Pastor Fred
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
1 Chronicles 23-27
Every, every, every, function that supports the corporate worship service of your church is sacred, from the person singing to the person in the nursery!
Psalm 110
In this Psalm we find the reference that Jesus uses in Matthew 22:41-45 to declare His pre-existence, meaning life for Him did not begin within Mary. He presses the religious leaders who are questioning His divinity to explain Psalm 110. If David speaks of the Messiah as being his Lord, then how can they deny the divinity of the Messiah? The Messiah is the son of David through human lineage, Matthew 1:1-17, but His being as always existed, John 1:1-14 and Philippians 2:5-11.
How do you see Jesus? If it is as anything less than divine, press further into the Holy Texts given to us that we may all see Him as God!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 108-109
Imprecations. We need to understand that these texts are not given to us to give permission to us to seek the destruction of our enemies but rather instruction to us as to what we are to do with such strong feelings we will most certainly encounter at times in this life. An imprecation is a classification of Psalms where we speak of our feeling of deep hatred for another, our desires for their destruction. The only way we will ever be able to fulfill God's expectation that we love our enemies, as Jesus taught in the Sermon on The Mount in Matthew 5-7, is to take our feelings of anger and hatred to God. We give them to Him in prayer, prayers of imprecations, not because we hope to see them fulfilled, but rather to experience them being exchanged, hate for love, revenge for forgiveness, anger for mercy. We give Him the feelings we know do not belong in our hearts and He in turn gives us what belongs, the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26).
Pastor Fred
Psalm 30
In verse 12b of this Psalm, we are pressed to an intriguing question. The text reads, "...I will praise your forever."
The question is, could doing anything the Bible commands ever become tedious, especially, in the context of eternity, once we breathe our last breath and find ourselves in heaven where we will most certainly be praising God forever, among many other things undoubtedly, but nonetheless, praise will be an integral part of our existence in our eternity with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth...could we grow board of the repetition of praise?
Revelation 21:5, we hear Jesus saying, "Behold, I a making everything new..." This most certainly is filled with meaning but in part I believe is this, He has the power to make everything He asks of us just as fulfilling the millionth time as it was the first. That He is not bound by the law of diminishing marginal returns! There is no sense of repetitiveness in Heaven because He makes all things new, always! I believe as well that if we obey the mandates of Scripture with the right motives, one to please God and embrace the abundant life that He longs for us to possess, that we bring that same promise of newness to us in this life...that the study of Scripture, prayer, generosity, accountability...never becomes monotonous because of His power to bring "first time fulfillment" to every moment!
Pastor Fred
2 Samuel 24/1 Chronicles 21-22
Here is a link found by our church's worship leader explaining the perplexity of these chapters...I would add as well, that here again we see Joab stepping in and pressing David as any good core leader must do, challenging respectfully the mistakes of the lead person, as he did for David in 2 Samual 19.
Pastor Fred
Psalm 97-99
Ask yourself if the praise you are bringing at the next church service you attend rivals these Psalms... specifically 98:8, are you bringing a praise that rivals the river's clapping hands and the mountain's shouts? I don't exactly know what a clapping river sounds like or a shouting mountain... but I have been white water rafting, I have stood on on a precipice overlooking the Shenandoah Valley... and I would have to say together they conjure up images of something deafening, majestic, glorious, and inspiring to everyone present... is this the kind of impact our praise is brining in the service we attend?
Pastor Fred
Psalm 95
This is the Psalm that the writer of Hebrews references in Hebrews 4:3. What is the rest of which God speaks? It is the rest that comes from working to pursue our purpose, the rest these Israelites never knew because they were not allowed to enter the Promise Land and work to secure the nation that would give the world our Savior! It is hard to think of rest in connection with work, until we realize that the rest of our physical bodies is not the only sort of rest we were created to have. Hebrews 4 gives us four kinds of rest: Paternal Rest, Purpose Rest, Physical Rest, and Perpetual Rest.
