will richly reward you with His blessing and presence at all other times and in every other thing as well. Joy and satisfaction may seem elusive much of the time, but Christ’s desire is for you to be full of these very things. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11) Hearing His voice and His hearing yours—in prayer, praise, thanks, confession, and commitment—is indispensable in tracking the way to true and lasting joy.

Light of the World

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:3–5)

The world, as God made it, began in darkness. Then He commanded light for the world. God be thanked for light, that all the world can be enjoyed with our opened eyes.

Day begins with darkness, with “evening,” and morning light always follows. “Weeping may endure for a night,/But joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) It is almost as if God recreates the world every day—the world is enshrouded in darkness, and then morning is commanded by God to take off the darkness and put on light for the day. We sleep every night in the darkness of shut eyes, and then God whispers us awake in the morning with new love. God be thanked for morning light, for new days, for new mercy from God every morning.

We are formed, created, in the darkness of our mothers’ wombs, where our world is covered in water. God commands the day of our birth, our eyes are opened, and light breaks in to reveal the new world as it truly is. God be thanked for birth-days, for our life in the light, for light to light up our lives.

Because of sin we are conceived in double-darkness; we are blind to the truth, wandering helplessly like pups with their eyes glued shut on the first day. But God the Word has been spoken into our lives, and Christ the Light of the world has come. Our eyes have been opened, and we have been born again into a world full of Light revealing all things as they truly are, as they were truly created to be. God be thanked for Jesus the Light of the World, for the eyes of faith, for the new creation.

Death is a darkness. Christ’s tomb was black as night. But light follows darkness, morning follows the night. Christ the Light of the World has risen from the dead, and eternal daylight—and laughter and love and an infinite number of newnesses—follows the brief darkness we are called on to endure. God be thanked for our everlasting life of light in Christ, for new day dawning, for hope spelled out in the creation of light.

“Lord God, we thank You this day for days filled with light, for a world filled with wonder, and for eyes to let it all in. Continually grant us the light of Christ, that we might see His glory and His goodness, the truth of His Word, the truth of the world in which we live, the truth about ourselves. You are the Light of the World! Wake us up, and shine one us! Grant us life through the light of Christ our Risen Savior, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Creature Thanks for Our Creator God

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1 , 2)

Great God in heaven above, Creator of all things, Maker of heaven and earth: You are our Creator, and we will praise You. All things find their beginning and purpose in You alone, dear God, and so we give thanks.

We give You thanks this day for all things, for all things have come from Your hand. We give You thanks for making us with eyes to see sunsets, with ears to hear birdsong, with feet to feel our shoes come off. We give You thanks for the sunsets, the birds, and the shoes themselves.

We give You thanks for all things, for all that comes from Your hand is good. We give You thanks for destroying storms and for healing sunshine; we give You thanks for blistering droughts and for healing rains. We give You thanks for the crags of Scotland, for the rice fields of the Mississippi Delta, for the volcanoes of Japan.

We give You thanks for dogs and for hands to pet them, for tree bark and the cicada shells that grow on them, for bicycles and the brains that invented them. We give You thanks for earthworms and for the ants that eat them when they get lost on the driveway. We give You thanks even for mosquitoes, which fill some great purpose in Your glorious kingdom, and we give You thanks for the tongues with which to praise You for them.

Thank You, dear God, for not leaving the world “without form and void” but for filling it with all things good, true, and beautiful; thank You for shaping it in such a way as to reflect all of the wonders in Your own glory. Shape us, dear God; form us into the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fill us and cover us, dear heavenly Father, with Your own Holy Spirit, and produce within us goodness and purity and the delightful beauty of Your holiness. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

Love for God’s Word as Our Law

When some people recall their childhoods, they remark, “Dad’s word was law” or “Mom’s word was law.” We know what they mean. What came out of their father’s or mother’s mouth was the final word, no ifs, ands, or buts. God says this is the right way for kids to think about their world: “Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” (Ephesians 6:1)

How much more so should we think of God’s Word as “law.” God’s Word is filled with promises, exhortations, encouragements, histories, poetry, etc., and we sometimes think of all of these “categories” as separate from the “law” portion of God’s Word. And that, of course, is one way to speak about it all. But in another not only important but vital sense, all of God’s Word—including all of the exhortations, encouragements, promises, histories, and poetry—are “law,” that is, everything that God says is true, the final authority, and that which communicates to us His will. God’s Word is our “rule for living.” God’s Word above all else—every word that comes out of His mouth—is the right way for us to think about our world.

Psalm 119 is a beautiful prayer-song that gives expression to our love and devotion to God’s Word as Our Law. Pray it with zeal, fervency, and gratitude—but this psalm is also a good guide for honestly confessing our lack of these things and for earnestly crying out for God to increase them.

Psalm 119:97–104
Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies;
For they are ever with me.
I have more understanding than all my teachers,
For Your testimonies are my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients,
Because I keep Your precepts.
I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
That I may keep Your word.
I have not departed from your judgments,
For You Yourself have taught me.
How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Through Your precepts I get understanding;
Therefore I hate every false way.

“Lord God, ever increase our love for Your law, for Your Word as our law. Make it truly our meditation all the day—keep Your law and Your will before our mind’s eye at all times. Through Your Word, dear God, grant to us wisdom and understanding that excels; and through Your Word, holy Father, keep us from every evil way. We pray Your Word-Law would be sweeter to our taste than anything else, that we would feed on it not only regularly but with incomparable delight and desire. May Your Word, dear God, be our only rule for living, our only lens through which we view our world. We pray in Christ’s name and for His sake. Amen.”

Resurrection World

“Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table; and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’” (Mark 16:14, 15)

Each gospel account, whether you are reading from Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, is the story of how it all began. By the time we arrive at the end of each of the gospels, we realize this is only the beginning. Everything in the gospel story drives us to the point of Christ’s resurrection. Indeed, without the resurrection, there would be no story. But when Jesus has risen, a whole new world has begun.

In this new world, the world in which Jesus Christ the Son of God has risen from the dead, death no longer reigns. Jesus Himself holds the keys to Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:18) Paul wrote, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11) We no longer need fear death—death has been defeated, conquered by Christ, and we will be raised from the dead just as Christ has been.

In this new world in which Jesus has risen from the dead, sin and the devil himself have also been dealt the death blow. We live in a world in which our sins are paid for through the death of the Son of God—we can live, breathe, eat, work, worship, and love knowing our sins are forgiven and the penalty for our sins is taken away. (Colossians 2:13, 14) But we also have the power to live the holy lives we were created to live since the risen Christ has given us His Holy Spirit and we are no longer slaves to sin. (Romans 6:6)

This new Resurrection world in which we live has the One who died and rose again seated upon the throne and reigning over all things. This is the gospel we preach. And it has gone into all the world. It will continue to have its effect until all the world bows the knee to the Risen King. We live in a world right now in which the old is passing away and all things are becoming new—new life, new holiness, new creation, a whole new world.

