Category: Psalms

Prayer of Ascent

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

I try not to dwell on Covid-19 day after day in these devotionals. The pandemic is serious and it is often on our minds, but I hope to keep the message of Jesus Christ ahead of all other messages, regardless of our circumstances.

If you follow the daily lectionary, however, you might notice that the readings for today, Tuesday and Wednesday use the same psalm reading, Psalm 130. I’m hoping we can join together and pray this psalm over three days as a cry for relief from this disease.

Covid-19 is not as devastating as many plagues and famines experienced through history, but its effects are certainly bad enough, and it is wise to root ourselves in the same prayerful attitude as our spiritual ancestors.

As you read through this psalm, along with a little commentary I’m providing, hold in your hearts a request for a miracle. We seek a powerful, global sign from God as Covid-19 is driven out of our lives globally.

A song for pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem.

The psalm’s heading places us on a spiritual journey. I know we have work, school, doctors’ appointments and such—even with our world partially shut down, we remain such busy people. But can we adopt the pilgrim mindset for just a few days? Can we make our own ascent toward a holy place, toward a shared memory of Christ on the cross?

All three days, let’s take a few extra moments to settle into a time of quiet, saying to ourselves, “Right now, even if it’s only in my imagination, I’m going up to see the one who saves the world.”

From the depths of despair, O Lord,
    I call for your help.
Hear my cry, O Lord.
    Pay attention to my prayer.

This is a fervent petition, one lifted by a broken people, a people who have seen the troubling effects of their own sins and the broad effects of sin on the world. As we pray, we should be like the Canaanite woman in Sunday’s Gospel reading, desperately persistent, trusting that the tiniest crumbs of grace will make all the difference.

Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,
    who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But you offer forgiveness,
    that we might learn to fear you.

As Christians, we have a particular understanding of how this forgiveness is granted. See that cross; see the weight of the world’s sins on Christ’s shoulders. The record of our sins is expunged, and we undeservedly are found to be holy and worthy of eternal life with God. The stone is rolled away from the tomb, the resurrection is proof! Sin and death are defeated! Finding ourselves in a renewed relationship with God, we know all kinds of restoration are possible now.

I am counting on the Lord;
    yes, I am counting on him.
    I have put my hope in his word.
I long for the Lord
    more than sentries long for the dawn,
    yes, more than sentries long for the dawn.

Knowing what has been done for us, we should experience a deep longing for the Lord. In his word, recorded in his Scripture, we are able to discern right from wrong, and we simultaneously begin to see a bare outline of what a remarkable experience it must be to live in the full light of God.

Let’s root our longing for healing from Covid-19 in that deeper longing to be in the full presence of the risen Savior. And let us trust that dawn is coming—that the long night will end.

O Israel, hope in the Lord;
    for with the Lord there is unfailing love.
    His redemption overflows.
He himself will redeem Israel
    from every kind of sin.

Lord, Covid-19 is a sign of the world’s brokenness. As you drive it away, may we also see a clear sign of your unfailing love and your desire for our redemption, and may we have the courage to declare what we see. Amen.

The Well-Guarded Path

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Psalm 1 (NRSV)

Happy are those
   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
   or sit in the seat of scoffers;

but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
   and on his law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees
   planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
   and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so,
   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked will perish.

Understand God’s will and live according to it, and you will find joy, prospering in all you do. Ignore God’s will, and life will be misery and loss. It is a classic theme of wisdom literature from the Near East.

On the surface, these are beautiful ideas, concepts that fit our desire for justice. Without further development, though, they can at times seem quite empty.

If Psalm 1 represented the only theme of Scripture, I would have long ago discarded my study of the Bible. The idea being expressed does not consistently match the reality of what we observe.

Too often, seemingly good people suffer. Too often, the wicked flourish. Fortunately, Psalm 1 is just one part of an elaborate picture.

The Book of Job is an equally ancient piece of wisdom literature, and it takes us in a whole different direction. You may remember the story of Job. As it begins, he fits the pattern described in Psalm 1. He is a righteous man, walking with God and prospering mightily in terms of family and wealth.

