Psalm 116: I Prayed and God Heard me! The Grace of Answered Prayers!

Understanding the Lord’s love, presence, and nearness should lead us to serve him and to deepen our relationship with him. While we love God for so many reasons, we want to express our love to him today especially for his personal concern for us. At this, the eve of a New Year, in a world where people hesitate to spend meaningful and quality time around or with anyone who might infect them, we ourselves are truly echelons beyond blessed with an incomparable God who draws near to us, listens to our every single cry, recognizes our very own distinct voice, tunes his ear to hear every one of our whispers. Yes! I will call on him, praise him, thank him, and I will speak with him as long as I live!

Psalm 116 Easy-to-Read Version

116 I love the Lord for hearing me,
    for listening to my prayers.
²Yes, he paid attention to me,
    so I will always call to him whenever I need help.
³Death’s ropes were around me.
    The grave was closing in on me.
    I was worried and afraid.
⁴Then I called on the Lord’s name.
    I said, “Lord, save me!”
⁵The Lord is good and merciful;
    our God is so kind.
⁶The Lord takes care of helpless people.
    I was without help, and he saved me.
⁷My soul, relax!
    The Lord is caring for you.
⁸Lord, you saved my soul from death.
    You stopped my tears.
    You kept me from falling.
⁹I will continue to serve the Lord
    in the land of the living.

¹⁰I continued believing even when I said,
“I am completely ruined!”
¹¹Yes, even when I was upset and said,
“There is no one I can trust!”

¹²What can I give the Lord
    for all that he has done for me?
¹³He saved me,
    so I will give him a drink offering,
    and I will call on the Lord’s name.
¹⁴I will give the Lord what I promised.
    I will go in front of all his people now.

¹⁵Very dear to the Lord are the lives of his followers.
    He cares when they face death.
¹⁶Lord, I am your servant!
    Yes, I am your slave, as my mother was.
    You set me free from the chains of death.
¹⁷I will give you a thank offering.
    I will call on the Lord’s name.
¹⁸I will stand before the gathering of his people
    and give the Lord what I promised.
¹⁹I will do this in Jerusalem,
    in the courtyards of the Lord’s Temple.

Praise the Lord!

The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

This psalm is a wonderful testimony of praise, giving glory to God for all the things He did to undertake for the psalmist. The Lord delivered him from grievous trouble, and he is not at all ambiguous about the fact that God is the one who did it. But in order to give thanks this way, we have to adjust some of our modernist assumptions about interpreting the events of history.

In his penetrating book about the theological crisis that resulted from the American Civil War, Mark Noll astutely pointed out the fact that the war badly rattled American faith in the intelligibility of God’s governance of the world. Both sides were praying to Him for victory over their enemies, were they not? And everyone retreated into the assumption that God’s ways are always and necessarily inscrutable. But how then can we pray as the psalmist does here?

Let us first try to unpack this amazing Psalm – verse by verse.

The psalm begins with a profession of love for the Lord, because He listens to prayers (v. 1). He inclined His ear to me, and that is why I call upon Him (v. 2).

As long as I live. The psalmist has been in deep trouble before, down to the point of death (v. 3). That is when I called upon His name (v. 4).

God is gracious, righteous, and merciful (v. 5). God preserves the simple, and it is a good thing too (v. 6). He helped when I was brought low. Calm down, soul, because God is bountiful (v. 7). God has delivered me in three ways—my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling (v. 8). I am going to walk around this place alive, and in the presence of the Lord (v. 9). Paul quotes this next verse in 2 Corinthians 4:13 and does so from a similar context. I believed, and therefore I have spoken (v. 10).

I said, too hastily, that all men are liars (v. 11). This appears to have something to do with men who were the instruments of the answered prayer. When I was in trouble I lashed out at men, but then God used such men to later deliver me.

How shall I pay the Lord back for all His benefits (v. 12)? I will take the cup of salvation, and then raise the glass (v. 13). The vows that I promised when I was in trouble are vows that I will pay in the presence of all God’s saints (v. 14).

As we saw earlier, God delivered the Psalmist from death, but here it says that the death of His saints is precious to Him (v. 15).

God loves bringing us home. In other words, it would have been an answer to the Psalmists prayer either way. Enslaved by our God’s answers to his prayers, God’s devoted servants are the ones for whom God has loosed the bonds (v. 16).

The sacrifice of thanksgiving is the only way to pay Him back, and so we call on His name (v. 17). Again, the vows that were promised will be vows paid—in the presence of all His people (v. 18). Thanksgiving for answered prayer will be offered in the courts of the Lord’s house (v. 19). Hallelujah.

You read a lot from me about trust from my blog. My fervent prayer is I want readers to experience trusting God and others with who you really are, creating authentic relationships with God and others where you are truly known, loved.

As we are about to enter into the New Year, or perhaps you are already there by the time you come to read these words. I want to us all to be able to collectively reflect on where each of us are spiritually following the events of the year 2021. Each of us experienced this past year differently and uniquely. Each of us has been both effected and affected by the circumstances and events of Pandemic. Each and every one of us has had their trust, hope, their faith severely tested.

With the greatest measure of his exhilarations, the Psalmist’s words declare his steadfast, immovable trust in God despite all the worst things he experienced. I am wondering right know, where are each and every one of us in those words of Psalm 116? How close are we to identifying with the events of the Psalmists life? How far away are we from identifying with those exhilarating words of praise? Could our hearts, our souls and our pens or computers or I Pads write even one word of them? Write them with any serious meaning, serious depths of truth?

Everyone absolutely matters to God! Everyone absolutely matters to Jesus, and everyone absolutely matters to the Holy Spirit. Everyone absolutely matters in the Kingdom of God – believers and even non-believers. God desires everyone! Everyone, without exception has a significant role to fill and a purpose to fulfill. God is not partial, Jesus excludes no one, the Holy Spirit reaches out to all of us.

Still now, this world is in the throes of pandemic. In the real and devastating throes of social distancing, quarantine and isolation. serious medical issues, serious socio-economic issues, serious socio-cultural issues we have never seriously expected to occur in our lifetimes or needed to be considered before. Business and leisure Travel is seriously impacted! Too much is just too much! We are looking at our families, friends and neighbors and complete strangers and seriously wondering, “Are they contagious?” “Should they breathe on me?”

Our sense of personal security is being tested. Our personal measures, intimate degrees of connection and personal relationships and trust are being seriously challenged. Trust is an essential characteristic and attribute in any relationship. Whether that trust is places in our fallow man or in God the Father, Son, Spirit. As man comes to trust in their fellow man, so goes their trust in their Creator! Trust not in the ways of man, erode that trust even .01%, so it connects to God!

Psalm 118:8-9 Authorized (King James) Version

⁸It is better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in man.
⁹It is better to trust in the Lord
than to put confidence in princes.

These two verses from Psalm 118 are believed to be the very center verses of the biblical canon. So, trust in the Lord taken together with trust in mankind are the very center of what we need to be extraordinarily mindful of in coming years.

Why?

But what if trust isn’t an easy thing for you?

We could easily argue it isn’t an easy thing for most of us, depending on our current and past experiences and how we come to view both ourselves and our relationships. There are a lot of reasons you and I might be finding it hard to trust people, but here are three of the big ones.

#1. You and I believe WE have to protect ourselves.

This one is a deep—and common—root.

Many of us were taught from our early experiences that we need to protect ourselves from others. While serious issues of abuse and neglect are clearly deeply harmful, even the best-intentioned parents hurt their kids at times. They reply sharply, don’t notice distress, tell their kids how they “should” feel, or misunderstand what their child needs. All parents are humans too after all, with their own preoccupations, hang-ups and patterns.

Unfortunately, when we are young, we don’t have this perspective. Many of us quickly internalize the understanding that we need to look out for ourselves, protect ourselves, and not trust others—after all, they might just let us down or someone else will certainly, inevitably let us down This usually gets ingrained so early we don’t know there’s another way. This is just “how the world works.”

This belief stays with us into adulthood, and often gathers more evidence. We get more sophisticated about learning it—we learn how to have relationships with others that we keep “socially distant” at arm’s length, ensuring we can still protect ourselves. Our core relational template begins and ends with those others cannot be trusted, and we need to everlastingly look out for ourselves.

While understandable considering our current circumstances, this belief that others can’t be trusted doesn’t lead to deep, healthy, vulnerable relationships—and those relationships are what Jesus calls us to as one of the primary ways He weaves His joy, fulfillment, purpose and peace into the tapestries of our lives.

#2. Your hurt and mine is holding both you and me back.

We travel through this broken, beautiful world, we will be hurt. It’s a simple fact of living in a land of imperfect people and systems. We have too many reasons not to trust, based on our own experiences, relationships. If we don’t work through our hurt with Jesus, we let each one become a barricade to our hearts. Each experience with a flawed human becomes another reason not to trust.

Unfortunately, all those barricades leave you alone—and it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18).

We are called to forgive from the heart, clearing those barricades we’ve set up to guard ourselves. This might sound impossible, and depending on the very real pain you’ve experienced, this might sound unfair or unfeeling. But Jesus is the expert at this. He’s walked this road in order to get to us, and he can lead us both together along its winding and blind curves. You and I were not made to carry a hardened, barricaded heart within us. You and I were made to have a soft, compassionate, trusting heart is filled and protected by the Holy Spirit.

#3. You and I both have unspoken realistic and unrealistic expectations.

This one is more common than we realize. Most of us are walking around with unspoken, unclear, and potentially unrealistic expectations of those around us. We might not even be aware of our expectations, until someone breaks them! This is a recipe for hurt and broken relationships. One way this comes out is when we expect others to love or care for us in the same way we care for them. We get hurt when our friends or family don’t express their love for us in the same way we express it, we internalize that as “I can’t/won’t trust them.”

Let’s put an example to this. Say we are going through a hard time with a family conflict. You and I get together, and I never asks you specifically how that conflict is going. You expect that if I genuinely cared, we’d ask about it. I expect that if you genuinely want to share, you’ll bring it up on your own. Now your hurt, so, it feels as though you cannot trust me as much as you originally thought or believed, because I did not meet your (unspoken) expectations.

It’s awkward, and difficult, to have conversations about our expectations. It takes courage, and it takes self-awareness (because if we aren’t aware of our expectations, it’s pretty hard to convey them to someone else!). But if we carry around unspoken expectations, it’s only a matter of time before our trust feels flimsy, unbeknownst to the person on the other side. So, please, please, do pray, prayerfully choose to step out in courage, and communicate your expectations.

How can you and I prayerfully, biblically apply this today, the coming year?

Proverbs 3:5-8 English Standard Version

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
    and do not lean on your own understanding.
⁶In all your ways acknowledge him,
    and he will make straight your paths.
⁷Be not wise in your own eyes;
    fear the Lord and turn away from evil.
⁸It will be healing to your flesh^[a]
    and refreshment^[b] to your bones.

Proverbs 16:1-3 English Standard Version

16 The plans of the heart belong to man,
    but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
²All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
    but the Lord weighs the spirit.^[a]
³Commit your work to the Lord,
    and your plans will be established.

1. Spend some time getting familiar with your past and your expectations. Some good questions to ask yourself are: What was modeled for me growing up? Where am I holding on to past hurts, and letting them affect my current relationships? What do I expect from those around me to keep my trust?

2. Step out in courage and share some of these answers with those in your life. These past stories and wounds can surely help others understand us better and sharing them can actually build trust itself. Additionally, talking through your expectations can help get both and me on the same page, so both of us come to that place where we can both say; “I understand what trust looks like to you!”

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us now pray,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you know each hair on my head and every thought on my heart. Thank you for hearing my prayers. Thank you for answering so many of them with the answer I sought from you. Give me patience when I cannot see your hand in the other answers that do not come as soon or do not bear the result that I request. I believe and trust that you are there and working for my good even when I can’t see it. I believe you always answer to your glory and my best interest. But please, dear Father, strengthen my faith so that I will never outlive my trust and faith in you. In the name of Jesus, I ask it. Amen.

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I am Praising the Promise! “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”

Lutheran Theologian and Christian Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a poem written in a concentration camp, asks the haunting question Who am I? Fellow believers outside those prison walls were celebrating Bonhoeffer’s spiritual endurance. But, sitting behind bars under Gestapo control, he felt like a bird caught in an inescapable cage, weak and powerless. But what was he, really?

The question of identity has always loomed and haunted us humans. Are we great and powerful beings—virtual gods and goddesses who stride the face of the earth? Or are we merely temporary creatures that occupy the highest rung on the ladder of the animal kingdom? “Who Am I? Who Are You? Who Are We?“

“Who am I?”