Paternal is the rest that comes from being reconciled to God through Jesus, Purpose through using our energy and talents to build His Kingdom on earth, Physical by practicing a weekly Sabbath, and Perpetual by heading the call of Colossians 3:1 and being heavenly minded, living in light of the eternity that awaits us! With all four, we are WELL rested!!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 57
Verse 11..."God, be exalted above the heavens; let Your glory be over the whole earth!"
May this be our prayer today!
Pastor Fred
2 Samuel 22-23
You are a king, of your dominion, your life, your realm of influence...rule well!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 5/38/41-42
The first two Psalm are a great companion study. Psalm 5 is the song/prayer of an innocent person while Psalm 38 is that of person suffering in the consequence of their sin. The beauty we find is that God's love and compassion is the same for both as long as the suffering sinner is repentant. His protection, His grace, His mercy, His power is for the innocent and the repentant!
Moving on to 41 and 42, we are reminded that there is only one way to spiritually navigate our depression, to praise our way through! Our bodies may need the aid of something prescribed to aid in the restoration of our chemical balance, our minds may need counsel and instruction to re-anchor back to truth, but our spirit always needs one thing, an outpouring of praise and adoration to Him which in turn buoys our inner person to a place of complete restoration, full hope, displacing our despair.
I want to comment on verse 7 of Psalm 42, where find a phrase that is often quoted, "deep calls to deep..." I often hear this used to speak of how the eternal part of our inner person is only ultimately satisfied by the eternal depths of God. That is most certainly true but I do not believe this is the intent of this particular text. The consequence of misusing a certain text is that its original intent is lost, displaced. I believe the the true application of this verse is that there are times when we are caught up in despair to the degree that we feel as helpless as we would be if we were trapped under a pounding waterfall, dropping from immense heights of above, continually driving down into the bottomless depths of the water below. The geographic reference in verse 6 tells us this is speaking of the waterfalls that drop from Mount Hermon and become the Jordan River.
Listen to the text, the latter part of verse 7, "...all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me." Here we see that the situation is one of that of drowning, and a crisis even attributed to the very hand of God, "...Your breakers...Your billows..."
But then hope comes, in verse 8 we find these words, "The Lord will send His faithful love by day, His song will be with me in the night -- a prayer to the God of my life." It is a prayer because this hope of which the Psalmist speaks has yet to be realized. In verse 9 we find this phrase, "Why have you forgotten me?" In verse 11, "Why am I so depressed?" The Psalm ends with, "Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God."
I love the word "still." This reminds us that even when we are trapped in the waterfall of depression that drives us further and further into the depths of despair, we must praise Him still in our prayers for rescue! Our praise must never be motivated by our circumstance but rather driven by our revelation of God! I reference verse 9 above but the phrase that precedes the question "Why have you forgotten me?" is "I will say to God, my rock..." We speak honestly of the feelings of despair we have but always in the context of an unshakeable belief that our rescue comes, from a God who never fails!
Pastor Fred
2 Samuel 19-21
In chapter 19, verses 1-8 we are reminded that there are times when those who lead need to be pressed by someone on their core team as we see Joab pressing David. The lead person must be willing to let those they trust speak to them as Joab spoke to David. We all have blind spots, moments of weakness, etc and must trust that those closest to us will speak honestly to us.
But in chapter 20, we see the vulnerability of someone on the core team, a weakness inherent to being one of the trusted persons of the lead person. We can begin to covet our influence more than our love for the one leading. We see this same dynamic between Abner and Ishbosheth in 2 Samuel 3.
Moving on to chapter 21, these verse are truly perplexing. Why would God punish a whole nation for the sins of Saul, who himself had already suffered judgment, indeed his whole house has already suffered what seems to be ample judgment commensurate to his many sins? In addition, why would God allow those who appear to be innocent to take on the sin of others, to His ultimate appeasement (see verse 14b)?
Because we are temporal in our thinking, overly bound to this life, thus leading to our being perplexed by such texts. May we never see being chosen by God to be a prophetic picture to the world of Jesus' death, in His complete innocence, but still His ultimate destruction, in exchange for our freedom...as being accursed by God. The sons of Rizpah and Merab are some of the most highly honored of all of Scripture, the picture of Jesus slain on a hill (see vs. 9) for the people of God to be restored to their Father.
