Grow In Faith

Some today believe that reality is limited to what is measurable (empirically verifiable) and that it is amoral. There are no rules. There is no god.  Certainly not a personal one. And when you find rules they are either: 1) the arbitrary expressions of personal preferences; or  2) democratically established expressions of a social contract. In both cases they are power plays. Those who buy into s...

Today we begin a new study of the Ten Commandments found in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Torah, which is the law, the first five books of the Old Testament. But before we can talk about the Ten Commandments, we have to understand how we got here.

This week we’ve unpacked Psalm 62 and seen that if we are placing our trust and our hope in anything besides God, it is misguided and, at some point, will crash and burn. Yesterday I said that what we are really after—or should be after—is the rest of God. The second big take-away from this Psalm is that we need to build practices into our life – I’m thinking about prayer, reflection and meditatio...

We are reflecting on Psalm 62 this week and we have seen over and over again that God and God alone is our Rock. And David is reminding himself over and over again about that truth, even as there are people trying to kill him, to topple him.

We are walking through Psalm 62 and we saw it open with Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress; I will never be shaken.

We are looking at Psalm 62 this week. There are 150 Psalms in total –collected over a thousand-year period – we suspect the oldest, Psalm 90, is from Moses, who lived around 1400 BC and the last one written almost a thousand years later, likely Psalm 147, which came during the time of Nehemiah and the Jews returning from Babylonian captivity. They were compiled in an official song and prayer book...

If we study all the passages, there are some unique insights about life and thankfulness. About having an attitude of gratitude, not just today, but every day. But what is gratitude? And what are we called to when we are commanded to be thankful?

We are continuing to look at Psalm 100 on this Thanksgiving eve day. Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth; worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

This week we are looking at one of the oldest psalms, Psalm 100.  Yesterday we looked at verse 1: Shout for Joy to the Lord, all the earth. Today let’s look at the next few verses. Verse 2: Worship the Lord with Gladness; Come before him with joyful songs.

Today we are looking at Psalm 100: Is a short Psalm (only five verses); It is a popular Psalm – some say second only to Psalm 23. It is an old Psalm – it goes back about 3,500 years to Moses. And it is a meditation: it’s talking points we are to direct back at ourselves.

When you realize that the Bible points to Christ, then we can lean into the grace of God, and we find the streams of water underground that we can tap into. Jesus is the ultimate meditation of God. It is the Word brought to life. So meditate on him.  On his Word. Because it makes all the difference.

So often, people think of sin as something arbitrary that God will punish, as opposed to God saying: if you go down that path it leads to trouble. Don’t go on that path. It doesn’t lead where you want to go. Sin is ultimately stupid and self-destructive behavior. If we saw what it does to us, we’d be more likely to lick a hot stove than to sin.  What path are you on today?