Author: Ross Blumhorst

This last Sunday, a family of missionaries visiting home stationed in southern Asia spoke at our church. One woman shared a personal witness: after their offices opened up after months of strict restrictions, she was having a friendly conversation with a cleaning lady as she scrubbed the floor. Within sentences, this woman broke down, telling through tears of how her mother passed away recently, she was taking care of her daughter alone without help, and barely wanted to be alive anymore, only hanging on for her daughter. In the face of this display of desperate hopelessness, the missionary told this lady about Jesus, and the hope she had found in Him. She describes the resulting change in this woman as miraculous: as she put it, “she had been changed. This woman’s situation was still the same, but now she had hope in Jesus.”

That tale of a transformative hope has been in my mind as I’ve considered this passage this week, and John 3:16 especially, in its popular evangelical context. To millions of people who haven’t heard the Gospel, learning the truth of God’s gift of salvation is entirely life-changing. What was once darkness and despair becomes light and joy. For us who’ve been believers and surrounded in this truth for many years, it can be dangerously easy to grow too comfortable in this knowledge. But there’s a reason that passage has been shared time and time again: it summarizes the greatest act of mercy and gifting of the most everlasting gift we didn’t deserve but received nonetheless; a love and deliverance from evil that could only come from the Most High God. A hope, not in the shifting and temporary distractions of this world, but a hope in something eternal, constant, and genuinely worthwhile. Hope not in the works of our own hands which is sure to fade away, but the work God has accomplished through His faithfulness. For people who haven’t heard the Gospel yet, John 3:16 changes life itself. When I hear & experience others experiencing that discovery for the first time, I am thankful for the reminder of how indispensable to a joyous, meaningful life He truly is

Romans 15 describes what the gift of Jesus should do for us: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Paul goes on to describe his ambition to preach the word to others, quoting Isaiah 52:15: “For that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.” The hope we abound in is not to be kept to ourselves: It is through the joy of Christ in us that we share His name and His work with all the people of the world who haven’t heard, both near and far. All that they may see, understand, and know this hope as we do. Today I say a prayer of thanks for an indispensable hope in Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, and would pray this for you all as well; that we may help those who have not seen God’s light or heard His word make that discovery today, by joyfully sharing the hope found in Christ with those who need it.

Today’s reading is Luke 14.

This passage today has me asking myself the convicting question: who are the good deeds of my faith for? Obviously when I am moved to be charitable & gracious & help those in need as Christ commands, I am moved by the Lord: but is my intention purely to glorify & magnify Him? Or deep within my heart, am I being a good Christian out of self-gratification? Or only in ways that could benefit me or reflect nicely on me? Or even done solely to please and gratify other people? In answer of these tough questions, I think of Psalm 75: “For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.” Jesus’s words in these parables make me look deep inside, examine my own actions, and ask very difficult questions about what drives me, and grow more exuberant to help those in need and to grow as both man and believer.

These days, we’re stuck with a modern culture of both over- and under-investment. We all are bombarded with so many obligations and distractions it can be difficult to find the time to go out of our way to give the proper time to important matters; while on the flip-side, this makes it incredibly easy to not fully commit, instead using our plethora of options to conveniently be able to back out of things we don’t feel strongly enough about partaking in or inconvenienced by. From solely personal experience, this can happen in all sorts of people from all walks of life, but gets more common as you look at younger and younger people, who are most accustomed to this modern life of detachment. No high horse here though – it’s definitely something I’ve been guilty of, which is why this passage hits me hard. But like in many ways, what we perceive as solely modern issues have been struggled with in various ways for much longer than expected. Christ’s parable on the Great Banquet in v12-14 demonstrates this all too well – how this lack of commitment and search for ways out have been spiritual struggles since biblical times. We have been called to partake in a great celebration at God’s side, and of course we all want to partake. But have we all considered the cost of entry?

When we are loving and generous as Christians, it can’t always be convenient, or proper, or self-satisfying. It can be easy to internally rationalize away our need to act in love in difficult times, or in ways that could not possibly benefit ourself, or in ways that may just be irrational and incomprehensible from a merely earthly perspective. But Jesus very clearly explains what awaits those who won’t pay the cost to accept the reward of the Kingdom of Heaven: “For I tell you, ‘None of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” Instead, in these parables, Christ encourages us to put loving those in need & growing the Kingdom of Heaven above our own selfish pursuits, or earthly gain, and even our loved ones. Not that enriching things such as self-growth, hard work, and family are at all evil or detestable – but that we must not put them before God, as if to hate them in comparison.

Especially important to me is the Parable of the Wedding Feast in v.7-11. Jesus calls us to humble ourselves so that we may be exalted when the time of the Feast arrives. Who better to command this than Jesus! Phillipians 2:5-8 tells us this: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Our Lord and Savior acts as the ultimate example of humble love, giving everything He had to bring others to God and display His love. This selfless display embodies humility, love, and honor. This is the important essence of accepting lower and lesser positions of honor and celebration in various regards of life: not so we can grovel or gain pity at our own lot in life, but in how we could share in what we’ve been blessed with alongside those whom we’ve been humbled enough to serve as Christ might.