The problem arises when Satan goes to God and speculates that Job is righteous simply because life is so good for him. Let me strike at him, Satan says, and Job will curse you, God. First, Satan is allowed to strike Job’s possessions and family. Later he’s allowed to strike at Job himself, afflicting him with terrible diseases.

In all of this, Job does not curse God, and he does not relent in his assertion to friends that he has done nothing wrong. He does complain mightily at times, though, and once he begins, he moves beyond his own problems and complains about how the wicked flourish and abuse the righteous, including orphans and widows, and God seems to do nothing.

You reach a story like Job’s in Scripture, and you realize the Bible deals with some very deep subjects. We may not find satisfying answers in Job to these deep questions about evil’s persistence, but at least the questions are asked. (There is a hint in Job 19 regarding the answer to come centuries later.)

This is why it is so important for us to engage with the Bible continually throughout our lives. If we hear what seem like simple stories and lessons as children, but never return to the Bible as we experience more complex lives, we will think Scripture is irrelevant. And in the process, we will miss so much that is useful as we grow older.

When Jesus arrives in the Bible story, his teachings help us wrestle with the deeper questions while simultaneously emphasizing the early truths we have learned.

Parables are a good example. Jesus uses them to perplex us until we ponder for a while, and in pondering we discover powerful new truths. Through Jesus, we learn that God loves us in ways the Jews had scarcely imagined. God pours out on the world what seems, from our perspective, to be a most illogical love, a love unearned and undeserved.

At the same time, Jesus teaches us to never let go of what we learned from the start. We are to come to God with the faith of a child.

Thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, it is possible for us to be placed on God’s holy path simply by believing. That alone is enough to align us with God. We are made righteous and good even though we don’t deserve these labels, and all we have to do is remain firmly planted in the grace God offers. And by the way, in the end, right and wrong will be sorted out.

Psalm 1 is true. It simply needs to be read in the context of the whole Bible story.

Lord, may we rest in a secure understanding that you are the source of righteousness, and then live accordingly. Amen.

Keep Reading

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Psalm 149 (NLT)

Praise the Lord!

Sing to the Lord a new song.
    Sing his praises in the assembly of the faithful.

O Israel, rejoice in your Maker.
    O people of Jerusalem, exult in your King.
Praise his name with dancing,
    accompanied by tambourine and harp.
For the Lord delights in his people;
    he crowns the humble with victory.
Let the faithful rejoice that he honors them.
    Let them sing for joy as they lie on their beds.

What a lovely little psalm. There is singing and dancing, the air alive with the sound of instruments. Day and night, the people rejoice. The psalm continues, too!

Let the praises of God be in their mouths,
    and a sharp sword in their hands—
to execute vengeance on the nations
    and punishment on the peoples,
to bind their kings with shackles
    and their leaders with iron chains,
to execute the judgment written against them.
    This is the glorious privilege of his faithful ones.

Praise the Lord!

Hmmmm. Suddenly, Psalm 149 is a little less lovely. Swords, shackles and vengeance bring a kind of darkness to this psalm we might not have expected.

The Bible is full of sudden turns like this. A lot of devotionals and sermons deal with these startling disparities simply by stopping short, ending the selection of verses before the disturbance brought on by the new thought begins. I understand why—for the sake of brevity, and in an effort to get one clear point across without muddying the devotional or sermon too much, stopping short is sometimes necessary.

We still need, however, to learn to deal with these incongruities, so we are better equipped as believers to help seekers who naturally may be put off by such passages.

Perspective is important. Remember, these texts are very old, meaning they were written in a time when a lot of our ideas about what constitutes civilized behavior had yet to develop. The psalm we’re reading today is at least 2,500 years old, and maybe older.

Understanding this, we’re starting in the wrong place if we critique these texts from a modern viewpoint. Texts like our psalm carry within them what were at the time new revelations about how God’s people should relate to their creator and to one another.

Many of those ideas grew to become the basis of what we now think of as modern, civilized behavior. We should not be critical of the people who first began to comprehend revelations of God’s holiness and God’s desire to save a remnant from the effects of sin.