Bonhoeffer says the answer begins with a realization that he belongs to the God who made him. We cannot understand ourselves apart from God, for we bear God’s image. We are not gods and goddesses who fell from the heavens. Nor did we emerge from some primordial ooze without purpose or meaning. We are all God’s image bearers. Like our Maker, we are able to reason, love, make moral judgments, and enter into relationship with God and with all others around us.

As we enter into the New Year 2022, Equipped in these ways, we can fulfill our call to serve as God’s representatives on this planet, unfolding all the amazing potential of this world for the sake of God’s glory. That we have been given this awesome calling is our glory. Let’s not betray our Lord in this amazing mission!

From within the exhaustive efforts at surviving this pandemic, it becomes our efforts, finding the inner strength (Philippians 4:10-13), Praise God’s Promise!

2 Samuel 7:18-25 English Standard Version

David’s Prayer of Gratitude

¹⁸Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? ¹⁹And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God! ²⁰And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! ²¹Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. ²²Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. ²³And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them^[a] great and awesome things by driving out before your people, [^[b] whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods? ²⁴And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O Lord, became their God. ²⁵And now, O Lord God, confirm forever the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, and do as you have spoken.

The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

David has a desire to build a house for the Lord. But the Lord turns this around and tells David that he will build a house for David. God’s promise will extend past the life of David. The Lord will establish the kingdom of David’s offspring. The Lord will be a father to David’s offspring. When David’s offspring sins, the promise will not be removed. The promise will not depend on the righteousness of the people but on the righteousness of God. We noted the many ways that this promise would be fulfilled in Solomon and in the future of kings of Judah.

But all of these kings failed at accomplishing God’s purposes. One of David’s offspring perfectly fulfilled God’s will and these promises were fulfilled in an even greater way. In Jesus, the kingdom of the Lord was powerfully established and destroys all the enemies that come against it. In Jesus, we see him building a house for the Lord in that he is the means by which all the world will come to the Father. In Jesus, we see him to be the true Son of God. When we see Jesus, we see the Father. In Jesus, he lives a perfect life and does not sin so that all the promises are shown to be valid and guaranteed through him.

2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1 English Standard Version

¹⁶What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.
¹⁷Therefore go out from their midst,
    and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
    then I will welcome you,
¹⁸and I will be a father to you,
    and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.”

7 Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body^[a] and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

We read in 2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1 these promises also to come to down to us as the offspring of Abraham and the offspring of David through our connection to Jesus. We are children of God and God is our Father. We are the temple of the living God, and we are being built up into a spiritual house for the Lord (1 Peter 2:5). When we sin, our hope is not lost but God remains faithful to his promises. In short, our reading, studying, and claiming and praying the promises of 2 Samuel 7 is inescapably critical to our living forward to the Glory of God in New Covenant times, into all of scriptures. This promise is our hope for the world.

Who Am I? (7:18-21)

2 Samuel 7:18-21 ESV

¹⁸Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? ¹⁹And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God! 20 And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! 21 Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it.

David is going to respond in prayer with a number of different praises for the Lord. Notice in verse 18 that the king did after receiving God’s promise of an “everlasting and eternal house,” he went in and sat in the presence of the Lord.

David approaches the Lord and has so much to say. First, David asks, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”

When we consider all that, the Lord has done, we must look at ourselves and just wonder to the Lord about who we are that the Lord would do this for us.

When we look at our Savior Jesus and how our Lord, His Father, sent him for us so that we could be his offspring and belong as his children, who are we that the Lord has done this for us? When we look into and upon God’s offer of eternity to rebellious sinners like us, who am I, who are we that the Lord has done this?

Coming out of our malignant pride, moving into this promise of indescribable magnitude, humility begins by looking at what the Lord has done. This is what David is doing. He is looking at the promises of God and exclaims, “Who am I, O Lord God!” David is praying, “My family does not have power or reputation and I am nothing. Yet God has given me and my house great and precious promises.”

But look carefully and diligently at the rest of the sentence. “Who am I, O Lord God… that you have brought me this far?” You and I have to stop and look at where you and I are and realize that God has brought us both here. Now we may not have expected where we would be right now. But God has brought us both here. We are right here in your lives and God has brought us unto this moment.

David realizes this. David has gone through years and years of both intrigue and suffering. David started simply by tending his father’s sheep and now he is the King over Israel. God brought David into, unto and through, impossible tasks. David’s heart was ignited by God’s acts of grace and salvation – Psalm 8 (ESV)!

How Majestic Is Your Name

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith.^[a] A Psalm of David.

8 O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
²    Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.

³When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
⁴what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?

⁵Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings^[b]
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
⁶You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
⁷all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
⁸the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

⁹O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

The promise of God for us is this, as God brought David through, God will bring us through fire and flames to get you and me to this moment of humility to see the greatness of God and the lowliness of ourselves. We may not know what God is doing but he knows that he is with us and brought us here. What our God has done for David is a revelation and instruction for all people. The word translated “instruction” in the ESV is the Hebrew word torah. This is God’s teaching that all are to understand. God’s promises are spoken to us are from the beginning.

John 1:1-5 English Standard Version

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. ⁴In him was life, [^[a]a] and the life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

What happened to David is an instruction to us, which Apostle John here uses to reveal God has always done great things for his glory through your life, through my life. He has done them from the very beginning of all things. He spoke all things into existence and by His own spoken declaration, declared them to be all good (Romans 8:28). Who are we God would do such a thing? Sometimes we love to think and believe that we are simply too tiny, too insignificant for God to do anything. “Why bother with us, God? We are way too little. We are nothing. What can we possibly do?” Well, God loves to take nobodies and accomplish great things.

Jesus came from literally everything and stepped directly and decisively into our insignificance to make sure we would come to know and experience that we were all quite literally worth everything to God, the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. He thought nothing about everything all up! (John 3:16-17, Philippians 2:5-11)

How is it we should then respond to such an indescribable gift when we each are caught up in our eternal quandary “Who Am I?” “Who Are You?” “Who Are We?”

^5-8Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

^9-11Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11 The Message)

How many times do we have to see God use people who are “nothing” and do great things for Himself? We serve an amazing God who can 1000% use you and me to accomplish His purposes for His Kingdom. God doesn’t use the important people of the world. God uses all the people who see themselves as nothing to accomplish great things. God has brought us to this moment. Be humbled now before God who gives us these kinds of precious promises. God uses the humble. God uses all those who do not think much of themselves to accomplish much.

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us now Pray,

A Prayer – May I Know Who I Am (by Debbie Ford)

Dear God,

On this day I ask you to grant this request –

May I know who I am and what I am, every moment of every day.

May I be a catalyst for light and love
and bring inspiration to those whose eyes I meet.

May I have the strength to stand tall in the face of conflict
and the courage to speak my voice, even when I’m scared.

May I have the humility to follow my heart.
And the passion to live my Soul’s desires.

May I seek to know the highest truth
and dismiss the gravitational pull of my lower self.

May I embrace and love the totality of myself –
my darkness as well as my light.

And may I be brave enough to hear my heart –
to let it soften so that I may gracefully choose faith over fear.

Today is my day to surrender anything that stands between
the sacredness of my humanity and my divinity.

May I be drenched in my holiness.
And engulfed by God.

May all else melt away.

And so it is, and it is so.

Amen

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All The Highways and By-Ways. The High Roads and the Low Roads. The Roads Less Traveled. Our Pathways.

In life, there’s a substantial difference between all of the things that are just ok and things which are the best. The same is true with God. There are ok pathways you can take for your life and not so ok pathways to take. Many decisions aren’t bad, they just aren’t the best. God wants to show you the best path for your life.

Finding that best pathway takes spending time with God. You and I have got to be open to what He has to say and not be too busy with social media or Netflix or virtual reality to hear Him. Spending major time with God helps you know Him better and be ready to hear what He has to speak concerning our futures.

God knows us better than anyone. He knows what things will bring us peace and what will introduce us to more chaos than we really need. If we trust Him and His leading, we will be able to go down the best pathway for our lives. So today, decide to lay aside those things that are keeping you from spending time with God. Choose to be real with Him, let Him show you the best path for our lives.

Psalm 32:8AKJV

⁸I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go:
I will guide thee with mine eye.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

Yesterday, we devoted some significant time with Psalm 16:11 (AKJV)

¹¹Thou wilt shew me the path of life:
in thy presence is fulness of joy;
at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Just to review some of the inspiring and transformational thoughts which flowed through my heart and my soul – about maximizing our Joy in God.

Psalm 16 is one of my favorite psalms. I feel like I can do a Pray the Word on every verse here. I could not get out of Psalm 16 without thinking about and praying according to verse 11. We saw in 16:7 how we bless the Lord who gives us council, and the night also, he instructs our hearts, which leads down us to the very last verse in the chapter, “You make known to me the path of life.”

Again, God does not hide his will from us. God leads and guides us according to his will. He wants his will to be accomplished in our lives, far more than even we do. He makes known to us the path and paths of life, but please, don’t miss the connection here. The path of life involves walking in the presence of God. In your presence, there is fullness of joy. That’s the only true path of life. Being in the presence of God and enjoying the presence of God results in Fullness of joy.

Let this soak in. God’s plan for our lives involves fullness of joy in his presence. Oh, let me say that again. God’s plan for our lives involves fullness of joy in His presence. Walking with Him, enjoying Him. In the last phrase of this Psalm, “At your right hand are pleasures forever more.” Just picture this. His right hand is full of pleasures, and you and I take some of those pleasures, and there’s more. Take some more of those pleasures, there’s more. Take more pleasures, there’s more ad-infinitum. It’s forever! There is infinite pleasure to be found in God!

This is a life absolutely worth living. This is a path absolutely worth following.

This just causes me to pray; “oh God, help me to walk in your path. Lord, help me to follow your ways. I pray for this in my life, I pray for those who are and who are not listening right now. God, please, council us. Please instruct each of our hearts in the night. Please make known to us the path of life today, and we know that life is found in sensitivity to your spirit. We know that life is found in your presence. We know that life is found in constantly realizing that you are with us, that you are leading us, that you are guiding us, that you are directing us, and in your presence, we find fullness of joy.” This IS God’s Pathway for Me!

Turning our attention back to Psalm 32:8 Easy to Read Version,

⁸The Lord says, “I will teach you
and guide you in the way you should live.
I will watch over you and be your guide.

We discover God also desires to teach us the Direction We Ought to be Going.

We discover God desires to guide you and me in the way we ought to be living.

We also find assurance that God will watch over you and me and be our guide.

Need direction in life? Not sure of the way of Salvation? God is willing to teach, instruct and guide you. David identifies for his readers the promise in this text from Psalm 32:8. The sure and certain promise of God is for God’s abundant provision for those who are willing to receive Him by faith, follow His leading.

It is the Lord’s desire to teach His children in the way in which He would have them to go. His way of submission and obedience to His Word and His authority. As a believer, we MUST seek and obey with humility, strive to live in holiness, a daily walk-in integrity, be honest in our dealings with one another and faithful to God and the calling which He has assigned to our hands, just to name a few.

No, God did not save us to live life as we please. There is a clear standard of living repeatedly identified throughout and within the Holy Scriptures for the Christian in which God has established His pathway for each of us to live by.

Direction is inescapably important for without direction we will inevitably get lost. Many are lost today because they refuse to be taught by God, but instead by self, they refuse to walk the pathway in which God has already mapped out for us in His Word and they stubbornly refuse to be counsel by God and be guided by God’s eyes, but instead, they willfully choose to be instructed and guided by what their eyes sees in the world, interpret it, then follow after that counsel.

Man can instruct himself all he desires, but it is only God through His Holy Spirit who can make us understand truth for God says, “I will make thee to understand that which shall be done by me.”

Proverbs 16:1-9 ESV

The plans of the heart belong to man,
    but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
²All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
    but the Lord weighs the spirit.^[a]
³Commit your work to the Lord,
    and your plans will be established.
⁴The Lord has made everything for its purpose,
    even the wicked for the day of trouble.
⁵Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord;
    be assured, he will not go unpunished.
⁶By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for,
    and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil.
⁷When a man’s ways please the Lord,
    he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
⁸Better is a little with righteousness
    than great revenues with injustice.
⁹The heart of man plans his way,
    but the Lord establishes his steps.

As God continues to teach and instruct us in the way of salvation, He promises to keep His watchful eye on us (Psalm 121). He will not leave us to ourselves for He knows without His direction and His watchful eyes upon us, because like a sheep, we will surely stray away from the path of righteousness. (Isaiah 53:6)

In our pandemic times, much uncertainty about living life has been revealed. Are we looking for that socially distant, mask mandated, sanitized direction in life? Not sure where God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are in this equation?

Not sure about how to travel down the Highways and By-Ways, the High Roads and the Low roads, the Roads less taken, least effected, least touched, the least populated and paved over and deeply potholed by some Corona Virus Variant?