Let us then live as new-world citizens, putting all of our trust in Him and His Word, praying and working for His kingdom to come, for His will to be done, having the confidence that the good work God began two thousand years ago in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ He will go on completing until the day He pulls it all together in our own resurrection. Christ has won the victory, and we live in a victorious new world.

“Great God in heaven above, we give You thanks for the victory won in our Lord’s death and resurrection, and we give You thanks for the whole new world in which we live because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. We thank You for the forgiveness of sins, for the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, for the hope of eternal life, for the resurrection of our own mortal bodies, and for Your holy and righteous reign over all things. Help us to live by faith in the Son of God who died for our sins and rose again, conquering death, sin, and the devil. Spread this gospel throughout the world, dear God—we give You thanks again it has come to us—and make us good new-world citizens who joyfully take up our task in the spreading, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Risen Lord. Amen.”

Joseph of Arimathea

“After this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So there they laid Jesus, because of the Jews’ Preparation Day, for the tomb was nearby.”

(John 19:38–42)

Joseph of Arimathea is an interesting figure in the gospel. He does not appear until after Christ has been crucified, but each of the gospel accounts mention him with some detail. He is called “a rich man,” “a prominent council member,” “a good and just man,” one “who was waiting himself for the kingdom of God,” and we are assured that “he had not consented to [the council’s] decision and deed,” i.e., to crucify Jesus. The text here in John emphasizes that he was indeed a follower of Jesus, a disciple. But he was one of the “secret disciples,” a group of men, which included Nicodemus as well, who did not own Jesus outright “for fear of the Jews.” They “feared men more than God,” the Bible says.

But, interestingly, the death of Christ changed things for Joseph. Although he believed in Jesus to some degree, he had been too ashamed to be identified with Jesus when He was living. But now, after Jesus has been formally accused, found guilty by the Jewish courts, condemned, and then executed in a fashion reserved for the worst of criminals—now Joseph of Arimathea is bold enough to want to honor Christ, approaching the highest Roman official in the land for “rights” to the body.

Add to this that the law of God itself proclaimed any body that hung upon a tree was “accursed,” and that to touch any dead body was defiling, here right before the High Sabbath, and it is quite apparent that Joseph’s actions are nothing short of amazing. He, almost alone, as it were, honors Christ at His death.

Honored by the wealthy at His death as He had been at His birth with “myrrh” and other spices, Jesus, although “despised and rejected by men,” receives the burial of one who is loved greatly. Joseph himself is now honored by the voice of the Holy Spirit as one of the few who honored our Lord at His death.

How much more, then, should we be bold enough to honor a living and risen Lord who, banishing through His resurrection any doubts as to His claims to be the Son of God, reigns on high as victorious King over all the earth. Jesus leaves no room for “secret disciples”: “Whoever is ashamed of Me . . . of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed.” (Mark 8:38) Let us embrace Him in His shameful death, knowing especially what glory His death purchased for us; let us stand beside Joseph and Nicodemus and honor Him at His burial; and let us without shame or hesitation spend every breath honoring and serving and loving our risen Lord and Savior.

“Heavenly Father, we give thanks again for our dear Savior’s death upon the cross for our sakes, to purchase our salvation. We give You thanks for those who, suffering dishonor themselves, honored Christ at His death and burial. Grant that we would be willing to honor Christ openly with our lives, bearing His name, obeying His voice, following in His steps, and embracing wholeheartedly His service, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Prayer for God’s Friday

“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved . . . that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:1–4)

Good Friday was originally “God’s Friday.” And so it is: the day God-Become-Man hung upon the cross for our sins; the day God the Father suffered God the Son to be a sacrifice for the sins of the world. All Fridays belong to God, but of all the Fridays this one above all is dedicated to our remembrance and gratitude for the death of our Lord Jesus Christ through which we have deliverance from the death we deserve for our sins.

There are few more beautiful prayers to express such devotion and love and gratitude than this one now sung throughout Christendom. Offer it up this day (sing it if you know the tune) as your own prayer to the God who one Friday long ago dedicated the day to your salvation through Jesus Christ His Son and our Lord.

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
by Bernard of Clairvaux, 1091–1153

O sacred Head, now wounded,
With grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded
With thorns, Thine only crown;
How art Thou pale with anguish,
With sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish,
Which once was bright as morn!

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression,
But Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor,
Vouchsafe to me Thy grace.

What language shall I borrow
To thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever,
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
Outlive my love to Thee.

New Passover

“Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat.’”

(Luke 22:7, 8)

Fifteen hundred years old by the time of Christ, the observance of Passover was wrapped deeply into the corporate psyche of all Israel and, due to the Dispersion, was present to some degree in the soul of every other civilized nation as well. Each year Jews from all over the world made the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast that marked the birth of their nation out of the dark womb of slavery in Egypt.

Indeed Jesus, Peter, John, and the other disciples had participated in or performed this same function every year of their own lives: “Go and prepare the Passover.” In the minds of Christ’s disciples, as in the minds of all other Jews at the time, this was a special time of the year, yes, but nothing new—the same Festival they had always known: the same giving of thanks, the same unleavened bread, the same wine blessings, the same lamb, the same psalm-hymns sung at the close of the meal, the same stories told.

Jesus alone knew this Passover was different. Jesus knew this Passover corresponded with a new and truer Passover that marked the new beginning of a renewed nation of God, a nation of God that would include all nations. From this Passover on, the giving of thanks would be for one Lamb of God, the Passover who takes away the sins of the world. This Passover and all future “pascha” celebrations would center on the bread of His own Body and the wine of His Blood. This night the psalm would hardly pass from their lips and the lips of every Jew before its fulfillment was set into motion: “The stone which the builders rejected/Has become the chief cornerstone. . . This is the day! . . . O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!/His mercy endures forever.”

Now for two thousand years, not only once a year but every first day of each new week, those over whom the death angel has “passed,” those whose doorposts have been marked with the blood of the Lamb, those whose feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, have celebrated this Feast given to us new by Jesus Himself. Only now no new Passover must be killed—one Sacrifice has been slain once for all! Let us go with joy to the Table set before us, that we may eat once again in celebration of the freedom that has been won for us by our Lord.

“Lord God, Heavenly Father, we give You thanks for our Lord Jesus Christ and His gift to us in the Supper handed down to us from the eve of His sacrifice on the cross for our sins. Look upon His blood that marks our ‘doorposts and lintel,’ and grant to us eternal life through Him, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Love Stoops

“Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

“And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.

. . .

“So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.’”