There is also a broader stroke of truth as well in chapter 21, in looking at verses 1-14 in conjunction with verses 15-22, we learn that there will be no victory over the giants in our lives until we are first reconciled to God through Jesus!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 61-62,64
I love verses 5-8 of Psalm 62, reminding us that we need to know how to minister to ourselves! Here, the psalmist is speaking to himself, preaching to himself, leading himself! Our souls need to be led, not followed by our wills! Verse 5 states, "Rest in God alone, my soul, for my hope comes from Him."
Minister to yourself today!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 3-4/12-13/26/28/40/55/58
In each of these Psalms, you find "LORD" being used to reference God. According to the Apologetics Study Bible, there are six primary uses of phrases referencing God. When you see "God" the Hebrew is Elohim, "Lord" is Adonai, "Lord GOD" is Adonai Yahweh, "LORD of Hosts" is Yahweh Sabaoth, "God Almighty" is El Shaddai, and finally, "LORD" is YHWH. A study note states, "in some older English translations, YHWH is rendered Jehovah, a form derived from combining the vowel sounds of Adonai withe the consonants for YHWH."
"LORD" is found in each of these Psalms and has its origin in Moses' encounter with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3). Moses asks whom shall he say has sent him when he comes to the Israelites, asking that they follow him out of slavery in Egypt, God gives him the name "YHWH" which best translates "He Who Is" or "He Who Causes to Be."
These Psalms remind us that we need a YHWH revelation of God, that He Is and that nothing that exists is beyond His realm, His power, His hand. But even deeper, a YHWH revelation means that one has had a personal encounter with Him, a living, loving Father. Just as Moses knew of God but had yet to have an encounter with His presence that culminated into a passion filled, life defining, moment by moment governing relationship with Him, so too we need such an encounter. Thus making our prayers and praises not to a God, but to our God, YHWH!
Pastor Fred
2 Samuel 13-18
In these chapters, we are reminded of a critical leadership principle, sin at high levels of leadership that goes unaddressed by the lead person will always have a terribly destructive impact. Always deal with sin, regardless of who is the malefactor. Here, we see David did not deal with the egregious sin of Amnon, thus creating a leadership vacuum, a vacuum that was filled by revolt. If David had dealt with Amnon appropriately, his kingdom would not have been jeopardized. A lapse of strength by the lead person invites rebellion!
In chapter 15, verse 6, we learn another key principal. While the lead person must share the affections and loyalties of the people, careful consideration must be given to whether or not those leaders sharing in the affections and the loyalties of the people are allowing that attention they receive to displace their devotion to the lead person. Otherwise, a fracturing of the whole is inevitable.
Betrayal is certainly a recurring theme throughout the history of Israel. In leadership, we must constantly weigh who is being truthful, who can we trust. Here in chapter 16 we see David being fooled by Ziba. It appears as though Ziba is helping David but as we progress, ultimately coming to 2 Samuel 19:24-30, we learn that Ziba had been lying to David about Mephibosheth. Here is the principle to follow, trust the character of the person you know, not the story being told about them in their absence. David knew Mephibosheth's heart and should not have been so easily persuaded by Ziba's lies.
As chapter 16 continues, we find a perplexing statement by David, that Shimei's curses were from God? David is demonstrating something that every leader needs, self-awareness. As we follow the life of David, we see that his love of violence exceeded the purposes of God in establishing Israel, his deceptiveness, his lust, and his failings as a father. While we know God will not allow the repentant heart to be overcome by the consequences of their sin, reciprocity still envelops us for a time, for a season, to remind us that there is price for lawlessness, a price once paid that hopefully motivate us more fully to righteousness. Leaders must be especially conscious of this as a leader's missteps affect the whole of which they lead.
Finishing this section in chapters 17 and 18...that which we gain through deception and rebellion will always be lost to us in turn!