As Isaac Newton said, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

When Jesus came on the scene centuries after this psalm to expand our understanding of God’s love and grace, he was not afraid to draw on what had been taught through his Jewish culture thus far. God is over all things and above all things. God redeems his people, and Jesus came as God in flesh to prove this point.

And yet, even in gentle Jesus’ teachings, it is clear that what is opposed to God ultimately will face God’s wrath. God has never wavered on that point.

Jesus used a metaphorical sword, and he expected us to pick it up and use it against the enemies of God. I am talking about speaking the truth of who God is and what God is doing through Jesus Christ to restore a broken world. This truth cuts through the political machinations and outright lies of the worldly nations.

This “sword of truth” imagery is most vivid in the final book of the Bible, Revelation, where the author has a vision of Christ completing his work in the world.

“Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself. He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his title was the Word of God. The armies of heaven, dressed in the finest of pure white linen, followed him on white horses. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress. On his robe at his thigh was written this title: King of all kings and Lord of all lords.” (Revelation 19:11-16.)

The ancient Israelites felt called to take up their swords and impose shackles in obedience to God, delivering primitive lessons about holiness in what we now consider primitive times. We are called to do similar work with restorative words and sacrificial acts, following Jesus’ lead as the bringer of truth. And God’s truth shall reign.

Lord, thank you for the revelations you have given humanity about your nature since before recorded history began. May the truth of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior be evident to all very soon. Amen.

Constant God, Constant Praise

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor
Psalm 105:1-6
Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness.
    Let the whole world know what he has done.
Sing to him; yes, sing his praises.
    Tell everyone about his wonderful deeds.
Exult in his holy name;
    rejoice, you who worship the Lord.
Search for the Lord and for his strength;
    continually seek him.
Remember the wonders he has performed,
    his miracles, and the rulings he has given,
you children of his servant Abraham,
    you descendants of Jacob, his chosen ones.

We are called to praise regardless of whether we perceive the times as good or bad. God is eternal, God is constant and unchanging, and God has revealed his loving nature to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

God is the one outside and over all creation. Having made us, God naturally should define our purpose for existing. We were made to praise God.

It helps, as the psalm says, to remember, too. Remember the great stories of God’s work, dwelling in the ones that move you. Search the Scriptures to discover those stories as you praise continually.

Remember the very personal encounters you’ve had with God—the moment you realized Jesus Christ had died to save you, the times God sustained you through what seemed unbearable, the gifts of people and events that helped you understand there is more to creation than what we immediately see and hear.

If you’re feeling particularly down, take a seat and make a list with the heading, “How God Has Blessed Me.” You’ll see, it will not stay blank for long.

Then praise him some more.

Lord, you are mighty, you are holy, and yet you stay in the moment with us. Thank you so much. Amen.

Evening Prayer

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor
Psalm 17:1-7. A Prayer of David.

O Lord, hear my plea for justice.
    Listen to my cry for help.
Pay attention to my prayer,
    for it comes from honest lips.
Declare me innocent,
    for you see those who do right.

You have tested my thoughts and examined my heart in the night.
    You have scrutinized me and found nothing wrong.
    I am determined not to sin in what I say.
I have followed your commands,
    which keep me from following cruel and evil people.
My steps have stayed on your path;
    I have not wavered from following you.

I am praying to you because I know you will answer, O God.
    Bend down and listen as I pray.
Show me your unfailing love in wonderful ways.
    By your mighty power you rescue
    those who seek refuge from their enemies.

At first glance, I find this prayerful psalm puzzling—perhaps even frustrating. It seems to have been prayed by one who believes himself to be without sin, making the prayer irrelevant to me.

Stranger still, it’s clearly marked as a “prayer of David,” certainly a man loved by God, but also a known sinner. David’s recorded story pulls no punches about his failures, the worst of them being adultery with Bathsheba and the arranged betrayal and murder of her husband Uriah.

A deeper reading, however, reveals the particular context for this prayer. David may have been imperfect—what human isn’t—but it seems he was in a situation where he was not at fault, and he sought vindication and protection from his enemies.

Now this prayer is starting to make sense. Perhaps it is even useful!

David asked to be tested. Such a request can come only after much introspection. Specifically, David had sought and apparently continued to seek that his words and actions be tested in the night, knowing his faults from the prior day would be revealed to him in the morning.

