Month: October 2018

Morning Musing: Psalm 50:13-14

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“Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High…”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

One of the mistakes the people of Israel were making all the time was thinking that God was like the gods of the various nations around them. They were guilty of a confusion of categories. And, we shouldn’t be so terribly surprised by this. All the gods ever invented by people have been basically the same. Sure there have been differences in detail and form, but they have always been a reflection of the people who made them and people are people. But God is different. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Samuel 24:5-6

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“And afterward David’s heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. He said to his men, ‘The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord ‘s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord ‘s anointed.’”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had the opportunity to take a shortcut? Sometimes shortcuts can be a good thing. We went to the Cincinnati Zoo this past summer. It was a great zoo, but it came near the end of several days out of town, all of which had involved a pretty hefty load of walking. Trying to cover every square inch of the place was going to be more than three sets of little legs was going to be able to handle. Fortunately, there were a few shortcuts to get from one place to another that allowed us to see nearly everything without walking all of it. That was a good shortcut. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 2 Chronicles 14:11-12

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“And Asa cried to the Lord his God, ‘O Lord, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.’ So the Lord defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah, and the Ethiopians fled.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

This is a simple point, really, but one worth repeating over and over again because of how easily we forget it. When we face problems that both seem and are in fact beyond what we can handle, we need to turn to the Lord in prayer. There and only there will we find the hope and help we need to overcome whatever is before us. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Samuel 23:12

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“Then David said, “Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” And the Lord said, “They will surrender you.””  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever done something good only to have it blow up in your face? Have you ever given of yourself somehow to help someone else only to have them either throw it back in your face or else stab you in the back later? There’s an old adage that one good turn deserves another, but more often life seems to work out by way of a more cynical adage: No good deed goes unpunished. Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 27:1

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“Then David said in his heart, ‘Now I shall perish one day by the hand of Saul. There is nothing better for me than that I should escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of seeking me any longer within the borders of Israel, and I shall escape out of his hand.’”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you ever had a moment or even a whole season when your faith failed? I don’t mean you failed to keep faith, I mean it just like I said: Your faith failed. You had faith and things were rocking along fairly smoothly even in spite of the challenging season you were in, and then it was just gone. It was like you were driving a car down the highway, cruising down the road, and then all of a sudden it made a sharp turn off the road and headed out into the wilderness. This is what happened to David. Read the rest…