(John 13:1–5, 12–17)

Jesus is the perfect host. The night before He lay down His life for His friends, He prepared a place, he prepared a meal, and he planned for the entire evening. He broke bread with them, gave them wine to drink, and led them in the richest conversation imaginable. He did far more than this, however. The thing that makes Jesus the perfect host is that He gave Himself entirely to His guests. He gave Himself in the wine and the bread. He gave Himself as He gave them His Word and the promises of His Word. He gave Himself as He humbled Himself to perform the most menial of all tasks for them, to wash their feet. The following day, of course, He will give them—and us—the greatest example of this love and service and sacrifice and humility as He gives Himself away to us and for us as He hangs upon a cross paying for all of the sins and misery of the world.

Jesus gave Himself in all of these ways because it is in the character of the Trinity to do so. All that He is and has and has done has always been in the form of a gift to His Father, just as His Father has always loved and served and given to Him. He is a servant to His disciples because He is a servant to His Father and because this is what He has seen His Father do for Him.

And so now He teaches His disciples explicitly that this is what it will always be to be a disciple of Christ: not simply a “washer of feet”—that, yes—but rather a “giver-away-of-oneself.” No place left for pride here. No place left for self-serving or self-preservation. There is no thing too low to which love will not stoop. No reservations, no holding back in the service of Christ. If Christ who created all things and rules over all things and owns all the glory in the universe can stoop to clean out the gunk between my toes, how much more willing should I be to do that and anything else to which love calls me.

“Dear heavenly Father, thank You for giving Yourself away for us, for inviting us to be Your guests at Your great banqueting table, for feeding and nurturing us and serving us with the hand of God in Christ. Thank You again for Christ’s sacrifice for us. Make us like Him—make us His disciples indeed—and teach us to wash feet and serve and sacrifice and give ourselves away with the same joy that leads You to do all of this for us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

The Glory of the Cross

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18)


When I was a child I heard a preacher once who bemoaned the fact that the cross was the symbol of Christianity, the focal point in much church architecture, and even popular as a jewelry and decoration “style.” “The cross is a reminder of death and defeat,” he proclaimed, “and the symbol of Christianity ought rather to be something that reflects life and hope, joy and glory.”

Even as a child I knew something was gravely wrong with this man’s message (and I sincerely hope that was an unfortunate blip in his preaching career that he soon regretted). While it is true the cross would mean nothing apart from Christ’s subsequent resurrection, and while it is true that some reflection on the crucifixion can turn morbid and unbalanced for many Christians, the cross of Jesus Christ is central to our life in Jesus Christ, and it is by no mistake the cross has been the most “popular” symbol for Christianity for as long as the message of the cross has been preached.

Christianity is a religion of paradox. Jesus dies to give life; we are called to do the same. Christ is eternal God, yet He becomes a Man capable of dying. He is King of all heaven and earth—King of the Universe—but the greatest thing He ever accomplished for the citizens of His people was to take the form of the lowest of servants, humbling Himself to the point of death, even the most shameful death of a criminal, open to ridicule and public spectacle. If we forget or despise one side of the paradox, we lose the life and hope and glory to be found on the flip side. We glory in the cross because it is indeed a symbol of death and defeat—that has led to life and hope for the one trusting in a risen Lord.

As we approach Eastertide—and there ought to be as much anticipation in us as there is for children at Christmas time—don’t run past the cross too quickly, as if it were something necessary, yes, but too depressing for much time or thought. Rather, as Christians have done through the centuries, firmly embedding it into the woof and warp of their culture as it has developed, glory in the cross—“cherish” it, as the old song says—look upon it as the sign of victory that it is, and “wear it proudly” as you live out the resurrection life through a living Christ. For, as foolish as it may seem to others, the cross is the power of God to those of us who are being saved by it.

“Heavenly Father, we give thanks for the glorious sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross for our sins. We thank You for the centrality of the cross in the life of the Church, in the life of our families and heritage, in the life of each one of us as individual believers. We pray, dear God, we would never look upon the cross as something shameful or depressing but rather as the fountain of our greatest good and of Your great glory as a merciful and loving God. We lift up our thanks and pray this prayer gladly in the name of our crucified Lord. Amen.”

Psalm 144: Who Trains My Hands for War

Written by David and sung by Christ, this psalm is to be our prayer as well. God is described at the defeat of the Egyptians as a “Man of War.” Jesus battled with Satan, the Jewish religious and political leaders of His day, our own sin, and Death himself—and won the victory in the cross and in His resurrection. We are called to battle also. Paul says we war against “principalities and powers,” our spirits war against our flesh, and we are to take high-minded thoughts captive, casting down and dashing upon the rocks below every argument that rebels against truth and the kingdom of God. Do battle this day in faith by singing this prayer, sincerely and fervently, to your mighty heavenly Father—for God's glory, for the sake of His kingdom, and for yours and your children's true and lasting happiness.

Blessed be the Lord my Rock,
Who trains my hands for war,
And my fingers for battle—
My lovingkindness and my fortress,
My high tower and my deliverer,
My shield and the One in whom I take refuge,
Who subdues my people under me.
Lord, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?
Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him?
Man is like a breath;
His days are like a passing shadow.
Bow down Your heavens, O Lord, and come down;
Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke.
Flash forth lightning and scatter them;
Shoot out Your arrows and destroy them.
Stretch out Your hand from above;
Rescue me and deliver me out of great waters,
From the hand of foreigners,
Whose mouth speaks lying words,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
I will sing a new song to You, O God;
On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You,
The One who gives salvation to kings,
Who delivers David His servant
From the deadly sword.
Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners,
Whose mouth speaks lying words,
And whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood—
That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth;
That our daughters may be as pillars,
Sculptured in palace style;
That our barns may be full,
Supplying all kinds of produce;
That our sheep may bring forth thousands
And ten thousands in our fields;
That our oxen may be well-laden;
That there be no breaking in or going out;
That there be no outcry in our streets.
Happy are the people who are in such a state;
Happy are the people whose God is the Lord!

Of Figs and Mountains

“Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, ‘Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away.

“And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, ‘How did the fig tree wither away so soon?’

“So Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.’”

(Matthew 21:18–22)

The fig tree incident occurs the week of Christ’s passion. It is a real-time story, but it is also a parable. The fig tree, that looked healthy and like a tree that ought to have fruit but had none, is Israel. On the outside they profess a love for God, but in a few short days they will murder God’s Son. Thus the curse and the fast wither. Once Christ is rejected, Israel’s downfall will be swift and severe.

But where this fig tree withers a new sprout of fig, forever fruitbearing, will appear. When this mountain is removed by the faithful prayers of a few faithful men, it will be cast into the sea, buried and then resurrected fresh and new, and from there it will spread to fill the entire world. The old mountain upon which Jerusalem stands will be leveled, but the new mountain of God upon which is built the kingdom of heaven will be established through the Word of God and prayer in Christ’s name, and it will never fail.