Pastor Fred
Friday, May 14, 2010
Psalm 32/51/86/122
In the first Psalm, we read a favorite verse, nine, of mine that compares our human heart to that of a horse or a mule, one that needs to be controlled by a bit. I enjoy this verse because when I think of a tamed animal like a horse or a mule, I always consider a bit to be a good thing, a sign that the animal is under the control of the master...but herein lies the wonder of this verse, God does not want us to be under His control but rather for His will to be the desire of our heart...we follow without a bit because our heart longs to be led by Him.
Psalm 51 carries forward this same sentiment, that when we sin, as David did which is chronicled for us in the companion to these Psalms, historical writing of 2 Samuel 11-12, there must be a re-surrendering of our hearts to our Master.
Psalm 86, which contains another favorite verse for me, verse 15, states that God, our Master is a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, rich in steadfast love and truth. I remember memorizing this verse when I was a new Christian, soon after having made a vow of devotion to Jesus. I was reading The Book, a loose translation of the Bible and found this verse, often repeated in Scripture, to be deeply meaningful to me given my own life of debauchery prior to surrendering to my Master.
Then in Psalm 122, we find a song that Israelites would sing as they made their annual pilgrimages to the Jerusalem to celebrate the annual feasts. I love the pairing of this Psalm with the previous three because it reminds us that repentance does not just bring reconciliation with our Master, but with His whole house, the family of God, together...as Jesus said, that we would love one another as He has loved us!
Pastor Fred
2 Samuel 11-12/1 Chronicles 20
Hebrews 12:1 reads...
All of Heaven is always watching, always...
Pastor Fred
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Psalm 50/53/60/75; 2 Samuel 10/1 Chronicles 19/ Psalm 20
God's apparent lack of attentiveness, His seemingly unresponsiveness is the devil's deception of humanity...that God is unaware, unconcerned. The enemy of God and His creation preys on us a perception of a withdrawn God, manipulates our innate selfishness into expanding. What is so terribly sadistic about his scheme is that he knows it is a lie. He is not innocently misguided, on the contrary, he wants a multitude to suffer with him in the judgment he knows is inescapable. And in his evil nature, he takes pleasure in harm, in hurt, in destruction.
Truth must triumph over circumstances! We must immerse ourselves in Scripture throughout our lives so that when the enemy's lie comes in, tries to convince us that God isn't watching, that He isn't ever present, isn't conscious of our waywardness...these four Psalms flood our soul with truth and keeps our selfish nature in check and even more so, moving us forward in transformation.
When we turn to 2 Samuel 10 and 1 Chronicles 19, we find a great illustration in history for what is happening within us and in the spiritual realm in which we are all immersed. Hanun's leader's counsel is untrue. It leads Hanun to making a grave error. He is deceived into rejecting the one, King David, who comes in peace. So too the devil in working in conjunction with our selfish nature, attempts to convince us that The One who comes in peace cannot be trusted. Who are you believing?
When we choose well, when we allow the truth of Scripture to be our voice of influence, when we allow the emissary of The One, who is the Holy Spirit, to be the most dominant voice in the court of our soul, we will choose well and finally, Psalm 20 becomes our song!
Pastor Fred
Monday, May 10, 2010
2 Samuel 8-9
Do you feel measured by a cord? Do you feel fate is your master? Do you feel like a cord is being stretched out over humanity and that where that cord may fall determines your life...a single length and you live, double and you perish?
Remember, if you are a child of God because you have made a vow of devotion to His Son, Jesus, you have related to the wrong participants in the text! You are not the captured, you are David, you are the Israelites, you are the one who is supposed to be doing the measuring! Don't let the devil trick you into seeing yourself in the line of the captives...you are the invading army, not the ones now captive!
Listen, God wants you to identify with this text as the one who has dominion over his/her life!! Rule your life in accordance with the wisdom of His word and you will vanquish whatever internal enemies remain!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 25, 29, 33, 36, 39
What a great groupings of Psalms to remind us that we are in a conversation with God, not a series of encounters. God is not a concert we attend to be entertained, thrilled, adrenalinized...He longs for us to be in a passion filled, life defining, moment by moment governing, loving, covenantal relationship with Him, our Father! These Psalms remind us as such.
