4/30/20 – Delight or Death

 Psalm 112

1Praise the LORD!

Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,

who greatly delights in his commandments!

10 The wicked man sees it and is angry;

he gnashes his teeth and melts away;

the desire of the wicked will perish!

In what do I delight?

Do my delights lead to blessing or death?  See v. 1&10.

“Greatly delights,” is heightened desire.

All of us have desires.  Our desires lead us to life or death.

Life is the intensifying of enjoyment of all right desires, death is a constant diminishing of enjoyment of what we desire until we cease to feel it.

"Giving” ourselves to the desires for which we were created sharpens our sensibilities and heightens the enjoyment.

"Taking" pleasure in those desires contrary to that for which we are made deadens our sensibilities, creates callouses, and makes it harder for us to find joy in our desires. (Eph 4:17-24)

Each played out to its completion (Phil 1:6) leaves us alive or dead. (1 John 2:15-17)

Eph 4:17-24 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Phil 1:6 I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

1 John 2:15-17  Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

4/28/20 - Is Christ the Lord?

Psalm 110

The LORD (yhwh) says to my Lord (âḏôn);

“Sit at my right hand,

until I make your enemies your footstool.”

The LORD (yhwh)  sends forth from Zion

your mighty scepter.

Rule in the midst of your enemies!

Your people will offer themselves freely

on the day of your power,

in holy garments;

from the womb of the morning,

the dew of your youth will be yours.

The LORD (yhwh) has sworn

and will not change his mind,

“You are a priest forever

after the order of Melchizedek.”

The Lord (ăḏônây)  is at your right hand;

he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.

He will execute judgment among the nations,

filling them with corpses;

he will shatter chiefs

over the wide earth.

He will drink from the brook by the way;

therefore he will lift up his head.

Who is this Lord? Christ or David?

Jesus clearly says David is speaking of the Christ.  See cross references, Matt. 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42, 43; Acts 2:34, 35

Note the 3 different Hebrew words for Lord used in this Psalm.

Yhwh - clearly a reference to God.

Adon - if you do the search is used for master, lord, etc. of humans or anyone who is head or ruler of something, house or nation.  This does not rule out it being a reference to The Christ. Jesus interprets it in this way.

Adonay - again a reference to God.  Interestingly it seems to take  "adon" the earthly master/king and combines it with "yhwh," The King/God. Thus pulling together the two "Lords" into One.

This is another wonderful picture of the unity, the Oneness of God.

4/20/20 - The Serpent

Numbers 21:8

And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

Gen. 3:15

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

The symbolism of the serpent.  The serpent was to bruise/bite the heal of the One, the Son of Man, through whom redemption would come.  Here the judgement is coming by serpents, bruising the offspring if the woman.

Redemption comes by looking at the serpent impaled on a cross.  It was, I think, Henry Scogul who called it,  “the death of death by the death on the cross.”  The head of evil bruised by the cross.

Jesus connected the dots as he would say later in John 3:14, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.  The offspring of the woman, The Son of Man, as he called himself, bruising the head of the serpent.

Thanks be to God!

4/18/20 - The First

Numbers 15:18-20

“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land to which I bring you and when you eat of the bread of the land, you shall present a contribution to the LORD. Of the first of your dough you shall present a loaf as a contribution;

When you enter the promised land...“The first.”  The first born son and animals, the first fruits, and even your first dough from the land. Everything a constant reminder that You are first in all things.  All the “firsts” in the law serve as a constant reminder of Your presence and preeminence in every aspect of life.  I do not move through my days with this constantly before me and as a result find myself putting me before You.  May I work toward an ever day walk that begins every new or next thing with a, “To the King” awareness and mindset.  You first in all things.

To the King!

LHM/CHM

4/11/20 - Judged/purified

Psalm 96:11-13

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

let the field exult, and everything in it!

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

before the LORD, for he comes,

for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness,

and the peoples in his faithfulness.

This is the promise of Your coming, O Lord, and the welcoming of it not just by your people but by the cosmos.  Judgement again is not evil or merely destructive and punitive, it is redemptive and restorative, the removal of all that is not holy and all that does not glorify You.  A judged/purified people and earth will increase Your glory and our glorifying.

May it be an anathema to me to mar Your glory, in my own desires and behavior and in my stewardship of your beautiful creation .  LHM/CHM,

Random Thoughts - 4/4/20

Psalm 90

Psalm 90:1-2 Lord, you have been our dwelling place

in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Eternal life is knowing You O Lord, being present to You and with You. Jn. 17.  You are my dwelling place.  Intimacy is the very core of everything. (Trinity)

To experience the reality of this and not the idea is what my heart craves. See vs. 12-14 So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Return, O LORD! How long?

Have pity on your servants!

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Satisfy me this morning with your steadfast love.

This whole Psalm is about time and eternity and it's relationship to the condition of the heart, v. 12, “So teach us to number our days so that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  In v. 3 the return to dust is what happens when our time produces nothing in the eternal.  Time must connect to the eternal and it can only do this through a heart connected to Christ (Col 1,) "All things come together in Christ."  Endurance of anything in the temporal comes only if connected to eternity.

To pass through the vail from temporal to eternal all must pass through  "fire" of judgment which burns away what is not holy, only the holy remains in the eternal?