You and I are figs on this new tree; we stand upon the new mountain of God. Our joy-filled purpose is to glorify God in the bearing of fruit and in the faithful praying of mountain-moving prayers ourselves.

“Thank You, dear God, for the triumph of our Lord Jesus Christ over His enemies and ours, and thank You for the triumph of the kingdom of God throughout the world. Bring Your kingdom, make us to bear the fruit of the gospel, and fill our hearts and mouths with believing prayers. We give thanks this day for the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ that makes all of this reality, and we pray in His name. Amen.”

Triumphant King

“Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant and said to Him, “Do You hear what these are saying?”

And Jesus said to them, ‘Yes. Have you never read,

“Our of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have perfected praise”?’”

(Matthew 21:14–17)

The scene is the Triumphal Entry. Jesus has, “lowly, and sitting on a donkey,” just ridden into the City of the Great King to the tune of these same loud and incessant HOSANNAs shouted by multitudes waving and tossing and strewing palm branches before Him. The city is in an uproar already. And now this.

Jesus is turning everything upside down—and not just the tables and chairs of those who sold sacrificial doves in the Temple. In complete defiance He is healing the lame and the blind within the Temple precinct. The priests are beside themselves. “Who brought this filth in here? What does this fellow mean by wrecking the entire Temple? Will someone get control of these children? Do You hear what they are saying?

Jesus’ reply rings with all the mocking laughter of a God who not only is in complete control of all that is going on but is almost mischievously so. “Yes.” “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I hear quite well what these joyful little voices are singing. Don’t you priests recognize it also? What did you think Psalm 8 meant when it said the little children—the tiniest babies—would sing the perfect praise, in triumphant over the enemies of God?”

Indeed the very term hosanna is praise reserved for a Savior, a Deliverer. Yes—though it is shaking heaven and earth for them to do so, the children’s singing is just as it should be. The Eternal Christ of the Living God is high and lifted up, enthroned in His Temple, and absolutely nothing can turn back the tide of events now. At the end of this week, this same Jesus, still triumphant and more so, will fulfill the role of High Priest as He offers Himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of His people. Jesus—Jehovah saves. Hosanna—He alone is our Savior. In the death of this Prophet-Priest-King even death itself will be turned on its head, and the triumph will continue until all things are brought under His feet.

“Heavenly Father, we give You great thanks for our Savior and Lord, our Triumphant King, and for His salvation of us. Fill our mouths with His praises and our hearts with the joy of the winning side. Complete in us what Christ has begun, conform us to His image, convert us from blind and lame to the holy and incorruptibly faithful You have saved us to be, and bring in Your kingdom, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Our All in All

“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all: for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Luke 21:1–4)

Appearances are not as they often seem. It looks as though the wealthy are putting in much more than anyone else, but Jesus sees through all of that and says the widow is actually giving more than they are. At first glance, this looks as if Jesus is simply saying percentage giving is what really reveals the heart. And there is something to that, of course. Jesus also said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” which among other things means that what you spend your money on reveals a lot about where your heart is.

But there is more to be seen here. Jesus reveals here a woman who has “made herself poor, yet has great riches.” (Proverbs 31:7)

When I say she has made herself poor, I do not mean that she is responsible for her great misfortune of being immersed in poverty. Rather, I mean that she is facing the trouble that has come upon her by denying herself, dying to herself, refusing to seek to “save her life.” I mean that, rather than attempting to hold on to what she has, using her poverty as her excuse for doing so, she gives her life away. And as a result, she finds life—and riches—the riches no one can take away from her.

This woman, observed by Christ only days before His own great sacrifice on the cross, is not struggling with appearances. She is not fooled by her great poverty, her circumstances, her trouble, her misfortune. To the contrary, she sees only one thing, and that one thing is the truth: God is her all in all. She will give herself away to Him because He has given Himself away for her. Not only has God always taken care of her—and her abundance is found in Him—but He has always given of His all for her. How can she do less?

“Lord God, You are our all in all. Thank You for giving of Yourself that we might have life. Thank You for Christ’s own humiliation, poverty, and death that we might have glory, riches, and life. Make us like You, O God, and teach us to lay down our all for You—our money, our time, our relationships, our loves, our everything—knowing all that we need is found in You. Help us, dear God, not to look on appearances, not to be fooled by circumstances, but to look to the truth as it is found in You, to look to the promises of Your Word, to see the great riches we have in following You, to look by faith to our only hope, which is Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

A New Jerusalem

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:34, 35)


These words were spoken by our Lord shortly before He entered Jerusalem, just a few days before He would lay down His life on a cross in that city (“It cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem”—v. 33). He knew these things:

• Jerusalem had a history of killing the very ones God had sent to rescue them.
• He loved Jerusalem and had come to save her—but she was unwilling.
• Jerusalem would be destroyed for her lack of trust in her Messiah.
• Jerusalem would welcome Him as her Messiah—but then quickly reject Him and even call for His execution before the week was over.

 It is through this deplorable tragedy, this greatest injustice in the history of the world, that Jesus Christ established a New Jerusalem, a new City of God, a new center for the Temple of God and His worship.

In this New Jerusalem, the citizens are willing. They receive Christ as their Savior, as their Messiah, as their Lord. For the inhabitants of this New Jerusalem, the death of Jesus of Nazareth is their beginning, not their end—their source of eternal life, not their own death sentence. Their house is not left desolate but is filled to the full with those of every tongue and every tribe, overflowing with all things, with all the riches that are found in the glory of Christ Jesus.

These children are indeed gathered under His wings, delivered from their enemies, sin and death, protected from the wrath of God—they have found and receive forgiveness for their own sins. And they also cry, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” But in this New Jerusalem, Jesus is the resurrected and reigning King—there is no rejection of Him as her Lord—they are willing subjects of His glorious kingdom, serving Him gladly and gratefully, giving thanks continually for the salvation of their fair city through the blood of their Savior.

“Great God and Glorious Father, we give You thanks indeed for our Lord Jesus Christ and His sacrifice on the cross for our salvation. Thank You for establishing the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of God, the Church of the Living God, and for including us in the number of her inhabitants. You are our King—we would have no other—and we are Your willing subjects. Teach us Your will that we might walk in it; protect us from our enemies; fill us with the rich produce of Your Holy Spirit. And may God’s peace be upon the Israel of God! Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Psalm 42: A Psalm for the Downcast

Everyone from time to time has moments of discouragement or maybe even depression. But sometimes those moments extend into days, weeks, months, and even years. This can especially be true when worries, anxieties, attacks from others, old fears, sickness, bouts with sin, or major changes in life come upon us. Whatever the case may be, God longs for us to long for Him in these times, to go to Him and cry out for Him, even if almost everything within us feels like God has totally abandoned us.

