This God is Our God

Reading in Psalms 48.14 this morning. "For this God is our God forever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death" (KJV). A precious truth; a precious promise.

The precious truth: This God is our refuge in Zion (vs. 2); He is infused with lovingkindness towards his people (vs. 9); this God is our God.

The precious promise: "He will be our guide even unto death."

As Charles Spurgeon points out: "He will be the covenant God of his people world without end. There is no other God, we wish for no other, we would have no other even if there were."

Focus and Growl

In Psalm 119.15, this morning. Two ways of saying the same thing. I will meditate (which means mutter, groan, or growl) on your precepts, meaning I will focus and concentrate and work them through my head again and again until I have them. In the same way, fixing one's eyes on something implies focus and concentration until understanding is gained.

Spurgeon: As the miser often returns to look upon his treasure, so does the devout believer by frequent meditation turn over the priceless wealth which he has discovered in the book of the Lord.

Wicked = Sorrow; Righteous = Surrounded

From Psalms 32.10 this morning, where David contrasts the wicked with those who trust in the Lord. The wicked will have many sorrows, or, as Charles Spurgeon put it: He who sows sin will reap sorrow in heavy sheaves. How empirically true this is. It doesn't matter what their station in life is, or how much money they have, or how well they appear to be doing, their sorrows are many.

Those who trust in the Lord, on the other hand, are surrounded, by God's steadfast love. Spurgeon again works out what that means quite well: Faith in God is the great charmer of life’s cares, and he who possesses it, dwells in an atmosphere of grace, surrounded with the bodyguard of mercies. May it be given to us of the Lord at all times to believe in the mercy of God, even when we cannot see traces of its working, for to the believer, mercy is as all surrounding as omniscience, and every thought and act of God is perfumed with it.

May we believe in the mercy of God, even when we cannot see traces of its working. This is the life of faith.

The Lord Will Hear Us...

...else we have no hope. The essential message of Psalms 28.1. David cries out to the Lord that the Lord would not be deaf to him. Why? Because that is all he has. If the Lord does not hear David, who will hear him?

Just so for us. We have one place to go for help in trouble, to the Lord our God. If he will not hear us, then we are without hope. This is why God is our only rock. If God is silent, then we are hopeless, just like those who go down to the pit. Hear us, O Lord, when we cry out.

The immutable Jehovah is our rock, the immovable foundation of all our hopes and our refuge in time of trouble: we are fixed in our determination to flee to him as our stronghold in every hour of danger. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment, but our rock attends to our cries. Charles Spurgeon

Trusting in "His holy name"

Bible reading highlight is from Ps. 33.21 today. Spurgeon comments: The root of faith in due time bears the flower of rejoicing. Doubts breed sorrow, confidence creates joy.

God Delights in Taking Responsibility

It never ceases to amaze me how God positively delights in taking responsibility for stuff that we would prefer to explain away. Take Psalms 147.17, for instance (my Bible reading highlight for the day). Whatever the natural explanation for snow and ice, the Psalmist claims that God is behind it all, that God is the primary cause. It is God who hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. God is ultimately responsible for all that happens in nature and no one else. He allows earthquakes and natural disasters and storms and the writers of Scripture were never hesitant to assign this to him. It is a breath-taking acceptance of responsibility by God.

As usual, Charles Spurgeon (who is my favorite commentator on the Psalms by far) manages to be both rigorously scriptural and brilliantly devotional at the same time. He writes:

That which God sends, whether it be heat or cold, no man can defy with impunity, but he is happy who bows before it with childlike submission. When we cannot stand before God we will gladly lie at his feet, or nestle under his wings.