Psalm 25 is bringing to Him our needs, our cry, our desperation, our reality and then come on...Psalm 29 gives reveals how our conversations with God flow, He answers! But He doesn't answer in ways that are difficult to discern if it is in fact His voice, He is unmistakeable! His voice "shatters the cedars...flashes flames of fire...shakes the wilderness."
We must not over-elevate Elijah's post Carmel encounter with the voice of God. We must remember that the WHOLE of Scripture is our truth, not in part. The great truth of Elijah in the cave is that He speaks to us in a manner that is unmistakeable, which sometimes for us, as it was with Elijah, is a still small voice and yet other times as it was for David...universe splitting volume!
Then as we progress through these Psalms, we come to 33, a great praise and celebration in response to our hearing His voice. We celebrate, we declare, we proclaim, we worship!
But as conversations go, they have moments where they rise and fall in feelings, in volume...and even flow in subject matter. These Psalms remind us that while we may find His voice in response to one prayer and in turn rejoice in our having heard...we have other matters outstanding. Like a masterfully written novel, our God conversation is filled with concurrent plot lines, characters, both friendly and foe...our lives are complex...we move back into other needs, others situations for which we are equally desperate for His reply.
The final Psalm is a great capstone to this look at a God conversation as it reminds us that even though we should engage these conversations as if we are God's only child, engage these conversations as if our needs are His only concern! His love is so grand that we are made to feel as such, but we must never forget that this life is but a mere moment of our eternity and whatever may feel unresolved, unanswered is never because we have lost His attention or that He has reached His capacity to respond concurrently to so much of humanity or that...but only and always because in perfection and sovereignty, our waiting is a result of sovereign intentionality. Our impatience is oftentimes because we fail to see how our finite story is so wonderfully woven into the infinite purposes of our Father! But remember, na epiphany of the brevity of life and the smallness of our humanity is never to belittle us but rather give us a greater revelation of His love, we being so small yet still His love for us so very great.
How's your God conversation going?
Pastor Fred
Friday, May 7, 2010
2 Samuel 7 / 1 Chronicles 17
These are parallel texts to one another and I want to work out of 2 Samuel 7, specifically verses 11b - 17. This is wonderful example of where God is speaking to both the actual events of history in the immediate future as well as prophetically of what is to come centuries later. Here, God is speaking of both Solomon and Jesus. The relevance to Solomon is self explanatory if you are familiar with the coming history of Israel. Let me overlay though the relevance to Jesus...this is beginning with 11b through 17, adding my commentary to reveal its prophetic relevance...
"The Lord declares to you: The Lord Himself will make a house for you (The Church). When your time comes and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up after you your descendants, who will come from your body (Matthew 1:6-7,16), and I will establish His kingdom (Luke 1:32-33). He will build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever (Matthew 16:18). I will be a father to Him, and he will be a Son to Me (Matthew 3:17 & Mark 9:7). When He does wrong, I will discipline Him with a human rod and with blows from others (not that Jesus ever does wrong but rather that He dies for the wrongs that we have committed, His substitutionary death...Colossians 1:19-20). But my faithful love will never leave Him as I removed it from Saul; I removed him from your way (we are powerless to remove the obstacles that separate us from God, mainly our Saul like heart, a heart that is inherently self-serving and although we deserve a graceless response from God like Saul received, we receive His grace because of Jesus, Isaiah 53 & Romans 3:23, 6:23 & Ephesians 2:8). Your house and kingdom will endure before Me forever, and your throne will be established forever (Acts 2:29-35).
If we believe that all of Scripture is God breathed, what does it mean to you if God, knowing He had limited space, chose to repeat something? I say because there is something in there that is important to Him! When we come across such texts, don't say, "I've read this before..." We must on the contrary say, "Lord, clearly this is important to you, may it be as important to me, help me see what it is that you long for me to know!"
The Holy Spirit is our teacher, our ever present revelatory power (John 16:5-16 & 1 Corinthians 2:9-16) and He wants such revelation to be imparted to us! God's heart is one to reveal, not to hide, find Him and His truth always!!