He hasn’t. Pour out your soul honestly before Him. As this psalm (as well as others) leads us to do, talk to yourself and encourage yourself to do what is right: hope in God, trust Him with your difficulty and through it, and beg God to fill your mouth and heart with prayers and songs—songs of joy—once again.

Lift up this prayer-psalm sincerely to the Lord:

As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me,
“Where is your God?”
When I remember these things,
I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go with the multitude;
I went with them to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and praise,
With a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.
O my God, my soul is cast down within me;
Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan,
And from the heights of Hermon,
From the Hill Mizar.
Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls;
All Your waves and billows have gone over me.
The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me—
A prayer to the God of my life.
I will say to God my Rock,
“Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a breaking of my bones,
My enemies reproach me,
While they say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God;
For I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.

Greater Love Has No Man

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for His friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” (John 15:11–14)

These are the words of Jesus to His most intimate disciples on the eve of His death. What was His desire for them in these “final” words? Their joy—that His joy would become their joy, and that their joy would be full to overflowing.

What then is the joy of Christ? Loving His disciples; loving His friends. And not with just any love, but with the greatest love there is, a love that takes a man to the cross for the sake of those he loves.

And this then is our joy too: To love as He has loved. Such a love will take us to the cross as well—and if to the cross, then to every other suffering short of the cross.

Are we willing to die for others? Then we will be willing to learn patience with them as God in Christ has been patient with us. Are we willing to sacrifice our own lives for the sake of the life of others? Then we will be willing to live for others as well, learning what it is to be a servant to all just as our Lord Jesus is a servant to us His friends. Have we taken up our own cross as a disciple of Christ? Then we will give a cup of cool water in His name; we will bless even those who curse us; we will overcome evil with the good we do to others—even when they have done evil to us.

Indeed we serve God best as we learn to love and to serve one another. This is what it is to be the friend of God: to do whatever He commands you. His command? Love sacrificially in everything you do, everything you think, everything you say, everything you feel.

And what again is the outcome of such love? Nothing less than the joy of God—a divine joy we not only can know but that we can have to the full—only as we learn this great love that our loving Savior and Lord has shown to us.

“O Lord, please teach us to love one another. Make Your joy our joy, and make our joy full. We give You thanks for Your taking on the form of a bondservant and for humbling Yourself to the point of death for our sakes. Plant and grow and cause to flourish this great love in our hearts and in every facet of our lives, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Self-Denial: The Centrality of the Cross in the Daily-ness of Life

“When He had called the people to Himself with His disciples also, He said to them, ‘Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?’” (Mark 8:34–37)

The heart of the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not only the heart of our faith as recorded in our confessions, but it is the heart of our faith as it must be lived out in the daily-ness of our lives. This is what it is to follow Christ. Christ has called us to a life of death that leads to life.

How do we, like Paul, “die daily”? Certainly we must be willing to be killed for the sake of Christ and the gospel, just as He was put to death for our sakes and for our salvation. And there are Christians throughout history and throughout the world today who make this sacrifice. But is there no application for those of us who are not under the immediate threat of being put to death for our faith? On the contrary, if we are not dying to ourselves through the self-denial Christ is speaking of here, it is highly unlikely we will make the greater sacrifice of laying down our lives on a literal cross made of wood.

To many Christians the doctrine of Christian liberty is far more appealing than the doctrine of self-denial. And certainly extremes in either of these doctrines are dangerous distractions from the true life of a disciple. One of the dangers is that of reacting to extremes in the one by embracing the extremes of the other. Indulgence is no proper substitute for asceticism, just as standing barefoot in the snow eating stale crusts of bread is not the only answer to overfeeding “the flesh.”

But in modern American Christianity it would appear we do not have as much of the struggle against ascetic extremes as we do in actually following Christ in the call to self-denial. This is due at least in part to our broad and flashy but often shallow depth of faith. We often do not really believe we will find life by losing it. We do not believe our cross is actually the road to our resurrection. We like the part about being forgiven of sins and having extension of life, but we all too often chafe under a new life in Christ that means humility, self-control, looking out for the interests of others, “buffeting” my body so as not to be disqualified in the race of faith. Life is found, Christ’s call repeats, through losing it for Christ's sake and for the sake of others.

As with all other virtues, self-denial is to be “put on” and worn every day and for every moment, not only on special occasions. Self-denial gets up in the middle of the night to comfort a crying baby, sacrificing sleep—“your life”—to bring life and love and the gospel to a child in need. Self-denial takes on the risk of the trouble and pain and patience it takes to make a friendship—or a marriage—work in a sinful but redeemed world. Self-denial does the dishes, takes out the trash, sympathizes with his spouse’s headache because the part of him that wants to do what’s right wins out over the part of him that doesn’t.

“Dear God, Author of Life and Teacher of Mankind, teach us how to die. We give You thanks again for the willing sacrifice of our Savior, Your Son and our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lay down His life—and took it up again—for our sakes, that we might have life through Him. Make us like Him, dear God, and help us to deny ourselves for the sake of others, for the sake of Christ, for the gospel’s sake, and for the sake of our own souls. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Psalm 13: Pray and Give Thanks

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Lest my enemy say,
“I have prevailed against him”’
Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The psalmist here teaches us how to respond to trouble. So much of the time, our response is to worry, be anxious, fret, grow angry and depressed, give way to despair and frustration, wallow in self-pity and discontentment. An opposite problem, of course, is to fake our way through the trouble, denying its existence or the intensity of its effect on us. Or we may look for solutions that are hopelessly doomed to failure because they are not according to God’s Word. What is God’s solution?

Pray and give thanks.

Worry denies the power of God; prayer is an acknowledgement of it. Discontentment refuses to embrace the purpose of God; thanksgiving rejoices in it. Whatever the situation you find yourself in, present your case to God—honestly and openly, just as the psalmist does here—and accompany your petition with joyful thanks and praise. Giving thanks for the past and present blessings builds up your faith that enables you to trust God for the future.

“Wonderful God and Savior, we cry out to You and ask You to hear us for Christ’s sake. Deliver us from our troubles, from our enemies, from our sins. Enlighten our eyes, dear God, and show us Your power and greatness and purpose. We give thanks to You this day for all the salvation and mercy and bounty You have poured out on us through Jesus Christ, and we pray You would teach us to come to You with our thanksgivings and praise—may they continually be on our lips. We trust ourselves to You, O God, for You alone are our hope, You alone have the power to help, You alone are the source of all our blessing, our good, our contentment, our joy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ we pray and give thanks. Amen.”