Sleep does reveal much. For people who actively seek God’s will, the night can either be filled with regretful tossing or peaceful rest. At this point in his life, David apparently rested well, receiving assurance God was with him.

Living in a different time than David, we know more clearly than he how God has rescued us from our ultimate enemies, the evil and death that result from sin. Jesus Christ has broken the power of both, and through our belief in his work on the cross, we are saved.

What remains is to align ourselves with our holy God more closely each day. We can begin by living in the light—living as people who know they will make it their evening prayer that they be examined through the night.

Lord, may we be conscious of your will not only day by day, but moment by moment. Amen.

Psalm 119, Day 3

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

We continue our exploration of Psalm 119:105-112, meditating on the last two verses.

Your laws are my treasure; they are my heart’s delight.

I love that verse. It could be spoken only by a person who has turned to God in full. There is no fear of retribution or condemnation. Such a person understands that the law gives life!

Everything written about God, including God’s laws, paints a portrait of the one who first loves us, and who in turn becomes the object of our love and eternal gratitude.

Walking with God and having no fear, it’s only natural to want to treasure and examine what is of God. Would you fear exploring the varied and sometimes unusual objects in a beloved grandmother’s house? Of course not—they tell you so much about her, and what is important to her.

Let’s say the last verse as a prayer: I am determined to keep your decrees to the very end.

Amen!

Here are all our verses from the last three days:

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet
    and a light for my path.
I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again:
    I will obey your righteous regulations.
I have suffered much, O Lord;
    restore my life again as you promised.
Lord, accept my offering of praise,
    and teach me your regulations.
My life constantly hangs in the balance,
    but I will not stop obeying your instructions.
The wicked have set their traps for me,
    but I will not turn from your commandments.
Your laws are my treasure;
    they are my heart’s delight.
I am determined to keep your decrees
    to the very end.

Psalm 119, Day 2

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Let’s continue our meditation on Psalm 119:105-112. Yesterday, we got through the first two verses; we’re picking up at verse 107.

I have suffered much, O Lord; restore my life again as you promised.

Our lives exist in the midst of a sin-broken world, and suffering is a given. Absent an understanding of God, life at times might not seem worth living. But we know God, and we know he is the God of hope.

Almost immediately after human sin fractured this world, God went to work making our restoration possible. He made promises in the process. For example, he told Abraham that eventually, “All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

The culmination of that work is in Jesus Christ, God in flesh walking among us and dying on the cross to break the hold sin had on us. Restoration is ours.

Lord, accept my offering of praise, and teach me your regulations.

We do not fully understand God’s plan or God’s timing, of course. First Corinthians 13:12: “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”

But it is enough to know we are saved! The gift of eternal life and its accompanying joy, a joy we can experience now, should trigger great acts of praise. It also should be natural for us to want to understand God’s will and abide by it. The pursuit of holiness is the obvious way to say thanks and signal others that our lives are truly changed.

My life constantly hangs in the balance, but I will not stop obeying your instructions. The wicked have set their traps for me, but I will not turn from your commandments.

Hey, back to the here and now. Life with God currently can still be hard—bad things happen to good people. Preachers of the so-called prosperity gospel mislead their flocks.

We find ourselves thrown into a spiritual war, a battle for the souls of those who have yet to commit to God through Jesus Christ, and the enemy will shoot back. Like soldiers, we must discipline ourselves. Some commitment is required.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk a little more about joy.

Lord, we thank you for the salvation and hope we are given. Again, guide us down the paths you would have us follow! Amen.

Psalm 119, Day 1

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Let’s take a portion of a psalm familiar to many, Psalm 119:105-112, and meditate on it line-by-line for a few days. The first line is the basis of a well-known song, “Thy Word,” written by Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. They were working from the King James Version; I think I will use one of my favorites, the New Living Translation. I pray the brief thoughts I have will trigger some thoughts of your own.

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet, and a light for my path.

I spend a lot of time emphasizing the importance of Scripture. I feel obligated to do so; too often, the incredible wealth of information about God and God’s plan to rescue humanity from sin is ignored or distorted, despite God’s word being more available now than ever.