Where now is the road of Salvation having accepted the pathway of Jesus Christ? You are far from being alone in asking. So, get into the Word of God, pray, seek the Lord’s face for He promises to teach, instruct, keep a watchful eye over you.

In the name of God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, let us Pray;

The Aaronic Blessing

^22-23God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron and his sons, This is how you are to bless the People of Israel. Say to them,

²⁴God bless you and keep you,
²⁵God smile on you and gift you,
²⁶God look you full in the face
and make you prosper.

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Indescribable Joy! Immeasurable Joy! Inescapable Joy! Inevitable Joy! Jesus is our Souls Most Valuable Treasure!

I believe scripture truths form the stoutest hearts and the sturdiest souls. As we memorize encouraging verses and pray them again and again, the pathways of faith, strength, peace, and more become embedded—not only in our minds but in our spirits. Reciting them back to their Author propels us into his Presence.

Psalm 16:7-11 The Message

^7-8The wise counsel God gives when I’m awake
is confirmed by my sleeping heart.
Day and night I’ll stick with God;
I’ve got a good thing going and I’m not letting go.

^9-10I’m happy from the inside out,
and from the outside in, I’m firmly formed.
You canceled my ticket to hell—
that’s not my destination!

¹¹Now you’ve got my feet on the life path,
all radiant from the shining of your face.
Ever since you took my hand,
I’m on the right way.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

The Bible repeatedly teaches us that the “heart” of our lives is the control center of our lives, which means our “real” life, our inner life as well as our outer life, is a reasonably genuine reflection of the yearnings of our hearts.

Proverbs 4:23 says: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” And so, we must carefully guard and watch over our hearts so that our hearts would passionately follows hard after the pathways of God – by joyfully embracing Jesus Christ, as the most supreme treasure of our hearts and lives.

Today we ask ourselves: “What is the greatest treasure of our hearts?” In an entitlement-minded, customer-service, rights-oriented world that is filled with so many mind-boggling choices – even those of us who claim Jesus Christ can easily get bogged down, confused as to what treasures captures our hearts.

Most people ultimately treasure their families, spouses, children, relatives, and friends. Culture and Society sledgehammers we should treasure ourselves – our needs, our wants, our desires. And the retail market accommodates that by our supplying our needs, our wants, our desires with products and possessions and position and power. With the scarcity of products on shelves, it’s more pressing.

We are given the broadest array of choices from which to choose just how much, how many, how far, how high, how deep, and what kind – and what size, color, weight, brand name, manufacturer, and what kind of guarantee or warranty can be provided on whatever product happens to be remaining on the grocery shelf.

Today we are looking at Psalm 16 which is a prayer of worship written by King David. David is a significant character in the Bible. He was the young shepherd who became a great king; the young boy who slew a giant with a single stone; the man who went into hiding out of fear for his life – from numerous Kings and countless armies and King Saul and even from his very own son Absalom.

David was the King whose descendants would bring forth the long-promised Messiah in the human form of Jesus Christ, in spite of the fact that David had committed adultery and murder and fearfully tried in vain to hide what he had done. We look at King David today because in the midst of his victories and his defeats and his own struggles with his own sin – David yearned, longed for, desperately sought to have an intimate relationship with the most sovereign God of the universe.

In spite of his own personal failings, he treasured God more than anything or anyone else. God was King David’s supreme treasure. So much so that God Himself declared to us: “I have found in David . . . a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22).

In our text for this morning, as David sings his heart out, he joyfully worships God in grateful prayer, he tells us why we also should supremely treasure God.

Psalm 16:1-6 The Message

16 ^1-2Keep me safe, O God,
I’ve run for dear life to you.
I say to God, “Be my Lord!”
Without you, nothing makes sense.

³And these God-chosen lives all around—
what splendid friends they make!

⁴Don’t just go shopping for a god.
Gods are not for sale.
I swear I’ll never treat god-names
like brand-names.

^5-6My choice is you, God, first and only.
And now I find I’m your choice!
You set me up with a house and yard.
And then you made me your heir!

With maximum joy in our hearts and expressed from deep within our souls, we should treasure God because He is our Gracious Protector. David speaks of this by describing God as a home, a haven, a refuge, one place where we can go and know with absolute assurance, we will be safe forevermore. Alleluia! Alleluia!

With maximum joy in our hearts and expressed from deep within our souls, we should treasure God because He is our Sovereign Presence. Regardless of what dangers/fears/catastrophes we will inevitably face in this life, the one, only true safe place we have is in the presence of the sovereign God of all the Universe.

The refuge which God provides is our personal relationship with Him. David knew his personal wellbeing – the well-being of his soul, his refuge every day and for all eternity – depended on his personal relationship with the living God.

Sadly, we all too easily and contentedly look for security in so many places other than God. Many of those places are artificial; some we even make up for ourselves. Often our places of refuge are geographical or social. But throughout his incredibly diverse array of life experiences, David doggedly learned the one and only true safe place on earth is in the Sovereign Presence of our Supreme God. “I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.’”

With maximum joy in our hearts and expressed from deep within our souls, we should treasure God because He the foundation of Righteous Relationships.

While David speaks of the joy of treasuring God through our relationship with God – he takes a moment to mention how we should live out our lives with one another as God’s people through Jesus Christ.

From Psalm 16, David teaches us how we are to do so by means of a contrast. First, he calls God’s people “saints” which literally means “those set apart for God” – and he says they are “the excellent ones” – which means they are to be a people who exhibit highly distinguished spiritual and moral qualities.

In stark and vivid contrast, he then speaks of “those who run after another god” – those who will struggle with multiple “sorrows” because they find their joy in treasuring other gods and trusting in other gods for security. Here, David refuses to endorse what they do; he will not lower himself to naming their gods: “their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.”

David is telling us when we joyfully find our most supreme treasure in God – we will have a shared common communion of both heart and soul with others who are also faithfully trying to do so. In essence David is saying: “As I take refuge in the joyful sovereign presence of my safest refuge in God, I will find myself in the company of others who are tucked safely under the shadows of God’s wings. We are commonly linked at the heart and through our souls by our commitment to trust in God and live for God. Our confidence is in Him, not in the things of this world. We are His Heirs, citizens of heaven and fellow pilgrims on this earth.

With maximum joy in our hearts and expressed from deep within our souls, we should treasure God because He is our Beautiful Inheritance.

David continues to proclaim God as his most supreme treasure. By using the words “portion” and “cup” he is signifying God was all he needed to satisfy the hunger of his heart and soul. Besides his “portion” and his “cup” the Lord has also assigned him “a beautiful inheritance” which God Himself has measured out for him: “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.”

This harkens back to the nation of Israel who came out of 40 years of wandering in wilderness into the promised land; as Joshua divided the land up, the people of God who had been freed from the bondage of slavery joyfully received their own property for the first time in many generations.

Imagine the joy of those ancient Israelites: “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance!” This is the “beautiful inheritance” we receive when, by God’s sovereign grace, we are freed from the bondage of sin and death and are given the “beautiful inheritance” of eternal life through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In Ephesians 1:3-4 the apostle Paul writes: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

This is the “wondrously beautiful eternal inheritance” we will share with the people of God. Jesus said: “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28).

“The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.”

David was soul at war with himself much of his life. For many years he was
also, a fugitive with no home; he slept on the ground and often caves were his shelter. But despite his struggles and fears David was not only survived but he also thrived – because God had promised him “a beautiful inheritance.”

While that was not yet his when he wrote this psalm, he was secure in knowing God would do so. In treasuring God over himself, David possessed all that God promised and everything he needed. This is why David could write: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever”
(Psalm 73:25-26).

In God we have absolutely everything our hearts could ever want or ever need! (Psalm 23:1)

With maximum joy in our hearts and expressed from deep within our souls, we should treasure God because He is our Wonderful Counselor. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Here, David again declares God to be his supreme treasure: “I bless the LORD!” Whether it be in the darkness of “night” or the light of day, God “instructs” (guides) hearts which treasure Him into the safest refuge of His will and His purpose.

This is the deep transformative work of God’s sovereign grace deep within our hearts and souls when we come to faith in Christ. By a providential work of the Holy Spirit, we are drastically and dramatically changed – worked upon, given a
different heart, a new spirit. Because God is the One who gives us His “counsel” – even in the darkest of nights God instructs our hearts to treasure and follow, in all things and ways, upon the pathways of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But we are also reading here if we are to walk with God in the fullness of the new life, He has sovereignly given us through Jesus Christ – we will be “shaken” by struggles and fears when we fail, do not make God the supreme treasure of our hearts and lives. David says: “I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”

God “gives counsel” spiritually, emotionally, vocationally, socially, morally, physically, and intellectually. When we “set the LORD always before” us – we will “not be shaken” spiritually, emotionally, vocationally, socially, morally, physically, and intellectually.

When God is our first priority and foremost upon the pathways of our hearts and lives, we can absolutely trust God that our souls will be secure and stable.

David could proclaim: “My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure” because the “path of life” he had already walked in God’s presence in this life caused him to know the joyful anticipation of living in God’s presence in the future: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

David wrote these words about a thousand years before the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus; he lived in the hope of the cross and the empty tomb. By faith David believed God would fulfill His promise in sending a Savior; he prayed the gracious protection of God would save him from sin and death.

God fulfilled that promise; on this side of the cross, we no longer just hope in that promise. Jesus Christ has come; he did die on a cross for our sins; he has risen from the dead – and he has given us the same promise he gave David.

In John 11:25-26 Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Well, if we do believe this, we treasure this we should live out our lives like that.

Well, if we do believe these words of God as spoken by David, then we ought to be the ones who with maximum joy and with deep expression from within our souls, treasure them beyond all other treasures offered by the wiles of our life.

In the name of God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, let us Pray,

Heavenly Father,

I praise and thank You for Your great goodness towards me, and the many blessings that You shower on each one of us day by day. Be with me each step of the way and help me to keep my eyes trained on the lovely Lord Jesus.

I thank You that I have been given everything I need for life and godliness and pray that I may experience the fullness of joy we have all received in Christ, not only in the world to come, but as a daily experience in this present world. Thank You, Father, that You have made known to me the path of life in Christ Jesus my Saviour, in Whose name I pray, and thank You that in Your loving presence is the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

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An Ode Unto my Joy! For YAHWEH, the LORD, is my Strength and Song; He also has become my Salvation.’

Today, in the first day of our devotional focus on joy, we are going to explore how we can be carriers for the joy of our God. Joy is contagious. It’s decisive! It’s direct! It’s powerful! It’s transformational! And it’s meant to be at the heart of our communication of who our God is, and what relationship with him is like.

May God fill us all with a greater measure of his joy every day, and a greater understanding of how to shepherd that joy into a world in desperate need of it.

Isaiah 12 Amplified Bible

Thanksgiving Expressed

12 And on that day you will say,
“I will give thanks to You, O Lord;
For though You were angry with me,
Your anger has turned away,
And You comfort me.
²
“Behold, God, my salvation!
I will trust and not be afraid,
For the Lord God is my strength and song;
Yes, He has become my salvation.”
³
Therefore with joy you will draw water
From the springs of salvation.
⁴
And in that day you will say,
“Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name [in prayer].
Make His deeds known among the peoples [of the earth];
Proclaim [to them] that His name is exalted!”
⁵
Sing praises to the Lord, for He has done excellent and glorious things;
Let this be known throughout the earth.
⁶
Rejoice and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

Isaiah 12 is a short chapter that rings with praise for God. The context is ‘in that day’ (verse 1 and 4) which refers to the previous chapter where it is talking about the millennial kingdom where Jesus will reign (remember, His delight is in the fear of the LORD). So, it is saying, ‘in the millennial kingdom, this is the song that you will sing.’

There are a few things we need to give our undivided attention to which are praised, as you would expect, but the part that stuck out for me was verse 2.

Isaiah 12:1-2 Names of God Bible

A Hymn of Praise from the Lord’s People in His Kingdom

12 At that time you will say,

“I will praise you, O Yahweh.
    Although you had been angry with me,
    you turned your anger away from me, and you comforted me.
²Look! El is my Savior.
    I am confident and unafraid,
    because Yah is my strength and my song.
    He is my Savior.”

Here, not only is God portrayed as our Savior (in the person of Jesus Christ), but He is our salvation also. He is the object that we are saved to. He is the means and object of our salvation. It is hard to conceive in light of this verse of being saved for our own sake, or for our happiness or whatever other man-centered ideas have arisen over the time. We were not saved for ourselves but for God.

BEHOLD! Look! Take note! Think about and contemplate this glorious truth, “God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD GOD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.” God, the Lord Who covers Himself with light and rides upon the wings of the wind is my strength, my song and my Saviour.