Pastor Fred
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Psalm 96/101/32
As I have blogged before, we trying to stop using the term "contemporary worship" to describe the music and singing the opens our corporate gatherings with praise and adoration to God. Truly, it is ancient! I think David scoffs in Heaven every time he hears someone use the term "contemporary worship." He says, "Hey, take 3,000 year ago look and see what we were doing!" Their worship was expressive, loud, joyful, celebrative, instrumental, corporate, dance filled, shouting, enthusiastic...3,000 years ago! The only argument we can make is that we have electricity, so maybe we can justify the use of a term like "technologically modern" but I don't think that term will catch on any time soon! Our worship is Psalmic, Davidic, ancient...
Pastor Fred
Psalm 89 / 105
In verses 28-37, we first need to understand the term "horn." This refers to one's lineage, their coming genealogy, the family tree that will flow from them. A common perception of God's favor in the Old Testament was that one's family would be both numerous and prosperous. But we also need to remember that often God's promises are prophetic, speaking to the future and spiritual, meaning that the fulfillment of the promise is within a heavenly kingdom and not a natural one. And here, while there is certainly a temporal application to God's promise regarding David's political kingdom, the greater application is a spiritual one, the Kingdom of Heaven. Much of God's promise regarding the "horn" of David is referencing Jesus. Read Matthew 1:1-17 and find how Jesus if from David's line, his "horn."
Our inability to recognize the eternal perspective of much of God's promises can lead to disappointment. This is where verses 38-52 come in to play. David is lamenting the reality of his circumstances in light of his perceived promise from God. He is unable to reconcile is present life with the promises of God. But much of his disappointment is due to his lack of grasping the prophetic nature of God's promise. What if David had known what God was planning with his "horn." What temporal circumstances could have begun to displace his joy, his excitement? Nothing! As with Abraham, the promises of God to him seemed so much more grand than the temporal fulfillment Abraham witnessed...because their ultimate grandeur was to be fulfilled spiritually, not practically.
Psalm 105 is one of my favorite texts that speak to providence, God's had at work in history, advancing His divine will. Read this Psalm and see how many "He..." statements you can identify. For example, verse 41 reads, "He opened..." He is at work in your life equally intentional!
We too struggle with disappointment, but we need to view the reality of our moment in light of eternity. Too often we find our circumstances irreconcilable to what we perceive to be His promise to us...remember His promise is far beyond our generation, He is always working to fulfill the future and sometimes the tenor of our day feels incongruent with our expectation of Him, just as David expressed in Psalm 89.
In those moments, recall Isaiah 26:4, "Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord is the Rock eternal."
Pastor Fred
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Psalms 15/22-24
First a thought about Psalm 22. Just in case you feel the temptation to minimize the prophetic significance of this Psalm by saying Jesus was just quoting what He knew had already been written, may we not forget the Romans who crucified Him certainly were not following a Hebraic script. In verses 16 and 18 we see David speaking prophetically the manner by which Jesus would be sacrificed and also the soldiers casting lots for His garments...if you are looking for a great study, check out the Thompson Chain Study Bible identification of all the Old Testament prophetic moments in speaking of Christ.
Here are some thoughts as you study these four Psalms...
(15) He sets our goal...will you let Him?
(22) He takes our place...will you let Him?
(23) He guides our path...will you let Him?
(24) He rules our lives...will you let Him?
Pastor Fred
Psalm 1-2/101
I grew up in a rural community and building fences were not done by landscapers, it was a family affair. Long before HGTV romanticized home projects, in Varina, it was known as Saturday! My father would make sure the lawn mower passed by our bedroom windows if we were still enjoying slumber...the every reliable briggs and stratton alarm clock!
But putting up a fence was not just for any Saturday. You wanted a Saturday when the week prior had ample rain. Soft ground, water saturated, soil loosening, dirt unbinding rain for days prior. I see rental equipment advertised as they lay in parking lots, catching the attention of people driving by; I always look longingly at the augers, the oversized cork screws with a motor. Then check my hands, certain there must be a lingering blister there from decades before...we had a post hole digger.
