January 11th, 2009 Bible Blog

Today's Reading:

Psalms 85-87
Romans 9

My Response:

Psalms 85-86 is a prayer of thanksgiving for taking Israel from captivity and seeking God's power to restore the land. We also see that the reading shows the heart of the Israelites during this time was to seek the Lord's mercy even though they were Godly. There are actually quite a few things that spoke to me in chapter 86 and I am going to comment on them.

Psalms 86:5
5 You are forgiving and good, O Lord,
abounding in love to all who call to you.

Psalms 86:15
15 But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

These two verses remind me that our God is faithful to forgive those that call upon His name. That is all God asks of us, to simply call upon His name. How easy is that! God doesn't want anything more than for us to turn to Him. This is why when people ask me how I can serve a ruthless God I simply smile. I know that for all of my unrighteousness God has every reason to destroy me, yet He hasn't. Why is this? Well David in the other verse says it is because God is slow to anger and that He is abounding in love and faithfulness to us. First off, God is slow to anger. God put up with a lot from the Israelites before He brought about correction and He does the same in our lives. Secondly, God puts up with us because He loves us and He wants us to make the right decisions. Somehow in all of His righteous power and might God is compassionate with our human nature and showed us His grace and love by being faithful to forgive us and not wipe us all out!

Psalms 86:12-13
12 I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
13 For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths of the grave.

Again David knew that he had great reason to praise God. And here we see that David praises God with...all his heart. But why, David's life was in danger constantly. Even his own son wanted to kill him, why would David be so anxious to praise God. It is simply because David knew that God loved him, and that was all that he needed. Isn't that enough for us all? I think that in the USA we sometimes think that we need to have been blessed greatly before we can really praise God. However, isn't God's love enough for us to praise and worship Him? I think so!

In our NT reading today we see Paul's anguish over his peoples response to Jesus. I must admit that this chapter is hard for me to understand, even reading the commentaries I have struggled to understand this chapter. From what I can gather Paul wished to understand why the Jews have rejected Christ. In his mind he can see that the prophets all spoke of Christ and who he would be and he cannot fathom why they cannot accept it. Because they rejected Christ being a "Jew" no longer meant that you were of Jewish line, it meant that you accepted Christ for who He was and what He had to offer. Jews that did not accept Christ believed that they must work for their salvation, Gentile Jews believed that they were saved only by the grace of God. Because of this Jews turned from Christ and Gentiles threw themselves on the throne of grace.

My Prayer:

Lord please forgive me of my sins. I am weak and I know that I let You down, but I also know that You can see my heart. My heart yearns to please You and make You proud. My heart desires to follow and praise You all the days of my life. You are a loving, faithful, forgiving, merciful, just, and awesome God and I am thankful for all that You have done for me.

I love You Lord and I worship Your throne. I lay all that I am and all that I have down at Your feet. God as You know I was discouraged today. Lord I pray that You would help me to see with Your eyes what is going on. Help me to not be discouraged by those that have turned away from this group. Lord I pray that You would give me wisdom to run this College Age group and see it grow in healthy ways.

I worship You Lord and I lay my life down before You. Use me for the glory of Your Kingdom. I love You Lord.