Behold, the everlasting God Who declared, I AM that I AM, is the author and Alpha, the beginning and source of my salvation and He is also the finisher, the Omega, the end and the absolute finality of my life. There is no created thing in heaven above or in the earth beneath that can claim the credentials of Jehovah my God, so how can I fear? Why should I not have this irresistible urge to sing? What can be done to me when the Lord God has become my eternal security?

This is the glorious song of ecstatic praise and great rejoicing that Israel will sing in harmonic unison in that future day, when the saved remnant of God’s chosen people will eat of the fruit of the land of Israel in peace and security.

This is the psalm of thanksgiving and joy that will be sung in the streets of Jerusalem when their Messiah-King returns from heaven to sit on the throne of His father David, “for Judah will be saved; Israel will dwell securely, and they will herald the Lord Jesus Christ as, ‘The LORD who IS our righteousness.'”

But this has already become a hymn of unparalleled rejoicing for generations of Christians. This has become part of that never-ending hymn of praise that is sung by all who have been saved by grace, through faith in His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. We who have been born again can already say with certainty, “the Lord my God is Jesus Christ, He is the Lord my righteousness.”

In these vaccinated, mask on mask off, socially distant coming days of one more government regulation or mandate after another, before us, can we in any degree or measure of the Holy Spirit and in “Word of God for the Children of God Truth” cry out to God and say, “I have trusted Him, and I am not afraid – for nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus?”

Can we herald our heavenly Bridegroom as our God and Savior (John 14:6?) Is He or Covid19 our Lord Jehovah and can we confess with full assurance, “He, Jesus is MY Strength and MY Song, and He became MY Redeemer at Calvary?”

The worth of the gift is intensified by the worthiness of the Giver, and the immeasurable value and inestimable blessing of salvation to the unworthy sinner is without comparison in both the visible world and the invisible universe. Is it beyond human comprehension that Yahweh has become my salvation through the sacrifice of His own life on the cross of Calvary?

Knowing that my salvation is secure in Yahweh‘s worthy hands, every facet that touches my life is equally under the protection of His mighty power, for He has become the foundational bedrock upon which my confidence rests and He is the ever-flowing fountain of living strength that infills my heart and overspills into songs of worship and shouts of praise to His wonderful name. (Psalm 118)

If we indeed trust wholeheartedly in that salvation then we have no need to be afraid, for we are fully sheltered from the storm by Messiah Jesus. And when we are saved, God becomes two things (at least) to us: our strength and our song.

God being our strength is different from us needing God to give us strength. Isaiah is saying that God IS our strength! We are genuinely nothing without God. Secondly, God being our song portrays 100% joy. We should have immense joy in God because he has saved us! We should be singing out not only about our God, but God should be our song: that is, God should be the joy that inspires us.

This all should lead us to an attitude of ceaseless praise of God. Let each of us remember today God is the only one worthy of praise, and He is our salvation!

Psalm 118:19-29 Names of God Bible

¹⁹Open the gates of righteousness for me.
I will go through them and give thanks to Yah.
²⁰This is the gate of Yahweh
through which righteous people will enter.

²¹I give thanks to you,
    because you have answered me.
        You are my savior.
²²The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone.
²³Yahweh is responsible for this,
    and it is amazing for us to see.
²⁴This is the day Yahweh has made.
    Let’s rejoice and be glad today!
²⁵We beg you, O Yahweh, save us!
    We beg you, O Yahweh, give us success!
²⁶Blessed is the one who comes in the name of Yahweh.
    We bless you from Yahweh’s house.
²⁷Yahweh is El, and he has given us light.
    March in a festival procession
        with branches to the horns of the altar.
²⁸You are my El, and I give thanks to you.
    My Elohim, I honor you highly.

²⁹Give thanks to Yahweh because he is good,
because his mercy endures forever.

In the name of Yahweh, the Father, Yahweh the Son and Yahweh the Holy Spirit, let us enter His gates with thanksgiving, with humbled souls and with bowed hearts.

Thank You, Yahweh, for my wonderful salvation. Praise the Lord O my soul, for You are a great and mighty God worthy of my life of devotion and service. As I read, study and pray through your Scriptures, going into the world today as Your anointed and appointed representative, give me increased boldness to speak the name of Jesus. May my life reflect Your grace and goodness, to Your praise and glory. In Jesus’ name I pray, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

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Advent Week Two: For unto Us a Son is Given. The Hope of Our Salvation!

One day, God came into this world to become our Savior. So that He could be the blameless lamb who was slain for our sins. He who knew no sin, became sin, so we should be saved. One day God came into this world with the fullness of love.

Isaiah 9:6-7 AKJV

⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God,
The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.
⁷Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,
to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice
from henceforth even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

At Our Children’s Center at the church where I was a Lay Pastor, we were supervising the construction of a manger scene in a corner of the classroom. These 4- and 5-year-old students were excited as they set up the little stable and covered the floor with real hay, and then arranged all the figures of Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Wise Men, and all the animals. And in the middle was a tiny little crib, in which the tiny figure of the infant Jesus rested.

But one little boy walked up beside me and said he just couldn’t understand something. I asked him what that was as he was absolutely confused. He kept returning to the manger and stood there with his small, puzzled face. The teacher noticed him and asked, “Is anything wrong? Do you have a question?”

The boy replied, “What I’d like to know is: why is everything so small? What do you mean the teacher asked him? he said, “How will God fit in a small manger?” A very large and insightful question from such a small and very inquisitive boy!

How would we respond to such a question ourselves?

One day, all of God entered our teeny tiny world as a newborn baby in a manger.

But why did the God of heaven come down as a human infant? Could He have not come down from heaven with all His glory? The Book of Hebrews 5:8 says, “that though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.” Jesus was made perfect and learned obedience through suffering.

This does not mean Jesus did not know obedience before His incarnation, or that his human flesh was not perfect. He is eternally perfect and always united, in will, with the Father. Rather, when Jesus left the throne of heaven and put on humanity, He experienced the frail and sinful nature of man.

He would have experienced all of the hunger, exhaustion, pain, sweat, and temptation any man did. He was tempted, but did not sin, for He was pure and filled with holiness. It was through this method, that Jesus became the lamb who was slain for our sins. A pure and sinless lamb who was slain for our sins.

Today, let us meditate on the day salvation was born on this earth. Jesus is the reason for the season. Let us meditate on 3 points: God came to the world as a tiny baby, God came to be our Savior, and God came with fullness of love.

God Came to be our Savior

Jesus came to the world as an infant, but He grew in wisdom and stature. He didn’t stay as a baby. He became a man; dedicated to sharing the good news of the Father for others. Just ask the angels what they think of Jesus, they will tell you: “A Savior has been born unto you, He is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11

• Ask John the Baptist and he will tell you, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” John 1:29

Ask the apostle Paul, what do you think about Jesus? He will tell you, “That nothing compares to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Philippians 3:8

• Ask the Roman Centurion what he thinks of Jesus, he will tell you. “Surely this is the Son of God.” Matthew 27:57

• Ask Peter, what do you think about Jesus, and he will tell you. “God has made this same Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Acts 2:39

We celebrate the fact that God came to us as a tiny baby, but we also celebrate that this tiny baby became our Savior, who saved us from the chains of sins and death. The night Jesus was born, angels came to shepherds near Bethlehem, and one said, “I bring you good news of great joy.” That was a very happy greeting.

Since Thanksgiving, our shopping malls have been telling us that “It is the most wonderful time of the year.” And it surely is – for at least some of them. For many others, however, it can have many mixed emotions. Christmas is not the same as it was when we were those children in Sunday School. As an adult, we see it is different, sometimes it can be economically difficult, buying so many gifts. This year especially, because many people have lost their jobs due to the virus and the Pandemic. This year a lot of families have lost their loved ones.

Perhaps, this year, we have not been able to go on the plans we had for Christmas, due to Covid-19 safety. There are many family members working in the healthcare force. There are many people this year who have been affected, directly and indirectly, by Covid-19 and cannot see their family during Christmas. And sadly, there are many who have lost their loved ones this year. But even through all the struggles, God finds a way to put joy and peace in our hearts.

In this Christmas season, hopefully we should remember the good gifts that the Creator has given us: the sun, the moon, and this good earth. All the blessings of the earth: the sky, the waters, plants and animals. And shall we all glorify Him for this incredible gift of life: of flesh and blood and of breath and memory. Every moment we have lived in our lives, through both joy and sorrow, God yet gives us meaning to our lives and proves that we are fully human and fully alive. And, above all, we must remember the gift of when the Word became flesh and was sent to save us, to heal us, to bring us joy, and to bring us back unto God.

God’s prophet Isaiah, speaking on behalf of God, had prophesied hundreds of years before, in Isaiah 9:7 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

And guess what? One day, an infant named Jesus came, just as God promised.

Those are magnificent descriptions of the long-awaited Messiah. “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

He is first called “Wonderful Counselor.” James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

He is called “Mighty God.” Colossians 1:15-16, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

He is called “Everlasting Father.” Romans 8:16-17, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

And He is called “Prince of Peace.” Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Our Savior, our Messiah, and our redeemer was born to us. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders. (Isaiah 9:6)” Can there be a more perfect place to be on Christmas, than God’s house? Can there be a more perfect story than the story of the first Christmas?

God Came to the World as a Tiny Baby

The Creator of the universe loved us enough to come into our world. And He did it not in power, but in the most helpless disguise possible: that of an infant. The Bible says, in Acts 3:26 “Unto you first God, having raised up his Son (child) Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.” KJV.

Now the way that God came into the flesh is a great marvel and mystery. The Apostle Paul himself called it that. “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh.” (I Tim. 3:16a) It is a marvelous event, a magnificent event, a majestic event.

John Phillips, the great English Bible scholar and Teacher, 1906-1982, (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5604570.J_B_Phillips) once said, “The great mystery of the manger is that God should be able to translate deity into humanity without discarding the deity or distorting humanity.”

One day, God came into this world to become our Savior. So that He could be the blameless lamb who was slain for our sins. He who knew no sin, became sin, so that we ought to be saved. God came into this world with the fullness of love.

However, there were a lot of trials and tribulations that laid between that the birth of Christ and the joy and salvation it promised. For the new-born child, trials and sufferings began almost immediately.

When He was just a baby, a jealous king tried to kill him.

When He grew up, the people of Nazareth threw Him out of their city.

He became a wandering teacher – homeless, often hungry, and weary, tempted and tried. He was hated, accused, denied, and betrayed.

At last, there came one Friday when a wreath of thorns was pressed down hard on his head, and He was spat upon, scourged with whips, nailed to a cross, and by mid-afternoon He was dead. Before sundown, His body was placed in a tomb.

However, through all the sufferings, the story does not end there. On the first Sunday following his burial, very early in the morning, Jesus met His friends outside the tomb, and His first word was this: the Greek word “Chairete.” Which means “All Hail” “Joy be to you!” “Be of good cheer!” Matthew 28:9

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/mat/28/9/t_conc_957009 https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g5463/kjv/tr/0-1/

This greeting was a happy one. Jesus fulfilled the message of joy which angels had declared more than thirty years before. And now, here today, nearly 2,000 years later, we still echo that theme again: “Be of good cheer: we bring you good news of great joy!” God came to be our Savior.

We spend so much time on things from popular culture and old folk stories, that we may accidentally overshadow the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas is a time for celebrating the day when heaven came down for us. The day God sent His only son as a lamb for our sins, so that we may also be called His children.

One moment He lived in glory, then in another moment, but gave it all up to become a tiny baby, who then became a grown man who suffered and died for the sins of the world. That humble baby in that tiny manger became our Savior.

He Came with the Fullness of Love

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder (Isaiah 9:6).” As a child of man, Jesus was born; but as the Son of God, Jesus was given. Notice the Son was not born, the Son was given.

Let us read the greatest verse in the Bible, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John. 3:16) God’s very first Christmas gift to the world was a newborn baby boy of deity wrapped snuggly in a frail package of humanity.

This tiny baby gave Himself for us. He stepped down from the throne of glory to carry our burdens. And for only one reason: God loves us, ALL of us. So, today, continue to contemplate the Prophecy, and give God the glory due to His name.

Many of us may have experienced troubles and struggles this year. This year has been a hurdle for many of us. However, the seasons of Advent and Christmas are a faithful, faith-filled, a hopeful, hope-filled reminder of God’s love for you.

No matter what struggles you and I may face during these Pandemic times, God is there working in your midst. He came into this world, so that you may have salvation, that you may have eternal life, be a part of His family and kingdom.

Welcome the depths of this Prophecy of God. So that He, the baby can live within you. So that no matter what difficulties we face, we know we are not alone, and we are loved. We are loved by the creator of the heavens and earth.

God came into this world as a humble and helpless infant. He did not come into this world with all His glory but came through the humble form of humanity.

