January 26th, 2009 Bible Blog

Today's Reading:

Psalms 120-123
1 Corinthians 6

My Response:

Psalms can be so refreshing to read and can really fill my heart with peace even in times of distress. Today is just that sort of case. I have been stressing over employment issues and really all business matters to be quite honest. Then I came to this Psalm for which I am going to post the entire Psalm:

Psalm 121
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.

Okay now if that Psalm doesn't encourage you and I, I don't know what will! First we begin with the simple procedure of where our help comes from. Our help comes solely from God. He is the one that has complete and utter control over every aspect of our lives. The only questions is this, are you and I looking up to the Lord for help? Are we laying our entire lives down at His feet and releasing ourselves to His care? Or are we still trying to control bits and pieces ourselves?

But then we see the promises that the Lord has for our lives, and I do take these as promises. God promises that He will not allow our feet to slip and no harm will befall us. He will watch our coming and our going. Man how amazingly awesome is that! Also we are told that God never sleeps or slumbers, that means that He has our back at all hours of the day or night. There was a book written a few years ago called "God Works the Night Shift", and how great is it that there is nothing that He does not see! What a mighty and awesome God we serve. So many will ask why life isn't filled with more bliss then? Well, unfortunately we do live in a fallen world and we ourselves fall short of God's decrees continually. I believe that it is God's desire to take care of us the way that this Psalm speaks, however, due to the unrighteousness of mankind, we will have struggles. However, we can take great peace and joy in knowing that God still has all of our life in His hands. There is nothing that slips past Him and nothing that He does not foresee. We must only strive to be as righteous as we can living according to His Holy Law. We may fail, but that is why we can be so thankful for the grace that God has shown us through His Son Jesus Christ.

In our NT reading today we see Paul advising the Corinthians that they should deal with their own disputes within the Chruch rather than bringing them to the public courts. The worldly courts operate out of ungodly judgement for they do not follow all that God desires. We need to take our cases to God's body and allow, through prayerful sharing, our brothers/sisters in Christ to assist in the decisions of who was right and who was wrong.

But later on in this reading Paul goes into something along these same lines that I think we as Christians could stand to learn from:

1 Corinthians 6:7-8
7The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.

Why can't we simply deal with the fact that our brothers/sisters in Christ are human just as we are and thus they are flawed. Why can't we just accept the fact that we will be wronged from time to time by those within the body and simply release them from their failures. Isn't that what God did for us when He sent His Son Jesus Christ. God forgave us of our debts and our trespasses while we were still unworthy. I believe that if we all could live with this attitude we could be more effective as a body of Christ.

My Prayer:

Lord You know how I am feeling right now. Lord I pray that You would help me to release this stress that I am currently feeling. God help me to trust solely in You and all that You are doing in my life. I know Lord that I can trust in You. I know that placing my trust in anything else would be absolutely foolish and so I lay my life down before You.

God please deal with this situation that has arose. I pray Lord that You would help mend the broken down walls once again and pick up the pieces. Lord I praise Your mighty name. You are my King and I submit all that I am and all that I have to Your throne.

Thank You for Your promises Lord and thank You for all that You are doing for me and my family. I pray that You would continue to provide for Sun Glow and bring work to us. You are my God and nothing good comes to me that You have not given out. I praise and worship Your holy name.