What does Psalm 1 and 2 speak to me? They say, saturate yourself in God's presence. He wants to sink some posts deep into our hearts, posts that He will in turn use to build boundaries, truth fences, not to rob us of meaning and pleasure, on the contrary, but to release us more freely into the depths of eternal life.
In the Apologetics Study Bible, Psalm 101 is entitled "A Vow of Integrity." Make this vow, fences up!
Pastor Fred
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
2 Samuel 6:1-23
We must not see Uzzah or Ahio as innocent. They were Levites. They knew that it was not to be carried on a cart (Numbers 4:15; 7:9). Interesting that it came to them on a cart (1 Samuel 5 - 7:1) and how they allowed something they observed to displace what they knew to be God's will, His way.
We also know that within the tribe of Levi, certain families had specific duties and it was the Aaronic priests who were the caretakers of The Ark. I see Uzzah and Ahio here as prideful, coveting a ministry to which they had not been called, not been given. They should have instructed David in what needed to be done. They should not have succumbed to the temptation of prestige. Psalm 106 comes to mind...obedience leads to life...disregard for His ways leads to...Uzzah.
Let's jump to verses 12-23...I have listened to far too many people use these verses to justify their being conspicuously different in their worship expression in a group, creating a distraction, drawing attention to themselves. They misread the text. How? Because the forsake the context. They forget verses 14-16. David was part of a massive assembly, all of whom were dancing, singing, shouting, sacrificing...a parade of worship! The focus of the text on David's individuality was to reveal his wife's lack of deference to yield herself to worship where we abandon ourselves to His presence, not to imply that David was the only one. In group settings, we should always be in step with the group as led by whoever is presiding over the gathering. We must not let the rebellious and attention grabbers prostitute God's Sacred Word for their own self-exaltation...where are the scholars of the house?
Pastor Fred
2 Samuel 5:11-25
I love this story of the balsam trees! What a picture. Can you imagine the feeling that coursed through their hearts as they lay there in silence, listening, waiting? Then, it happened. There was a sound in the tops of the trees, the sound of marching. They all knew what this was, the coming of God! Sound a lot like Acts 2!
When you gather in worship with your church, are you listening...He still wants to move today, to route the evil that has taken up residence in the people's lives, to route the shame that robs people of their courage to fully embrace authentic relationships, to route insecurity that keeps people from serving in areas of ministry to which they have been call by God and anointed for service, to route fear that lies to people that change will never come in the dark places for their hearts, to route cynicism that robs people of their faith that God always loves, always accepts, always forgives...are you listening, wait I hear it...marching in the tops of the balsam trees!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 107
"Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He rescued them from their distress."
Pastor Fred
Psalm 106
Verse 14 speaks to a "craving" that caused the people to test God, their capacity for "craving" that God had given them to hunger and thirst for him had become a means for an appetite of self-indulgence.
We must remember that God has gifted us with many capacities that Satan in turn uses and perverts to lead us astray.
Interesting observation, in Colossians 3:1, where Paul writes that should "seek things above" the word for seek in the Greek is zeteo (zay-teh'-o). Got any guesses about its meaning...it means to seek something with the a strong intention to find it, to crave, to desire.
How are you doing with your capacities? Has our capacity for enjoyment for food become gluttony, capacity for pleasure within the confines of marriage become lust, capacity for stewardship of material wealth become greed, capacity for worship of God become idolatry of things...how are you doing with your capacities? Ask the Holy Spirit to bring revelation where there needs to be deliverance!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 102/103
Verse 3a of Psalm 102 and verses 15-16 in Psalm 103 read as follows...
For my days vanish like smoke...
As for man, his days are like grass --
he blooms like a flower of the field;
when the wind passes over it,
it vanishes,
and its place is no longer known.
Unless we are careful, we slip into an Ecclesiastes mindset, that this life is meaningless. Remember, Ecclesiastes is given to us as an example of the misery into which one is destined if one chooses to disregard the life of obedience to God they fully understand and have rejected, namely what Solomon did, the author of these woes. He gave us Proverbs, the wisdom he knew to follow, but instead gave himself to temporal pleasures...and found misery. As my spiritual mentor, Pastor Carter Goolsby once said, in your Bible above Ecclesiastes, write, "Don't try this at home!"