Psalm 86: Another Prayer for Deliverance

Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me;
For I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am holy;
You are my God;
Save Your servant who trusts in You!
Be merciful to me, O Lord,
For I cry to You all day long.
Rejoice the soul of Your servant,
For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
And attend to the voice of my supplications.
In the day of trouble I will call upon You,
For You will answer me.
Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name.
For You are great, and do wondrous things;
You alone are God.
Teach me Your way, O Lord;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear your name.
I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And I will glorify Your name forevermore.
For great is Your mercy toward me,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
O God, the proud have risen against me,
And a mob of violent men have sought my life,
And have not set You before them.
But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,
Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.
Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me!
Give Your strength to Your servant,
And save the son of Your maidservant.
Show me a sign for good,
That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed,
Because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
Amen.

Contentment 101

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

The tenth and final of the Ten Commandments is last for a reason. It holds great importance in the law of God. As with the first commandment—“you shall have no other gods”—when we obey this one, we kill in the root several of the others. You will never get to adultery if you do not covet your neighbor’s wife. You will never steal if you have no desire for your neighbor’s possessions. Most murder would be avoided if there were no jealousy or envy or lust for power or wealth. And how much lying and deception is in an attempt to grasp for what we desire? Covetousness is a mighty sin.

And again, the reason it is so mighty is that it is a root sin. James puts it this way: “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” (1:14, 15) He reiterates this point later: “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain.” (4:1, 2) When you get down to it, covetousness forms the root of just about all of our other sins.

Oddly, however, and most unfortunately, it is probably the sin we least acknowledge but excuse the most. How many men—and women, surprisingly—think “looking at the menu” is OK as long as you don’t “order the meal,” meaning one can commit adultery in the mind—lust—as long as he doesn’t follow through with actions? How many pine after a bigger house, a newer car, a more lucrative job, a prestigious position—and are secretly angry (this is true envy) when they perceive their neighbor has something “undeservedly” better?

Is it wrong, then, to desire good things? Of course not. But desiring what God has given our neighbor and what God has chosen not to give us is always wrong. We should desire and look for and long for and pray for the blessing of God—and give thanks for the great blessings we have received from His hand. But when we are upset with the good fortune of others, or their perceived good fortune, we have crossed the line into the realm of envy and covetousness. We should be joyful and thankful for what God has given others as well.

We can know we have crossed over into this realm when we are eaten up with discontentment and a complaining spirit. Gratitude is the sure remedy. Love for others will lead us to be happy for their welfare and blessing, and love for God will lead us to be happy with what He in His sovereign and benevolent wisdom has given us. True and ultimate satisfaction and contentment will only be found in God, of course, but those who have Him have all things in Him. Contentment recognizes this by faith and finds a joy that cannot be robbed by any circumstance or situation.

“Father of lights and Giver of every good gift, we give You thanks this day for all the blessings of this life and of the life to come. We deserve none of this, and that makes us that much more grateful. Grant to us true contentment, dear God—make us truly satisfied with You, with Your will, and with all You have designed for our lives. Deliver us and keep us from covetousness, envy, jealousy, discontentment, and lust. Teach us how to keep Your righteous command not to covet and in that way nip in the bud so much other sin born of our desires. May our one desire be to dwell in Your holy presence, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

True Witness (Part Two)

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16)




Speaking the truth in love does not always mean saying everything we could say or saying it to everyone who has “ears to hear.” We have to be careful judges with our own words. Love, and what the old-timers call “charity,” is to be the motive and operating principle behind our “truth-telling.”

In fact, God through the atonement in Christ “covers” our sin, and we are to do likewise when we can. “Love covers a multitude of sins.” Our desire should be to protect the good name of our neighbor as far as it is possible. If I have a problem in my relationship with someone, God instructs me to go to him alone to work it out. If I still run into difficulty, I may need to get “one or two witnesses” to act as counsel or to help us work through things, but it should still be for the purpose of reconciliation and working through to a solution advantageous to both of us.

So much of the time, however, our motive is our own defense or an attack on the person with whom we have the disagreement, so we start looking for “support” for our case in others—sometimes many others—and that can all too easily slip into gossip, slander, rumor, whisperings, back-biting, and complaining. Love, love for the truth, and the truth in love avoid all of these things like the plague. There is often absolutely no reason to talk to others, even if we think we are “telling the truth.” Here once again we find the golden rule well applied: we are to do as we would be done unto.

It is true that truth often hurts. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend—open rebuke is better than love concealed.” But this sort of hurt is once again motivated by love and a genuine desire for the good of the other, just as a parent’s loving discipline or the surgeon’s use of the scalpel. God is the master at this kind of truth-telling: all that He speaks to us His children—whether rebuke or praise, admonition or promise—is designed for our good and to build up our relationship with Him. His example must be our guide in all of our communications and relationships with others.

The worst of false witnesses we can give is our lying about God. We do this verbally when we complain—as if God has cursed us when in reality He has blessed us beyond measure and infinitely beyond what we actually deserve. We also lie about God without ever using our tongues—in fact through our actions and attitudes we may speak directly against what we do say with our tongues. But because we bear the image of God, and because we bear the name of Christ, we bear a false witness with every sin, whether it is with our tongues or not. Only as we follow the truth and live according to the truth will we begin to bear a true witness to the ultimate Reality, God Himself.

“Great and wonderful heavenly Father, we give You thanks for Your truthfulness and for Your speaking to us the truth—through creation, through Your Word, in our consciences, and through Your own Son Jesus Christ. Thank You for always bearing a true witness, and we pray You would make us like You. Guard us and help us to guard our tongues. Keep us from bearing false witness through gossip, slander, hypocrisy, and complaining. Help us in our communications and relationships with others to speak the truth in love, to cover others’ sins for the sake of love, and to seek peace with one another through loving confrontation, confession, and forgiveness. Keep us from sin, dear God, that we might bear a true witness to Your glorious image, we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

True Witness (Part One)

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16)

In a courtroom, the witness takes the stand. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” “I do.” If the witness tells partial truths, mixes fantasy with fact, or exaggerates one element of the truth while minimizing others, those making judgments—the judge and the jury—may condemn an innocent when the truth might have set them free. God is a just God and a merciful God, and His law is designed to protect against such injustices.

In the courtroom of life, we are continually and simultaneously the accused and the accuser, the judge and the judged, the witness and the one being witnessed “for” or “against.” We are making judgments about all sorts of things, including other people, and others are forming their judgments about us. We also give our witness about ourselves, others, and all the rest of our world; and others are “sharing” what they think about us, the world, others, and God Himself.

Because God is Truth and cannot lie, He calls for the truth in all of this. We are called upon to speak the truth, to speak it in love for God and for our neighbor, and to believe the truth as well and make our judgments according to it alone. God, of course, is the ultimate Judge—we are accountable to what He says is true and right and good; but He is also the ultimate Defender and the true Witness, who knows the truth about those who trust in Him, who look to Him for deliverance, who are repentant in heart and deed.