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing this sentence, sometimes uttered by churchgoers: “Well, I don’t know what the Bible says about [fill in the blank], but I know what I think.” Christians, we should always base our thinking on what the Bible says. This Spirit-driven revelation goes back not just decades or centuries, but millennia. The most important truths found here are timeless.

I prefer to light what can be a very dark path with a lamp that has proven effective for uncountable generations. Certainly, we can receive a word from God now, through prayer and meditation, or through someone speaking prophetically, filled with the Holy Spirit. But what we hear in those instances will not conflict with what we find in the Holy Bible.

I’ve promised it once, and I’ll promise it again: I will obey your righteous regulations.

As Christians, we have to process this line a little. Obviously, we don’t follow Jewish law to the letter anymore. The bacon cheeseburger I recently had for lunch is proof enough.

We are a people who understand that Jesus Christ focused on the deeper intent of the law, encouraging us to seek a kind of holiness that penetrates our very souls rather than simply restraining our actions. When asked to summarize the law, Jesus made it fairly simple: Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbors as you would love yourself. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus also made sure the definition of “neighbor” is quite broad.

We also have to develop the ability to discern the scriptural context of regulations. Were they meant for a specific time and community, or are they universal, tied to the very fabric of God’s creation? We focus upon the latter regulations, of course.

Tomorrow, we’ll consider what this psalm tells us about the burdensome aspects of life.

Lord, may your word guide us this day, and when we find ourselves in the dark, may we boldly explore Scripture for enlightenment. Amen.

Put in Place

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor
Psalm 131:1-3

Lord, my heart is not proud;
    my eyes are not haughty.
I don’t concern myself with matters too great
    or too awesome for me to grasp.
Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
    like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
    Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—
    now and always.

Scripture can be tough on free thinkers. The Bible reminds us from time to time that our thoughts must be kept in place.

If you’re an American, even a Christian American, there’s a good chance you’re already wriggling with discomfort. The idea of submission can sound very negative to us—it seems in conflict with favorite words like “freedom” and “independence.”

And yet, the notion of humility before God is a constant theme of the Bible. With no reference to the Garden of Eden or forbidden fruit, the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1 about haughty, foolish thinking being the root of sin. Paul’s account does us a great service—he helps us see how we personally cause the cycle of sin to continue.

We also could categorize our problem as “overthinking.” We take our eyes off plain revelations about God to create notions of our own, a process that inevitably leads to idolatry. Our desire to be novel can quickly cut us off from what is eternal.

Real freedom, the psalmist tells us, is found when we humble ourselves, maintaining proper perspective about who we are in relationship to God. As Christians, we know we cannot grasp God in full, but we can cling to what God has shown us through Holy Spirit-inspired Scripture. 

God is the maker of all things, standing outside of creation and ruling over creation. God also is love, and because of love God keeps intervening to pull us back into a righteous relationship with our creator and with each other, despite our ongoing foolishness.

In particular, God has come among us as Jesus Christ, dying on the cross and demonstrating the defeat of death in the resurrection. We are restored to right relationships simply by believing Christ’s sacrifice is real.

Belief also should lead to enhanced creativity—it opens the door to the eternal mind of God. When we submit to the truth of the cross, the Spirit of God rushes into our lives, penetrating our souls and our minds. We become more than we ever could have been on our own, and we are freed to grow into the images of God we were intended to be.

These are broad concepts, but they have very current, specific applications. As a nation, we are embroiled by a serious, important debate, one that goes to how we best ensure that people have the same rights and opportunities regardless of skin color. The debate has been deeply complicated by a piling on of ideas and causes, some possibly holy, some likely foolish.

Is there any way we can take a step back and humble ourselves, putting our opinions and decisions in the context of who God is and what God has revealed? I cannot ask that of nonbelievers, but I certainly can ask it of people who claim the name “Christian.”

The ongoing debate is sometimes summarized in the question, “Should I take a knee?” Perhaps the Christian answer should be to get down on both knees, head bowed. That posture best prepares us for any conversation.

Lord, may we take time today to seek eternal wisdom, and may the Holy Spirit give us the strength we need to carry our understanding of your will to the places and people we affect. Amen.