These Psalms are NOT to say to us that this life is meaningless but on the contrary, priceless, exceptionally valuable. Scarcity determines value so how precious is a life that passes in moments? In addition, the brevity of this life brings the enormity of eternity into focus. This is not our home...Hebrews 11:16, Colossians 3:1.
Pastor Fred
Monday, May 3, 2010
2 Samuel 5:1-10 / 1 Chronicles 11 - 12
We find some profound insights in these particular texts about the timing of destiny and also church leadership.
With destiny, when the will of God is revealed, our next question should be, "How God would you have me walk this out and when, the timing that is, what will that look like?"
For David, it came in these: The Bethlehem Step, The Adellum Step, The Judah Step, and The Jerusalem Step. All of these steps, as best we can estimate, occurred over a period of just over 30 years.
The Bethlehem Step was his being anointed as the next king of Israel in his home town of Bethlehem by the prophet Samuel. This is approximately 1025 BC. This was the "what is God saying" moment, the revelation of His will, the destiny epiphany. The step that David took was to "step" into God's call by faith, accepting His call and believing that God would in time reveal a path there.
The Adellum Step, approximately 1005 BC, is not what we expect to follow the Bethlehem Step but as we can probably all witness to personally, it is often the step that follows...the step that seems to move in the complete opposite direction one would assume given the revelation of His will for our lives. Instead of David being on the precipice of receiving the throne, he is running for his life and hiding in the caves that give us the name of this step. The "step" David took here was to trust that God was still in control and that because his adversity was not the result of any wrong doing by David, his adversity found him in innocence, that he had to embrace the journey that was unavoidable, deferring to the sovereignty of God.
The Judah Step was to be willing to accept progress towards the fulfillment of the ultimate destiny, 1000 BC, but not be greedy in demanding it all immediately. Sometimes, after coming out of the season of our Adellum Step, we develop a sense of entitlement, that we deserve it all now because we endured "the caves." Not David, nor should we make that mistep. He accepted the step towards the throne, again trusting in God. He accepted being king over Judah, he "stepped" into progress God had provided, was content, patient, but also remained expectant.
Finally, we see The Jerusalem Step, 993 BC. It is beautiful isn't it! Finally, he "stepped" into his destiny, over 30 years in the making and then ruled as king for 40 years.
Then we see some wonderful lessons about leadership. One, that David did not come as a dictator; he recognized that he needed the support and cooperation of the elders of both Judah and Israel. This is a beautiful lesson for churches today. Lead Pastors need to esteem and value the role of Elders and Elders need to esteem and value the role of the Lead Pastor. In the text, the elders did not expect to rival the kings’ authority but too, the king showed deference to the elders in understanding that without their support, no kingdom initiative he pursued would be ultimately successful without their influence. How different would churches be today if they followed the wisdom of this text.
We also read, in verses 22-28 of 1 Chronicles 12 that great leaders are always able to bring a great diversity of leaders together under the banner of one common vision.
May we let these Sacred Texts, Holy Scripture be our mandate for life, even the life of the governance of The Church!
Pastor Fred
Psalm 133
Life forever...eternal life as we read in the New Testament. Here in this Psalm we see that in verse one, brothers living together in unity, in reciprocal, covenantal relationships is "good" and "pleasant." Then verses two and three go on to draw a wonderfully poetic picture to support the beauty of relationships of brotherly love in the greater context of a common love for God.
Then, finally, as the Psalm concludes, "For there.." which is a directional statement, not however geographically but relationally, meaning "there" in a relationship of brotherly love where there is shared love and devotion for God. And then it comes, "life forever."
My life message is eternal life...and I believe the five components of eternal life are devotion to Christ, intimacy with God, care of one another, appetite for personal transformation, and diligence in ministry. You show me someone who is ever increasing in these five "practices of righteousness" (Biblical terminology) and I will show you someone discovering the depths of eternal life, a life not just measured on the time continuum but the depth continuum as well!
Psalm 133, life forever, eternal life, discover the depths!
Pastor Fred
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