Satan, “the Accuser,” on the other hand, is a murderer and a thief and a liar from the beginning. His motive was the death and destruction of man and the theft of God’s glory for himself, but his tactic was false witness and deception. He twisted God’s Word, lied about God, lied about Adam and Eve, lied about creation, and lied about the consequences of sin. Mankind’s undoing, including yours and mine, was the result of believing Satan’s false witness, making false judgments, and becoming deceivers ourselves just like our adopted “father.”

The more we become like Christ, the more we know the truth and love the truth, and the more we discern the lie and hate the lie. When we come to Christ, we are coming into the light—and light exposes the lies for what they are. When liars and their lies become exposed, like roaches, they often begin to scurry for the dark places again, attempting to cover up with more lies. That approach will always fail in the end because the light always triumphs. But if we come to the light, live in the truth, walk in integrity—if we run into the light ourselves—we find there a loving and forgiving God, who knows the truth about us anyway and calls us to be true witnesses who truly admit the sinfulness of our sins—including our sins of deception and lying—and turn from them to the truth as it is in Christ.

“Lord God, Judge of the whole world, have mercy on us for Christ’s sake. Forgive us for our attempts at hiding from You. Forgive us for lying about You, ourselves, and the world. Jesus is the Light of the world, and nothing can be hidden from You. Shine Your light on us. Jesus is the Truth, and no one can come to You except through Him. Teach us the truth—about Yourself, about ourselves, about the world in which we live. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, and lead us into all truth. Make us lovers of the truth, men and women of integrity, and keep us from lies, deceit, slander, secret-keeping, and hypocrisy—that we might be like our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.”

Psalm 15: Kingdom-of-God Dwellers

Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle?
Who may dwell in Your holy hill?
He who walks uprightly,
And works righteousness,
And speaks the truth in his heart;
He who does not backbite with his tongue,
Nor does evil to his neighbor,
Nor does he take up a reproach against his friend;
In whose eyes a vile person is despised,
But he honors those who fear the Lord;
He who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
He who does not put out his money at usury,
Nor does he take a bribe against the innocent.
He who does these things shall never be moved.

Some of the Psalm-Prayers have been called “Wisdom Psalms,” and Psalm 15 could be considered among them. All of the psalms, of course, contain wisdom, but these particular psalms are focused on teaching wisdom and on using this teaching as a confession of faith and faithful living. In this Psalm, God is addressed: “Who shall dwell in Your presence? What kind of man dwells safely before You, lives and thrives under Your blessing, is representative of those who worship You truly and ‘possess’ the kingdom of God?” Then comes the answer, simultaneously a decided answer from the lips of God—the Holy Spirit wrote this—as well as a confession from the lips of the psalm-singer. This psalm is also great as a guide for the confession of sin or for intercession for others. This morning’s prayer is a corporate plea to God to make us such kingdom-of-God dwellers.

“Lord, we pray we would abide in Your tabernacle and dwell in Your holy hill. We pray we would live in Your presence lives of holiness and holy worship.
We pray, dear God, we would walk uprightly and work righteousness; that we would speak the truth in our hearts.
We pray we would not backbite with our tongues, that we would do no evil to our neighbors, that we would not take up a reproach against our friends.
We pray “vile persons”—those who despise You and Your way of holiness—would be despised in our eyes, but that we would honor those who love and honor and fear You, O Lord.
We pray we would swear to our own hurt and not change, that we would keep our vows faithfully—our vows of baptism, our vows of marriage, other vows we have taken—no matter what trouble and pain, difficulty or disadvantage, they bring to us;
We pray we would not ‘put out our money at usury,” or abuse others in their misfortune for our own personal gain;
We pray, dear God, we would not ‘take a bribe against the innocent,’ that we would not pervert the truth or bear false witness for our own personal advantage.
We pray we would ‘not be moved,’ O God, that we would live our lives founded firmly upon the Rock of hearing Your words and doing them.
All this we pray in Christ’s name and for His kingdom. Amen.”

God the Giver (Part Two)

“You shall not steal.” (Exodus 20:15)

God’s giving is work, and His works are all gifts. God calls His acts of creation “work.” All that God does—in creation, in the outworking of history, in salvation—are His “good deeds,” His mighty works. God is not a workaholic, but He is always working—even though He is the greatest at “resting,” enjoying His labors, as well. God, in His character, is a worker. And again, His work is all tied to His giving. The different Persons of the Trinity work to give to Each Other, and God is always working on our behalf as well.

We may think God has it easy because He is God. We tend to think of God like Mary Poppins who can clean up a room with the wave of a hand. But the Bible doesn’t really portray God like that. Although God can bring worlds into being at the sound of a word, He is also a God of strength, a Man of War, and a God who is able to do all His mighty works because He is strong.

He is also a God who enjoys His labor and looks upon it all as “good.” Likewise, although our work may be unpleasant at times and difficult, we should see our labors—and the fruit of those labors—as good; and we should always be strengthening ourselves in our labors so that we might be strong for the sake of others.

That is why the Scriptures contrast working and giving with theft: “Let him who stole steal not longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.” (Ephesians 4:28) As Christians, we are called to be like God, and that means we will be industrious, workers, and our working will be motivated by giving not taking. While it is certainly the right thing to work to provide for our own needs, that is not enough: we are to work in order to provide for the needs of others.

Stealing, on the other hand, is just the opposite. Rather than working in order to give, theft is all about taking what I have not worked for. And this can be seen in every facet of our lives, not simply in terms of money. Sometimes we love to receive glory or praise or honor even though we have done little or nothing to deserve it. Husbands and wives are often guilty of wanting good marriages without having to do the hard work it always takes to secure one of those. (And that is often what leads to adultery: we think we can “steal” a good relationship rather than having to work on the one God has already given us.)

We enjoy the benefits of the labors of others who have worked on our behalf, and all that we have is due to the work of God. This should lead us to lives overflowing with gratitude. But it should also lead us into our own labors—away from all theft and covetousness—that we might give back to God something of what He has given us, and that we might be like Him in our giving to others.

“Lord, we praise You this day for all Your glorious wonders, all Your mighty works. We give You thanks for all of Your working on our behalf, for all the gifts from Your hand for which we did not labor but You did. We pray that You would make us like You, that we would be hard workers, that we would enjoy our labors, that we would see them as good. We pray that You would strengthen us in our work, and that You would bless the fruit of our hands, that we might bring glory to You and joyful rest to others. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

God the Giver (Part One)

 “You shall not steal.” (Exodus 20:15)

Not only is God the Life-giver, but He is the Giver of All Things. All creation was given as a gift from the Father to the Son, and the Son who redeems it and reforms it gives all creation as a gift back to the Father. The Father gives glory and honor and love to the Son, the Son gives love, glory, honor, and obedience to the Father, and the Holy Spirit gives honor and glory and praise to both Father and Son. The Trinity is the eternal Benefactor, the giver of all good things.