For the sake of an indescribable, immeasurable love, He took on the fragile and sinful nature of human flesh. God came into this world to become our Savior. So that He could be the blameless lamb who was slain for our sins. He who knew no sin, became sin, so that we may be saved. God came into this world with the fullness of love. For we did not deserve His mercy, but still, He gave it to us through His grace. And by His grace, our sins and darkness are washed away.

In the name of Yahweh, the Father, Yahweh the Son, Yahweh the Holy Spirit,

Let us enter His presence with this prayer, with fervent hope for our Salvation.

Psalm 24 The Message

24 ^1-2God claims Earth and everything in it,
God claims World and all who live on it.
He built it on Ocean foundations,
laid it out on River girders.

^3-4Who can climb Mount God?
    Who can scale the holy north-face?
Only the clean-handed,
    only the pure-hearted;
Men who won’t cheat,
    women who won’t seduce.

^5-6God is at their side;
with God’s help they make it.
This, Jacob, is what happens
to God-seekers, God-questers.

⁷Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.

⁸Who is this King-Glory?
God, armed
and battle-ready.

⁹Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.

¹⁰Who is this King-Glory?
God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
he is King-Glory.

https://translate.google.com/

Advent Week Two: For a Child will be Born to us, a Son will be Given to us; the Prince of Peace. The Government Will Rest Squarely on His Shoulders.

Politics and government. We seem to see them as necessary evils, bringing ceaseless frustration in the present but still giving us hope for the future. Our contradictory attitudes about politics and government are most revealing. We recognize the failure of human solutions, but at the same time we surely know something must be done to fix what’s broken in our nations and the world. What man cannot do; what man could not do; God has done; He’s given the Messiah.

Isaiah 9:6-7 NASB

⁶For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us;
And the government will ^[a]rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
⁷There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace
On the throne of David and over ^[b]his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

Isaiah 9:6 may be the most familiar Old Testament prophecy about the birth of Christ. Handel included those words in one of the great choruses of his Messiah oratorio. Chances are excellent that sometime during this season of Advent you will either sing it or hear it several times on your radio this Christmas season.

Unfortunately, we only seem to pull this passage out of the box only during the Advent and Christmas season. It’s like one of the ornaments we use to decorate our houses. But have we ever truly thought about the rich truth this single verse teaches concerning the King of kings? Though we still await the full realization of His kingdom, the promised Messiah is the single greatest political ruler ever.

Do we remember that Isaiah wrote this prophecy at least a hundred years before Israel was taken into Babylonian captivity—nearly 600 years before the birth of Immanuel, God with Us, God within us, our Savior! Looking back at a litany of failed monarchs, and sitting in the rubble of Israel’s monarchy, Isaiah looked across the centuries to a time when God would rule on earth through His Son.

“A child will be born to us” underscores the Messiah’s humanity. He had to come to earth as a human being, from the depths of eternity, in the form of a child, so He could endure the temptations men face, yet be without sin (Hebrews 4:15).

“A son will be given to us” implies the Savior’s deity. He existed before His birth as the second Person of the Trinity: “Although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, of literally everything; taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7). He came unto us as the Son of God—God in human flesh—to conquer sin and death forever (John 3:16-17), to live again!

“The government will rest on His shoulders” affirms His absolute lordship. This verse looks to a time still (God knows) somewhere in the future when Christ will reign over a literal, earthly, geopolitical kingdom that encompasses all of the kingdoms and governments of the world (Daniel 2:44; Zechariah 14:9).

In that day, the government of the entire world will rest on His shoulders. But until that time, His kingdom is unseen, an invisible form (Luke 17:20-21). The Messiah’s rule is over those who trust Him and obey Him as Lord. It’s currently an invisible kingdom but will one day become visible and universal as His rule extends even over those who do not acknowledge His lordship in their hearts.

What kind of kingdom is it? What distinguishes the Messiah’s kingdom from the other kingdoms of this world? The names Israel used for Christ each hint at four very distinct characteristics which make the Messiah’s kingdom—in all its manifestations—so welcomingly different from any other earthly government.

Pray and consider this, at this time when the world is weary and despairing of political solutions, when the political future looks bleak, this is welcome news.

No Confusion—He Is a Wonderful Counselor

First, this kingdom is free from confusion, because Christ is characterized as a “Wonderful Counselor.” The King James Version separates “Wonderful” and “Counselor” with a comma, but the words seem to go better together and appear that way in most modern versions and other translations of the Bible.

Every now and then, a politician, political affiliation notwithstanding, comes on the scene who “possesses”, according to some, messiah-like qualities. Whether it’s a reference to speaking their ability, charisma, or wisdom, it is certainly an ego massaging compliment. However, when you compare the greatest social or political leader with Jesus Christ, you will discover there is no comparison at all.

During His incarnation, Christ demonstrated His wisdom as a counselor. While I was writing The Gospel According to Jesus, I studied every major encounter Jesus had with individuals who came to Him for counsel. He always knew what to say, when to reach out to a seeking heart, and when to rebuke an impetuous soul.

Even his enemies testified, “Never did a man speak the way this man speaks” (John 7:45-46 NASB).

⁴⁵The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?” ⁴⁶The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken in this way!”

As God incarnate, Christ is the source of all truth. Jesus said, “I am 1000% the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:1-6). No politician can match that! It is He to whom we must ultimately turn and trust His loving rule of our lives.

Many of our politicians turn everywhere else but God for counsel. They go to one another; they listen to special interests; they have their own psychologists, psychiatrists, analysts, philosophers, spiritual advisors, gurus, astrologers, and other allegedly “highly educated subject matter expert” human counselors. But the King of kings keeps His own counsel. After all, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him?” (Isaiah 40:12-15 NASB).

¹²Who has measured the ^[a]waters in the hollow of His hand,
And measured the heavens with a ^[b]span,
And ^[c]calculated the dust of the earth with a measure,
And weighed the mountains in a balance
And the hills in a pair of scales?
¹³Who has ^[d]directed the Spirit of the Lord,
Or as His counselor has informed Him?
¹⁴With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding?
And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge,
And informed Him of the way of understanding?
¹⁵Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
And are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales;
Behold, He lifts up the ^[e]islands like fine dust.

The Messiah is the Wonderful Counselor because He is God, the source of truth. When He rules the earth, there will be no uncertainty in his administration. He is the ultimate and only true answer to all manifestations of political confusion.

No Chaos—He Is the Mighty God

Second, the Messiah’s kingdom is singularly free from chaos because He is the Mighty God. He is the One who in creation brought perfect order out of chaos.

Scripture says, “God is not a God of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Chaos is antithetical to who He is. He is a God of order. Christ the King is orderly, and He brings order to the troubled lives of all who surrender to Him. In other words, He not only tells His subjects what to do as a Wonderful Counselor, but since He is the Mighty God, He can also energize them to do it.

Legislation can go only so far; it stops short of providing the power and the will to obey. Because of the sinful nature, people will always strain against law and order (Romans 7:7-13).

Add human fallibility to the inability to make people obey from the heart, and you can see the severe limitations of political and legislative solutions.

But when Jesus Christ comes to rule this earth, He’ll display His divine power by bringing order to the chaos. Those who do not submit to His leadership from the heart, He will subjugate with a rod of iron (Psalm 2:9; Revelation 2:27; 12:5 and 19:15). Those who humble themselves from the heart, bowing to Him as Lord and Savior, will find the power of the Mighty God unleashed in their lives to help them humble themselves in His presence and obey His commandments.

Because Christ is God, He can forgive sin, defeat Satan, liberate people from the power of evil, redeem them, answer their prayers, restore their broken souls, and reign as Lord— “Mighty God”—over their newly ordered lives.

That’s a politician this world has never seen and will never hope to witness to.

No Complexity—He Is the Father of Eternity

In comparison and contrast to human governments, the Messiah’s kingdom is uncomplicated because He is the “Eternal Father.” The phrase literally means, “Father of Eternity.”

That is a clear reference to the biblical truth that Christ is Creator of heaven and earth. In Hebrews 1:10-12 God the Father says to Christ the Son, “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands; they will perish, but You remain; and they all will become old like a garment, and like a mantle You will roll them up; like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not come to an end.”

Nothing is too complex for the Creator and Sustainer of everything.

Infinity and all its intricacies and nuances are nothing to Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Human life is getting more and more complex. Technology has so improved communication and transportation that commerce, culture, and religion have become global in nature. And rather than organizing and making sense of it all, governments of the world seem to exist primarily to make things more virtual, more complicated than it needs to be. We build bureaucracies to deal with the complexities of life—and consequently life only just grows more perplexing.

Messiah’s government, however, is simple and uncomplicated. He is the sole ruler—no bloated bureaucracy—and He knows the end from the beginning because He is the Father of Eternity.

Isaiah, prophesying about the kingdom, wrote of the highway of holiness: “The unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein” (Isaiah 35:8 KJV). His way is so free from the complexities of life that even the greatest of all fools cannot lose their way.

That kind of simplicity characterizes Messiah’s entire government. As the Father of Eternity, He alone comprehends the complexities of time and eternity. He requires no bureaucracy; He shoulders His government by Himself.

No Conflicts—He Is the Prince of Peace

Finally, in the Messiah’s kingdom there are no conflicts because He is the Prince of Peace.

He offers peace from God (Romans 1:7) to all who are the recipients of His grace. He brings peace with God (Romans 5:1) to those who surrender to Him in faith. He brings the peace of God (Philippians 4:7) to all of those who walk with Him.

There never really has been peace on earth in the sense we think of it. Wars and rumors of wars have always characterized these entire two millennia since the announcement at His birth of peace on earth (Luke 2:14).

Did you ever take the time realize that angelic announcement of peace on earth was a two-pronged proclamation? First, it proclaimed that God’s perfect peace is available to men and women and children right now. Read the words of Luke 2:14 much more carefully, diligently, and prudently: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (my emphasis added.)

Who are those with whom He is pleased? They are those who have yielded their lives to the authority of His government: “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy” (Psalm 147:7-11 AKJV).

⁷Sing unto the Lord with thanksgiving;
sing praise upon the harp unto our God:
⁸who covereth the heaven with clouds,
who prepareth rain for the earth,
who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.
⁹He giveth to the beast his food,
and to the young ravens which cry.
¹⁰He delighteth not in the strength of the horse:
he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man.
¹¹The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him,
in those that hope in his mercy.

Why should we hope in His mercy? Because we are sinners who need His forgiveness (Romans 3:23). We must recognize that fact first of all if we are to place our lives under His government.

We must understand that He gave His own sinless, guiltless life on our behalf. He died for our sins to save us from God’s righteous wrath (Romans 5:6-9). And we must be willing to turn from our sins and embrace Him by faith, realizing that we can never earn His favor (Ephesians 2:8-10).

But secondly, the angel’s announcement of “peace on earth” declared the arrival of the only One who ultimately can bring everlasting peace on earth.

Jesus Christ will bring lasting peace in the final establishment of His earthly kingdom. As we already mentioned, He will ensure “peace on earth” over the rebellious at heart by wielding a “rod of iron.”

There will be no coup d’état, no insurrection, not even the slightest threat to disturb the peace He brings to the world.

Isaiah 9:7 continues, “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace.”

In other words, His government and peace will keep expanding and improving.

The hymn “Like a River Glorious” accurately speaks of peace that is “perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day, perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.”

How can anything perfect improve?

That’s one of the mysteries of Messiah’s government. It gets better and better, and the perfect peace flows deeper and deeper.

I absolutely look forward to the day when He returns to execute the final political solution which will truly bring world peace.

His is the greatest government because it’s ruled by the greatest ruler—the “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

He is the only absolute and everlasting hope of mankind.

I also hope the government of your life rests securely and squarely upon His shoulders, that He rules and reigns even now in your heart. Only then will you experience the ever-growing peace that comes only from the Prince of Peace.

In the name of Yahweh, the Father, Yahweh, the Son, Yahweh, the Holy Spirit, let us now come together in an attitude of humility, reverence and prayer.

Thank You, Father, for sending Jesus as the Light of the world to enlighten everyone coming into the world. Thank You in Him is the light of the glorious gospel of grace that can never be quenched by the darkness of this world.

I praise and thank You His Light has come into my life and enlivened my spirit and enlightened my soul. Open my eyes more and more to see Jesus and to grow more like Him. Give me greater understanding of all You have achieved in my life, for without You I would remain in darkness and dead in my sin. Thank You for Your great salvation, to You be glory forever. In the name of Jesus, I pray, Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

Advent: “For Unto Us a Child is Born, and Unto Us a Child is Now Given.” A Glorious Messiah, the Messianic Age

Jesus is our Prince of Peace. A prince is someone in a position of authority and responsibility. He has certain rights that simply no one else has. He takes his responsibility as representative of the people he represents seriously. A prince endeavors to be a person of good character so that those he represents will trust and follow him. Jesus is the ultimate prince of life. There is no flaw in His character, ability to lead, motives for leading, or ability to do good for others.

Jesus gives to us a peace that the world can never give. In the world there is turmoil everywhere. No matter what others may promise us, there can be no peace in the world. The world is governed by evil and will be until Jesus comes.

Looking into the world for peace is utter foolishness and forever futile. The only peace that 100% steadies the soul and enables us to handle life victoriously is the peace that Jesus gives when our sins are forgiven. If there is no peace in the soul, there can be no peace in the world. The promise of our Lord is His peace, a peace that no one can understand except those whose sins have been forgiven.

Unto the end of the ages, His Peace is forever enveloping and surrounding us!

Isaiah 9:6-7 AKJV

⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God,
The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.
⁷Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,
to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice
from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

In spite of all the advances of civilization, the world today is still consumed with a desire for peace and a fear of war. When people observe the conflicts and the rumors of wars, gloom and despair often engulf them like a thick darkness. Not the least of the trouble spots is the Middle East. Peace there has been the pursuit for eons. While there have been scores of efforts to bring about peace between those ancient nations, no one would be surprised if war broke out tomorrow.

Peace movements and peace negotiations proceed all over the world. Stronger countries believe peace must be negotiated from an elevated and lofty position of economic and military power; radical groups believe that terror will force the issue. But we are left with a more dangerous and more frightening world than ever before. And we are left wondering if anyone is really interested in peace and righteousness and justice for all, or just in securing their own interests?

The problem is still the indescribable and immeasurable presence of evil. It sets family members against family members, and it sets nations against nations. Ultimately, the world’s gloom and despair is linked to this spiritual darkness.

The Bible comforts and reminds those of us who have come to trust in Jesus Christ not to despair as if there was no hope. We have the revelation of our Lord that not only announces His sovereign reign but also charts the course of world events. One of the most significant revelations is found in Isaiah chapter Nine.

Against the background of the prophecy of war and destruction, darkness and gloom (chapter 8) Isaiah gave this prophecy about the Messiah—the glorious coming king.

“Messiah” is a Hebrew term that means “anointed one,” that is, the anointed king. In a sense, every king who was anointed in Jerusalem as a descendant of David would be called a “mashiah” (pronounced mah-she-ack), a messiah.

But the Bible tells how ultimately a son of David would come who would be known as “the Messiah.” We believe that Jesus Christ is that Messiah.

The New Testament word “Christ” is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah.” This Messianic Prophecy, then, holds out hope for both peace and righteousness through the reign of Jesus the Messiah.

The text can be divided into two sections: the Dawn of the Messianic Age (verses 1-5) and the Righteous Reign of the Messiah (verses 6 and 7).

Isaiah 9:1-7 AKJV

9 Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.

²The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:
they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,
upon them hath the light shined.
³Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy:
they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest,
and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
⁴For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
⁵For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood;
but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God,
The everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace.
⁷Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom,
to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice
from henceforth even for ever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

While the entire passage is instructive for the message, the verses which focus on the nature of the Messiah are undeniably critical for our devotional today, for therein lies our genuine hope for everlasting peace. So most of our attention will be given solely to the meanings of the name of the Son, showing how these description fit perfectly the nature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I. PEACE WILL COME WITH THE DAWN OF THE MESSIANIC AGE (9:1-5).

Isaiah declares that in contrast to his present age of war, gloom, and despair, there is coming an age when peace will reign universally. It will begin with the coming of the Messiah, the promised future king. So we call that period the Messianic Age. The prophet Isaiah here shows how it will unfold.

A. THE CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES WILL END THE DESPAIR (1,2).

The passage begins with the announcement of the change: there will be no more gloom for those in anguish; in the past the LORD humbled the northern lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee. Why? That is where the Messiah will first appear—Galilee of the Gentiles, a place looked down on for so long as less spiritual, less pure than Judea.

The explanation of this exaltation is found in verse 2. Those who walk in darkness have seen a great light, on those in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. The language is poetic: darkness signifies adversity, despair, gloom and evil, and the light signifies prosperity, peace, and joy.

The language is used elsewhere of the Messianic Age—Malachi says that the “sun of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings” (4:2).

So the people in the north who have suffered so much have the prospect of a wonderful new beginning.

We should note in passing Isaiah’s verbs are in the past tense—he writes as if it has already happened. That is prophetic language. The prophet was a “seer” or visionary. He received divine revelation and recorded what he saw. As far as he was concerned, if it had been shown to him from God, it was as good as done. It was certain, even though it had not yet worked out in history.

So “light” will shine on people who were walking in “darkness.” The initial fulfillment of this prophecy is beyond doubt. Matthew quotes this text in conjunction with the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. He is the true light of the world that lights every person. (Matthew 4:12-16)

From the beginning of His ministry, Jesus brings to a darkened world grace and truth, and the sure promise of peace. When He began to minister in Galilee with His teachings, His Rabbinical leadership and His miracles, He demonstrated He was indeed this Messiah. His proclamation of the kingdom through salvation is what ends the despair, for believers in Him are not lost in gloom and despair, for they know that what He promised will come to pass at His second coming.

B. THE MESSIAH BRINGS JOY AND PROSPERITY (3).

The prophet turns to address the LORD directly. His words explain what it means that light will dispel the darkness—joy and prosperity will follow. The prophet gives no clue as to how soon this would happen.³² But we who have the full revelation of God know that Jesus made it clear that he was the Messiah, and that the age of peace and righteousness was yet future.

The joy described here is extravagant. It is the kind of joy that comes at the harvest, or at the dividing of the plunder. Harvest was a regular time of joy in Israel; after a long time of labor in the fields the people would gather to eat and drink and celebrate. The Bible often uses the analogy of the harvest to describe the coming of the LORD (see Matthew 3:12) for the harvest and winnowing imagery). It is a thanksgiving celebration for the completion of the harvest.

Dividing the plunder, the other image here, is a bit more poignant since wars will lead up to the end of the age. The image is about the victors after the battle is over, dividing up the booty. Such would be an almost delirious celebration of triumph that would usher in an age of peace.

C. JOY COMES THROUGH THE CESSATION OF WAR (4, 5).

The imagery of joy at the division of the plunder leads directly into the explanation: the prophet foresees the time when the LORD will break the oppression of the enemies. He draws the analogy with the time of Israel’s victory over Midian through Gideon by the power of the LORD.

So shall it again be.

But this victory will be greater.

Verse 5 says that the implements of war will be burnt up. This will be no lull in the action, no temporary peace treaty.

War will end.

Elsewhere Isaiah has says, “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares,” that is, military weapons will not be needed in a time of lasting peace.

Isaiah 2:1-4 AKJV

2 The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

²And it shall come to pass in the last days,
that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established
in the top of the mountains,
and shall be exalted above the hills;
and all nations shall flow unto it.
³And many people shall go and say,
Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
and he will teach us of his ways,
and we will walk in his paths:
for out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
⁴And he shall judge among the nations,
and shall rebuke many people:
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruninghooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

How can these things be, given the current world situation as we know it?

The answer to this question is found in the second half of the oracle which describes the nature of the Messiah who will bring in the reign of peace and righteousness.

If such an indescribable measure of peace is to come, someone must have the ability to produce it and maintain it and sustain it throughout all of the ages.

II. PEACE WILL FINALLY COME WITH THE RIGHTEOUS REIGN OF THE MESSIAH (9:6,7).

Isaiah now turns to introduce the One who will transform the gloom and despair of war into the joy and peace of a time of righteousness—the Messiah.

THE LORD WILL BRING ABOUT THE ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH (6A).

The first part of the prophecy is very familiar to Christians: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders.” God’s Prophet Isaiah is very precise here, as we now know. A child will be born into the family of David, and that there was a birth in Bethlehem is beyond question; but the Messiah will also be a Son that is given, and that Jesus did not come into existence in Bethlehem is clear from the Bible.

According to the Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7:14), the term “son” is a title for the king. The same is true in the vision of Daniel where the expression “Son of Man” is used (Daniel 7:9-14). Daniel’s vision shows this glorious king in the presence of the Almighty, the Ancient of Days, and that he would be given the kingdom of peace. Isaiah announces that the child to be born will be this Son given. This idea is then further clarified by the Apostle Paul: “In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman … .” (Galatians 4:1-5 AKJV).

4 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; ²but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. ³Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: ⁴but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, ⁵to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

The New Testament bears witness that Jesus is this Son who came into the world. In fact, Jesus Himself set about to prove His origin was in heaven, not in Bethlehem. When He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, he prayed and included these words in His prayer: “that they might know that You sent Me” (John 11:42). By this Jesus meant that He was from above, and they were from below.

Or, in debating with the religious leaders Jesus asked how David could call his descendant his “Lord,” clearly showing that the “Son of David,” the Messiah, was greater than David (Mark 12:35-36), regarding Psalm 110 AKJV.

Psalm 110

A Psalm of David.

¹The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand,
until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
²The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion:
rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
³Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power,
in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning:
thou hast the dew of thy youth.
⁴The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent,
Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
⁵The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
⁶He shall judge among the heathen,
he shall fill the places with the dead bodies;
he shall wound the heads over many countries.
⁷He shall drink of the brook in the way:
therefore shall he lift up the head.

And of course, to the woman at the well Jesus clearly revealed Himself: she said, “When the Messiah comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said, “I that speak to you am He” (John 4:25-26).

It is clear, then, that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, the Christ, the child born into the house of David, the Son given by God to be the long expected King.

The first advent of Jesus established His identity; it did not begin His reign, however, for He has yet to put down all enemies.

The prophecy that “the government will be upon His shoulder” will come to complete reality at His second coming—an aspect of the Messianic prophecies that the prophets did not see (see 1 Peter 1:10-11).

The reference to the shoulder is quite probably a reference to the wearing of an insignia of office on the shoulder (Isaiah 22:22).

There will be a time when this Son will rule as king.

We may say that Jesus now reigns above, and that is certainly true.

However, God’s Prophet Isaiah clearly envisions a time of universal peace and righteousness in this world. That has not happened yet. Hebrews 1 states that this exaltation will be complete when the Father again brings His firstborn into the world. So Isaiah does not know when all these things will take place; only that they will happen because the Word of the LORD has declared it, Because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it and God’s Word returns to God 1000% fulfilled!

Isaiah 55:10-11 AKJV

¹⁰For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven,
and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth,
and maketh it bring forth and bud,
that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
¹¹so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth:
it shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Jesus is our Prince of Peace amidst the stormy times of life. There is no storm that He cannot calm. There is never an obstacle too big for Him to overcome.

He calmly stands up and faces the angry storms of life and says, “Peace be still.” No storm can continue to rage when He takes control of it. In Christ we discover that no matter what the stormy season of our lives may be like, we can overcome them through Him. His presence reassures us that our storms do not determine or define our lives.

We can face positively our storms knowing we do not face them alone. He is our Immanuel, He is our forever “God With Us and Within Us!” and does for us what we cannot do on our own. Things may continue to be stormy for several times and for several seasons, but we know, undeniably so, that the storms do pass and on the other side of every storm there is calm, sunshine, peace, JESUS!!

We praise Him in the midst of the storm because we know that the victory is ours in Christ Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:50-58, Romans 8:31-39). No storm can take us away from our Lord when we let Him hold our hand in the storm.

In the name of Yahweh the Father, Yahweh the Son, Yahweh the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray, (Psalm 24 The Message)

God claims Earth and everything in it,
God claims World and all who live on it.
He built it on Ocean foundations,
laid it out on River girders.

Who can climb Mount God?
    Who can scale the holy north-face?
Only the clean-handed,
    only the pure-hearted;
Men who won’t cheat,
    women who won’t seduce.

God is at their side;
with God’s help they make it.
This, Jacob, is what happens
to God-seekers, God-questers.

Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.

Who is this King-Glory?
God, armed
and battle-ready.

Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.

Who is this King-Glory?
God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
he is King-Glory.

In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

Advent: It is Another Season of More Waiting. It is Another Season of More Preparation. It is Another Season out of our Lives. A Season of Nonsense?

The need to conduct a spiritual inventory of this place we are living in our lives.

The need to conduct an inventory of our immeasurable connection to the world.