God is the giver of good things to us. If there is anything for us to give, it is only because He first gave it to us. All creation was delivered into the hand of man, and his primary “responsibility” in life is to care for it, enjoy it, and give thanks for it. Every sun that rises, every bird song in the night, every taste, feel, and smell, every popsicle, every “creation” of man in art, music, architecture, and book—all of it is given by God to man who, like Christ, is meant to give it back to God with all thanks. His ultimate gift to us, of course, is Christ Himself and all we have in Him.

This “giving-ness” found in God is to define our relations with one another as well. Our lives should be defined primarily as opportunities for us to give to one another (along with our giving to God) as God in Christ has given to us. What has God not given to us? Everything we have and are we have and are because God created us and gave to us. Even so, we are most like God when we give of our lives, of our substance, our homes, our money, our labors, our love, our food, our affection, and our very selves to those whom God has given to us as the “others” in our lives.

Theft is the opposite, demonic spirit of taking and withholding. Theft is not only taking what has not been given to you (and thus envy is to theft what lust is to adultery and what hate is to murder), but theft is the withholding from others what rightfully belongs to them—whether gratitude or honor or hospitality or paycheck.

As with other sins, theft comes in all shapes and sizes. We think of theft as a “lighter” sin than murder and adultery because theft of property is not penalized as severely as these other two in the law of God. But murder and adultery are theft at root: the taking of life and the taking of another man’s wife. The theft of God is seen as one of the most reprehensible of crimes in Scripture. Failing to give God His just due in tithes and offerings is called the “robbery of God” (Malachi 3:8), and the failure to give God thanks and honor and glory for all He has given us in creation is described as the primary root sin of the pagan world (Romans 1:21).

God gives, and His heavenly law is to give to others what we would have given to us. We can do this most confidently, regardless our circumstances, because we have the promise that in Christ God has given us all things, to the glory of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

“Great God in heaven, Author and Giver of all things good, true, and beautiful, we give You thanks for all things, and glorify You as the great Benefactor of the universe. We pray Your forgiveness for our lack of gratitude, for our coveting and taking what belongs to You and to others, for our frequent tendency toward taking and stealing rather than giving and generosity. Keep us from theft in any form—theft of God, theft of others—and enlarge our hearts to be full of giving, generosity, gratitude, service, and hard work, which is to say we wish to be made in the image of God. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.”

Psalm 25: A Prayer for God’s Mercy and Truth

God is mercy, and God is truth. When God delivers us from our enemies—perhaps our own sin or others who are sinning against us—He delivers us that we might walk in His ways, in the way of truth. When we stray from that way, His mercy reveals the truth to us about our sin in contrast to His holiness. When we cry out to Him in repentance, He is true to His merciful character: He forgives us and leads us back into the way. As you pray this ancient prayer written by the God of mercy and truth Himself, call upon His name in sincerity for both—and He will grant them to You!

To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul,
O my God, I trust in You;
Let me not be ashamed;
Let not my enemies triumph over me.
Indeed, let no one who waits on You be ashamed;
Let those be ashamed who deal treacherously without cause.
Show me Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day.
Remember, O Lord, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses,
For they are from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions;
According to Your mercy remember me,
For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.
Good and upright is the Lord;
Therefore He teaches sinners in the way.
The humble He guides in justice,
And the humble He teaches His way.
All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth,
To such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.
For Your name’s sake, O Lord,
Pardon my iniquity, for it is great.
Who is the man that fears the Lord?
Him shall He teach in the way He chooses.
He himself shall dwell in prosperity,
And his descendants shall inherit the earth.
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him,
And He will show them His covenant.
My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
For He shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Turn Yourself to me, and have mercy on me.
For I am desolate and afflicted.
The troubles of my heart have enlarged;
Bring me out of my distresses!
Look on my affliction and my pain,
And forgive all my sins.
Consider my enemies, for they are many;
And they hate me with cruel hatred.
Keep my soul, and deliver me;
Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in You.
Let integrity and uprightness preserve me,
For I wait for You.
Redeem Israel, O God,
Out of all their troubles!
Amen.

Fidelity

“You shall not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14)

When God made humans, He made marriage. Marriage is the first and thus the most basic of all human relationships. Faithfulness to God reigns supreme over all, of course, but the next foundational layer for goodness in society involves faithfulness and goodness between a husband and a wife.

It doesn’t take much to observe this in our own society. The healthiest families are those in which a man and his wife love, honor, forgive, and help one another—and otherwise mirror the image set by Christ. This sets the pattern for their relationship with their children, as well as for their children’s relationships with each other as brothers and sisters. How we learn to relate to others in the home is our first and most important teacher for how we are to relate to others in community outside the home. And then of course we learn from our experience in our homes of origin how to set up our own homes, and thus the effect of marriage relationships is passed on ad infinitum.

God not only made the world this way—with faithful marriage at the center of all good society—but in His process of redeeming a broken and sin-filled world, His redemption of marriage is front and center as well.

God says in Proverbs, “For a man to take a wife is a good thing.” Adultery is the corruption of “a good thing.” Adultery extends to anything that corrupts the marriage relationship and takes away from the health of a marriage.

For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus applies this command in the realm of “just thinking about it,” making a direct correlation between adultery and lust in the mind and heart. It is not just that one leads to another—and it certainly does in many cases—but His point is that the desire itself adulterates the marriage and corrupts it. Sure, actual, raw physical adultery is worse than a moment of lust, just as murder is worse than a hateful thought. But hate will do in destroying society. It is murder in seed form, and enough relatively “little” weeds can ruin a garden as well as (and often better than) one big thorny thistle. So it is in marriage. The little foxes of daily infidelity will spoil the vineyard.

When God redeems marriage, He redeems it down to the roots. The fidelity called for in this command includes sexual purity from top to bottom—in thought, word, affections, and actions—and both before marriage as well as in it. But faithfulness in marriage also means loving your spouse sacrificially, in an understanding and honoring way, loving him or her as your own body, just as Christ loves His own Bride, the Church—again in every thought, word, attitude, and action. As God reforms our marriages in just such a way, all society and culture will be reformed as well—to His honor and His glory.

“Lord God, we give You thanks for Your own faithfulness to us, a covenant fidelity that led to such sacrifice as Christ made on the cross that we might live in true oneness with You, with God Himself. We pray that we would mirror that faithfulness in our own marriages. Grant forgiveness for this sort of sin in our marriages as well as others, and reform our marriages according to Your Holy Word and Your holy character, that we might bring You glory not only in our marriages but in our children, in their families, and in every other facet of our society. We pray for this in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.”