The need to conduct an inventory of our immeasurable connection and our relationship with God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Wherever we are in this exact moment, Has it reached the Time and Season to conduct our own inventory of An Age of Nonsense: “The Seasons of Our Life”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 Names of God Bible

Everything in God’s Own Time

3 Everything has its own time, and there is a specific time for every activity under heaven:

²a time to be born and
    a time to die,
    a time to plant and
    a time to pull out what was planted,
³a time to kill and
    a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and
    a time to build up,
⁴a time to cry and
    a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and
    a time to dance,
⁵a time to scatter stones and
    a time to gather them,^[a]
    a time to hug and
    a time to stop hugging,
⁶a time to start looking and
    a time to stop looking,
    a time to keep and
    a time to throw away,
⁷a time to tear apart and
    a time to sew together,
    a time to keep quiet and
    a time to speak out,
⁸a time to love and
    a time to hate,
    a time for war and
    a time for peace.

God Gives Mortals a Sense of Eternity

⁹What do working people gain from their hard labor? ¹⁰I have seen mortals weighed down with a burden that Elohim has placed on them. ¹¹It is beautiful how Elohim has done everything at the right time. He has put a sense of eternity in people’s minds. Yet, mortals still can’t grasp what Elohim is doing from the beginning to the end of time.

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

We have explored the futility of wisdom, of wealth, of laboring “under the sun” and now, as we steadily approach the appointed end of life’s journey, what can be said on our behalf? Have we made a difference in someone else’s life? Will we be able to say that over the short or long course of our we left this world better than we first found it? Or, are we being arrogant in assuming we can make one difference? Are we not just another jagged pebble in the shifting sands of time?

I pray! Allow me to share with you some of my own insights from the reading of Ecclesiastes. First of all, I believe that we have a magnanimous God. What do I mean by this? I believe our God, the exact same God who influenced Solomon’s thinking, is charitable. He is generous, He is patient; most of all, He is forgiving. On the other hand, this exact same God is not a doting grandfather-like figure who anxiously awaits our beckon call doling out everything we ask for. He is not the big “sugar-daddy” in the sky that ceaselessly begs for one ounce of praise.

Furthermore, I believe God is sovereign. Qoheleth “the Preacher” makes this point abundantly clear. The Name of God appears forty-one times in this book. Terms such as “the Creator” and “the Shepherd” as well as pronouns referring to God appear an additional five times. Phrases like “God made,” God judges,” “God does,” or God has done,” or God will do,” just jumps out of these pages.

In fact, it’s because God IS sovereign that Solomon come to grips with one of the most perplexing dilemmas about life. God alone holds the answers while feeble man has only questions and nagging doubts. Over the course of his life, Solomon succumbs to the understanding that man is virtually powerless and impotent before a sovereign God who creates, who orders, who directs, who orchestrates, who frustrates man’s vain efforts to be master of his own destiny.

Thank God we are made in HIS image! Thank God we are not robots who have no choice, no option, but to be obedient and compliant! Thank God we can make our own choices and but are not void of will. Thank God we are who we are! We are a creation of God, by God, and for God. We are uniquely and wonderfully made the Psalmist writes. We are not here by accident. We did not evolve from some organic plant life, fish or animal. These are feeble theories without fact or truth conjured up by cowards who are too afraid to recognize their own Creator.

From Ecclesiastes, I gain a sense of hope not hopelessness. I derive a sense of purpose not purposelessness. I don’t view the world as being in a free-falling, state of chaos. Instead, I see a world with profound meaning, profound purpose, direction, timing and orderliness in which I played so insignificant a part in.

What is the overriding theme of this book? It is this. We are here on earth for a reason and for a season. There is depth and significance to our existence. We are not a one-dimensional entity or a mere shallow remnant cruelly formed by a one-time creator who walked away after a failed experiment. Instead, we are each multi-dimensional; multifaceted. We possess a body, mind and spirit.

Solomon explains all this to us so that we will not repeat his own mistakes. He wants us to know that we worship a God whose ultimate desire is for us to be healthy in ALL the dimensions of our life … physically, mentally and spiritually.

It’s regrettable that most of the book of Ecclesiastes remains obscure. But there is this one portion from chapter three that is often quoted at funerals and weddings alike. It was even put to music in the 1960’s by Simon and Garfunkel although most people at the time did not even realize that they were actually hearing scripture. Sadly, these words “fall into deep silence,” are rarely preached from, and taught about and, tragically, few people live in accordance with them.

Success is not centered on looks. Success is not how much you or I have in our bank accounts. All this is sheer madness. This “chasing after the wind” is as old as the ages themselves. We keep searching for that “fountain of youth” a magic potion that will make us happy, successful, content and fulfilled. This quest could have, indeed should have ended three thousand years ago had man only read this book first before venturing out blindly, vainly. I believe Ecclesiastes is the finest work about any person’s insatiable search for their meaning to life. Solomon’s conclusions are some of the most critically profound ever written.

Yes, there are seasons of our lives and there are reasons for these seasons. First, THERE IS A SEASON FOR OUR PHYSICAL WELL-BEING. Secondly, THERE IS A SEASON FOR OUR MENTAL WELL-BEING and finally THERE IS A SEASON FOR OUR SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING.

If you look carefully, you will detect that the first eight verses of chapter three address these three vital aspects of our humanity: body, soul and spirit. Let’s try to inventory, to examine each of these human dimensions in closer detail.

First of all, THERE IS A SEASON FOR OUR PHYSICAL WELL-BEING.

Read the first three verses and then notice how applicable these words are in conjunction with our physical lives. None of us ever asked to be born. It was something done to us and yet apart from us. Likewise, none of us ask to die; it is an inevitable event that God has ordained. So, this is the way we should view this list of opposites, as a list of what God thinks we ought to have. It begins by pairing birth and death as being the boundaries of life “under the sun.”

The next verse deals with the supply of food for sustenance. “There is a time to plant and a time to harvest.” Everything must come at its own appointed time. If we get things out of sync, we’re in trouble; we cause disruption. For instance, try planting a crop in the middle of winter when the ground is hard and covered in snow. Many of the problems in our own life stem from our constantly trying to schedule and reschedule the timing of those things, which God has put in its own appointed place. Please know, there is an appropriate time for everything.

There is “a time to kill, and a time to heal.” Now, this may sound strange to us, but the process of dying goes right along with the process of living. Doctors tell us that every seven years and incidentally, the number seven is the Hebrew number for completion, all the cells in our bodies die. But our bodies do not die.

What you are now is not what you were seven years ago and yet you remain the same. That’s why I believe in “micro-evolution.” Evolution means “change” and change truly occurs. It is change that alters conditions. It is not the kind of Darwinian theory that we refer to as “macro-evolution.” Pray over, about the enormous complexity of our humanity. The fact that each human cell seems to pass on to the next cell that replaces it, the memory of the past so that, even though our brain cells have changed, the memory goes back beyond the life of the cell itself. Yes, there is a time to kill, a time to heal and God brings it to pass.

There is “a time to break down and a time to build up.” Youth is the time of building up. Muscles grow, abilities increase, coordination improves and senses are heightened. But then, as you begin to live long enough, things start falling apart … it’s “a time to break down.” And this, too, God ordained. Seasons come and seasons go. Growing older, getting older and old is not wrong nor is it evil. It is a natural course of events. As they say, “go with the flow,” because there’s no use fighting these currents. Things aren’t going to change “under the sun.”

The Teacher then delves into the realm of the soul. He determines that THERE IS A SEASON FOR OUR MENTAL WELL-BEING.

This aspect of our being has to do with thinking, feeling, choosing. It is the social concerns. It has to do with our interpersonal relationships. Verse 4 tells us that there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance.” There is no escaping the hurts and sorrows of this life. God determined that these, too, will serve to benefit us. And the proof of that is when God’s own Son came to us. He was not granted any royalty and honor.

He was not afforded a comfortable lifestyle. Instead, Jesus the Christ was scorned and ridiculed; He was reviled and hated. He was persecuted and tortured; He suffered excruciating pain for hours only to be led away to succumb to a most heinous death. He was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, by whose stripes we are now all healed” [Isaiah 53:3-6]. Yes, in a fallen world, it is apportioned for us, and even God’s Son, to weep and lament.

But, there are also times when it is healthy to laugh, to be happy and carefree. Grief and loss will surely have its day, but dancing and festive occasions are also appropriate in its time. Psalm 30 says our Lord “has been gracious unto me, for He has turned my mourning into dancing” [verse 11]. In this same Psalm we too learn that “His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning” [verse 5].

We would lose an invaluable connection to a wonderful aspect of our Lord’s humanity if we ourselves failed to see the merriment and the laughter that He provided for His disciples like the time at the wedding at Cana in Galilee where He performed His first recorded miracle by turning gallons of water into wine.

Then there is “a time to cast away stones and a time to gather them” [verse 5]. There is “a time to break things down and a time to build them up again.”

The Teacher here addresses our social customs, our deeply held traditions and our relationships with one another. There is a time to embrace others, to show support for them. But there comes a time when we ought to restrain ourselves. For example, if a friend commits an offense and refuses to acknowledge it, then we are correct in withholding an embrace for to do so would be tantamount to complicity with that which doesn’t edify, that is, build up, the faith community.

Verses 6, 7 and 8 address the last six opposites, which relate to our spiritual concerns: THERE IS A SEASON FOR OUR SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING.

These encompass our innermost thoughts. Our spirit being holds our core beliefs, our values and principles. There is “a time to seek [work, marriage, new friends, etc.], and a time to lose.” There comes a time in life when we should curtail certain friendships, seek new work, a new vocation or to move away. Circumstances in life change. Priorities in life sometimes warrant our having to give up which is familiar. It is both proper, appropriate for such times in our lives.

There is “a time to keep and a time to cast away” [verse 6]. There are values and standards, which must never be surrendered or compromised. There are other times when we need to “clean house.” There comes a time for us to remove the clutter; to sweep away the things of the past. This extends beyond discarding old clothes. This is also true of unhealthy habits and attitudes. Resentment and bitterness must forthwith be laid aside in order to allow forgiveness to enter.

There is “a time to tear apart and a time to sew together” [verse 7a]. Personal Relationships can become destructive and harmful. We must sometimes tear ourselves away from the past and move forward. Our Lord Himself said that new wine must be placed in new wineskins. At times, the past will not abide by what God has in store for you in the future. At other times, our Lord will want us to mend fences; to restore broken relationships for this, too, can be beneficial.

There is also “a time to keep silent, and a time to speak” [verse 7b]. There are times when we know something, perhaps a bit of gossip, and we should truly withhold comment. But, there are times when we must speak up, especially when we see wrongs committed. We must never hide the truth though the truth may prove painful. (The Teacher: Proverbs 3:3, 12:17-19, 20:28, 22:21, 23:23)

There is “a time to love, and a time to hate” [verse 8a]. When is it appropriate to hate? When we see abhorrent violence, the purging of whole peoples that we call “ethnic cleansing.” It is the destruction of the innocent, the killing of the unborn. Scripture tells us we are to hate the things that God hates. There are things in this world that are an abomination to our God (Proverbs 6:16-19) and they should cause us to shutter and recoil. They should lead to our inventories.

¹⁶There are six things that Yahweh hates,
    even seven that are disgusting to him:
¹⁷arrogant eyes,
    a lying tongue,
        hands that kill innocent people,
¹⁸a mind devising wicked plans,
    feet that are quick to do wrong,
¹⁹a dishonest witness spitting out lies,
    and a person who spreads conflict among relatives.

But, there is also a time to love. We should extend sacrificial love through auspicious actions of kindness, charity and goodwill towards our fellow man.

There is also “a time for war, and a time for peace” [verse 8b]. When tyranny strips away the dignity of man, evil is unleashed upon the world, when man’s inhumanity to man reaches a threshold, then war becomes necessary and this, too, God has ordained. Sometimes, the only way to prevent further bloodshed is to spill one’s own blood. There are times when war has been misappropriated. There are times when only peace should abide in the hearts and souls of men.

I point out that all of these seeming paradoxes are a part of God’s plan. The problem, of course, is that man inherently wants to take the course of least pain and resistance. If we truly had control of our destiny, we would avoid all kinds of unpleasantness. But, to live soft, comfortable lives would virtually ruin us spiritually in the end. God knows that those people who are shielded from the world invariably end up being miserable and utterly worthless. They become selfish, cruel, vicious, callous and unprincipled. Yes, there is a time for every season and there is a reason for every season “under the sun.”

So what gain is there to the worker from that which he toils? This probing question is asked three times in this book and finally, the Teacher discovers God’s purpose in all of this. God has made everything beautiful in its time. Everything is beautiful in accordance with God’s timing and not by man’s manipulation. For us: Genesis 1:1 through the Book of Revelation 22:21)

The circumstances in our life are ordered and directed by God. The difficult times are not to be viewed as curses, but rather as blessings in disguise for they strengthen us and they make us rely upon God for His provisions.

The Searcher also discovered that God has placed eternity in the hearts of man.

What does he mean by this? Mankind is the only animal that worships God. We are continually searching for the truth concerning the meaning of life here on earth and the life that is to come. We know instinctively that life does not end with our passing. There is something much more to life than our physical death.

C. S. Lewis once said, “Our heavenly Father has provided many delightful inns for us along life’s journey, but He takes great care to see that we do not mistake any of them for home.”

There is a longing for a secure place we can call home, a place like no other; a place that we know intuitively. We are not unlike the salmon that swims the world’s oceans only to return to struggle upstream in the same river and to the precise location where life began. They struggle against all barriers, they court, then they mate and then they lay their eggs and then become food for animals. The eggs then eventually hatch. The hatchlings swim out to the oceans. They learn how to survive and thrive until they too feel the irresistible urge to return. The cycle of all life continues in this way – precisely as God hath ordained it all.

The crux of the matter is that our God lives. He is active, He is vibrant, and so are the works of His creation. We are uniquely and wonderfully made. And God has a “no-nonsense” plan for your life, which includes the ebbs and flows that this world has to offer. Accept it, embrace it, rejoice in it and know that there is surely a God ordained “no-nonsense” reason for every season under heaven.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us now pray,

Father God,

I thank you for your limitless wisdom. I thank you for writing my story. Although I may not always understand why things are happening, you do. You go before me and keep me even my darkest hours. I thank you for using my moments of sadness as a starting point for a miracle to take place. Help me to embrace your process for me. Thank you, Lord, that you make all broken things new and beautiful. In Jesus Name. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia Amen.

Advent: Our Season of Anticipation, Season of Waiting, Timely Patience! Redeem our Meaningless Life Time!

“Vanity, Vanity, It is all Vanity!” Life is far from meaningless when one serves in accordance with the will God. All times both good and bad can be redeemed!

Ecclesiastes 3:9-15 Names of God Bible

God Gives Mortals a Sense of Eternity

¹²I realize that there’s nothing better for them to do than to be cheerful and enjoy what is good in their lives. ¹³It is a gift from Elohim to be able to eat and drink and experience the good that comes from every kind of hard work.

¹⁴I realize that whatever Elohim does will last forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken away from it. Elohim does this so that people will fear him.

¹⁵Whatever has happened in the past is present now. Whatever is going to happen in the future has already happened in the past. Elohim will call the past to account.^[a]

The Word of God for the Children of God. In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

“Life is just nothing but just one long agonizing expression of my Vanity!”

When we consider where we are and have been, and where we are likely going, being but one mere speck of dust in this vast universe one cannot help but ask ourselves the one unspoken question: how I live my life, does it actually matter?

After reading Scriptures that say that God “made us a little lower than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor” (Hebrews 2:7) and “gave His one and only Son” (John 3:16-17) to “die to sin once and for all” (Romans 6:10); one cannot help but prayerfully conclude that we are valuable in God’s sight!

But what does one do with Solomon’s statement that everything in life is meaningless (1:1)? Are not our life and our host of both good and bad and horrific accomplishments only temporary, here today and gone tomorrow?

After all, who amongst us can add anything to or take away anything from the will of God our Father (Isaiah 14:27) who controls this universe (Colossians 1:17)? Does this mean that trying to determine the best way to live our lives is nothing more than a vain attempt to become significant?

Should we just eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we are all going to die? In this short devotional we are going to find out that what we do on this earth truly matters. After considering the long length of his life, Solomon concluded that his life had not been meaningless for those who serve God according to His will!

The Toils of Work

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.

Life can seem like one endless day of work after another! We get up early in the morning, shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, prepare our lunch, drive though rush hour traffic, work, drive home, feed ourselves and children, clean the house, wash the clothes, go to bed. That pretty much sums up our typical day.

It is no wonder that Solomon calls work a burden laid upon humanity. God has certainly come good on His promise in Genesis 3:19 that we would work by the sweat of our brow until we return to the dust in which we came from!

O to live in the garden of Eden! Work has not always been a burden. Adam was told to take care of a garden that had no sickness, pain, sorrow, death (Genesis 2:17) or violence (Genesis 1:29-30). Adam’s labour seems extremely easy in comparison to our – seemingly impossible fast paced day in and day out grind!

To have no need for shelter and to have all of the food one could eat at one’s fingertips, would that not be paradise for us in these our contemporary days? Because humanity did not want to submit to God’s authority but instead wanted control over their own destiny, the curse of hard work is come rightly upon us!

Beauty in Time

11a He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Even with the sweat of their brow rolling down their faces, Solomon steadily encouraged his readers to perceive everything as having beauty in its own time.

The events that occur during the span of one’s life are not “random happenings determined by the roll of the celestial dice” but happen in accordance with the will of our Creator (Romans 8:28). For example, in verses 1-8 of this third chapter Solomon outlined fourteen opposite activities to demonstrate that there is an ordered season, a proper time for all human activity on earth and under heaven.

Verse Couplet One Couplet Two

2 To be born – To die To Plant – To Uproot

3 To kill – To heal To Tear Down – To build up

4 To weep – To Laugh To Mourn – To Dance

5 To scatter stones – To gather To embrace – To refrain

6 To search – To give up To keep – To throw away

7 To tear – To mend To be silent – to speak

8 To love – To hate To war – To have peace

Human beings will spend their days living between the “poles of activity represented by these opposites.” Since humanity has no control over time, what makes these opposite activities beautiful is being able to discern the good works that God wants us to do during both the good and difficult times. While this might seem like an overwhelming task, do not forget that God created us in Christ Jesus for the express purpose of doing good works (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Weeping, scattering, searching, being torn down, uprooted, mourning and yes even death can be beautiful! While trials and tribulations are a heavy yoke for any human to bear, they are a source of great joy for it is through the testing of one’s faith and perseverance that one attains spiritual maturity (James 1:2-4).

It is one thing to go through difficult times and feel joy but in the face of death where does one find beauty? Birth and death are two ends of the spectrum of life of which we have little control over either. While we participate in the process of conception and birth, it is ultimately God that knits us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13-18; Jeremiah 1:5).

While our choices can shorten our lifespan, who can add a single hour to one’s life beyond what God has ordained (Matthew 6:27)? Not being able to control death however, does not mean that it can not be beautiful. When God chooses to take someone home to be with Him is that not beautiful, especially when that person has been suffering a long time?

And is it not beautiful to see someone come to know Christ because they have seen a Christian take refuge in God (Psalm 46) in He who is the rock of their salvation (Psalm 18:1-2)? Yes, even in our death there can come great beauty!

Our Limited Knowledge of Time

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

While doing the right thing at the right time yields great beauty that does not mean that we as the creation are able to determine why both good and bad things happen in our lives. As His image-bearers (Genesis 1:27; James 3:9), God has placed an insatiable desire in our hearts to understand how events in our lives work together for the eternal good of both ourselves and that of others.

Even with a sense of time past, time present and time future we are still unable to answer the toughest questions relating to why certain events enter into our lives, those “Why Me, Lord?” inquiries. For example, answering questions such as why did a loved one die at an early age in life or why did I get this debilitating disease; are usually far beyond our ability to make any sense of His handiwork.

Like Job, God’s divine providence is often beyond the grasp of our limited minds. While we want to understand the significance of all events from the beginning to the end in our lives our awareness of things eternal will always be limited to what God decides to reveal to us. For an explanation as to why events have happened in our lives we will simply have to wait until we meet God face to face to have any of our most pressing questions answered (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Redeeming the Time

12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.

Even though we often do not know the reasons as to why events happen in our lives, by being happy and doing good in God’s sight we can find beauty in any circumstance. One does not need to know the “why” of God’s will to obey His will. Since “without God everything suffers in the futility of temporality,” there is no better way to live one’s life than doing the good works of God’s will that we have been prepared in advance to do (Ephesians 2:1-10).

One should take great joy in knowing that God-given, good works will survive the test of time (1 Corinthians 3:10-15) and will result in treasures being stored up in heaven (Matthew 6:20). Even when thoughts of mortality and difficult times occur we are to eat and drink and find satisfaction in our work for blessed is the name of the Lord who gives and takes away (Job 1:20-22)!

By counting our blessings, one can learn to be content and happy in all of life’s circumstances (Philippians 4:12-13). Redeeming time requires an act of faith in which one humbly walk the path set before oneself knowing that ultimately God does good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28).

Reverence of God

14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. 15 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.

The response God wants us to have to His immutable, inscrutable plan is one of fear, reverence and humble submission. Whatever the times come to pass, either good or bad, “inviolable steadiness” and security can be found knowing the Creator has grace and sovereignty overall things which are seen and unseen (Colossians 1:15-23).

To sum it up: The eternal perfection of God’s work overwhelms all human endeavors and mocks human aspirations to become eternally significant.

Knowing that all times are held in the hands of He who will call the past into account, should provoke fear of God in the human heart. This is not the kind of fear that comes from facing the monstrous or the unknown, but one in which we anticipate, we expect, we revere, respect, stand in awe of God’s awesome power and authority. When we fear God by seeking His will and following His commandments, our fast spinning treadmill of life and death is no longer any reference to vanity, instead an invitation to experience the hand of God at work.

In conclusion, what can we say? What ought we to say about this vanity of ours?

Our sovereign God, not mortal beings, controls the “times” that are ever before us! While many might claim to control the destiny of their respective lives, God alone is absolute sovereign and 100% in control of all things seen and unseen.

Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 Names of God Bible

Lifelong Duty—Fear God and Keep His Commands

⁹Besides being wise, the spokesman also taught the people what he knew. He very carefully thought about it, studied it, and arranged it in many proverbs. ¹⁰The spokesman tried to find just the right words. He wrote the words of truth very carefully.

¹¹Words from wise people are like spurs. Their collected sayings are like nails that have been driven in firmly. They come from one shepherd. ¹²Be warned, my children, against anything more than these. People never stop writing books. Too much studying will wear out your body. ¹³After having heard it all, this is the conclusion: Fear Elohim, and keep his commands, because this applies to everyone. ¹⁴Elohim will certainly judge everything that is done. This includes every secret thing, whether it is good or bad.

Even the tiniest expenditure of our energies made toward trying to change one’s circumstances or “times” from bad to good is an exercise in futility, for nothing whatsoever can be added to or taken away from God’s sovereign plan.

The key to being “happy” or “significant” can only be found in praising God’s name and doing good in accordance with His will. Since one does not need to know the “why” of God’s will to obey, in reverence and awe we as Christians are to submit to the authority, and sovereignty of God by seeking His will and by obeying His commands. (Psalm 84, Psalm 103, Psalm 107, Psalm 118, Psalm 139)

When one comes to the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, one gets to experience the hand of God at work. Over time, through the ministry and works of the Holy Spirit, one knows the sweat of one’s brow is not vanity but the fulfillment of doing the good works God has prepared us in advance to do!

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, let us take time to Pray,

Heavenly Father, you are the holder of the future. I worry about the future, and I want to know what you have in store for me. I am scared that I’m unprepared, but I trust in you. Please equip me so that your will is done when the future comes. In Jesus’ name, In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

Psalm 116 Easy-to-Read Version

Proverbs 3:5-8 English Standard Version

Proverbs 16:1-3 English Standard Version

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2 Samuel 7:18-25 English Standard Version

David’s Prayer of Gratitude

2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1 English Standard Version

How Majestic Is Your Name

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith.[a] A Psalm of David.

John 1:1-5 English Standard Version

The Word Became Flesh

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Psalm 32:8AKJV

The Aaronic Blessing

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Psalm 16:7-11 The Message

Psalm 16:1-6 The Message

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Isaiah 12 Amplified Bible

Thanksgiving Expressed

Isaiah 12:1-2 Names of God Bible

A Hymn of Praise from the Lord’s People in His Kingdom

Psalm 118:19-29 Names of God Bible

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Isaiah 9:6-7 AKJV

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Isaiah 9:6-7 NASB

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Isaiah 9:6-7 AKJV

I. PEACE WILL COME WITH THE DAWN OF THE MESSIANIC AGE (9:1-5).

A. THE CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES WILL END THE DESPAIR (1,2).

B. THE MESSIAH BRINGS JOY AND PROSPERITY (3).

C. JOY COMES THROUGH THE CESSATION OF WAR (4, 5).

II. PEACE WILL FINALLY COME WITH THE RIGHTEOUS REIGN OF THE MESSIAH (9:6,7).

THE LORD WILL BRING ABOUT THE ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH (6A).

Psalm 110

A Psalm of David.

Isaiah 55:10-11 AKJV

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Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 Names of God Bible

Everything in God’s Own Time

God Gives Mortals a Sense of Eternity

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Ecclesiastes 3:9-15 Names of God Bible

God Gives Mortals a Sense of Eternity

Lifelong Duty—Fear God and Keep His Commands

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To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith.^[a] A Psalm of David.