It warms my heart to see frequent examples of Christians embodying true Gospel love. Through giving above & beyond, spending their time feeding & caring after the poor, traveling far across the globe to lend a hand and the good news of Jesus to those with far less than us, even showing love & forgiveness to others expecting no reward or reciprocation. I thank the Lord for how he moves His followers to humble themselves to exalt Him, and pray He would continue to do so through the actions of each of us. I pray that I could lower myself to aid those who need it more so every day, in the hopes that His name would be raised & praised in the process. And I pray the same for all of us; that we may lower our own needs to put His call & His invitation above any other priority.

Today’s entry is on Luke 2. 

I wrote a journal entry on Luke 2 back for Christmas this past year. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty tempted to just go back and copy-paste that journal for today. But coming back to this passage has me revisiting my past thoughts, and reliving the Christmas spirit. I wrote, way back in December, how Christmas was “a day to focus on & be moved by God’s works, to treasure His gifts and to share them with the world through our own one-of-a-kind voice and praises.” Well now in the thick of a blazing-hot summer, revisiting this has me reflecting on how strongly this still applies. Do the movings & praises of your heart from back on Christmas Day those long eight-ish months ago still ring true? Are you still just as fired up and driven to sing & share your joy for the miraculous birth of a savior to those who haven’t heard, as this Gospel was intended to? Is your response to the gift of a savior continually push you to learn & grow in new ways?

I was struck with another impression from this passage recently: how Jesus grew. Starting out a wee baby, he followed His parents and learned from the elders in the Temple, listening and learning and asking questions as any of us would. In verse 52, mentioning “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” God is all-knowing, all-encompassing – yet through Christ, humbled Himself among man and experienced first-hand the plight of being without knowledge; and in being driven through passion for God’s word, pursuing a life of growth and understanding about God’s nature and our place within His kingdom. When we see the birth of Jesus, we’re not only painted the picture of the miracle of God’s fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy and our Savior’s birth, but through Christ’s example, how we are to be moved by that, and called to action to grow in faithful devotion accordingly. (2 Peter 3:17-18 – “Take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”)

In Paul’s letters to Timothy, he wrote of devoting himself to learning and growing: “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” (1 Timothy 4:13-15). His request is one I believe echos timelessly to us all. The gift from God of a savior to die in our sin’s stead was the greatest act of mercy and grace we have ever received, one that we commemorate and act upon on Christmas. But as that savior grew and devoted Himself to learning and teaching, our emotional reaction must prompt (and be followed through on) a physical one; a greater need for knowledge, an ever-mightier spiritual thirst for the Living Water found in Christ Jesus. It can be easy for us to idle in our faith without realizing: becoming content with who we are and what we know, not prioritizing continued depth in our relationship with God. Happens to me sometimes, as it can happen to us all. But as Romans 12:11 reminds us, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” Do you remain on fire spiritually? Does the gift of Jesus continue to spurn devotion to reading, exalting, and teaching the word of Christ to the world within you?

Whether they know it or not, every person has encountered Christ moving in their life. Some of us have even been blessed enough to realize it! Reading Mark 5 strikes me with two conflicting views of what happens when people experience an encounter with Jesus. We have the demon-possessed man from Gerasenes, driven to isolation and self-harm by the evil spirits within him. And on the other, a woman, stricken with profuse endless bleeding, seeking healing in a touch of Jesus’s robes.

Both of these people recognize the truth about Jesus, that He alone wields righteous power and authority over evil. Both of these people, in their time, would have been considered ritually unclean, to be cast out and separated from worship and community; the demons Legion, causing their host undue suffering with an affinity to graves & corpses and dangerous behavior, and the woman because of the ritual uncleanliness marked by her unceasing menstruation. I can imagine both of these individuals trudging so long through hopelessness and misery within their afflictions. Yet when face-to-face with Jesus, both have very different reactions. The man’s inner demons show fear and panic; the woman, a desperate hope and trust in the power of drawing close to Christ.

It seems many of us want to come to Christ on our own terms, in our own timeframe. But when Christ moves in you and you become painfully aware of your uncleanness and sin, and have the opportunity to surrender that to God, will you run in terror from the Truth as the Devil’s servants did in the presence of the Lord, or will you do everything in what power you have to experience God’s saving grace as the bleeding woman? Clearly, both these experiences involved recognizing the divine authority Jesus wielded (James 2:19 – “Even the demons believe – and shudder!”). I think even in these stories, we can see allegories of our own possible experiences in being called to face our own unholiness. When the Holy Spirit stirs your heart to recognize and confront your sin, do you accept Jesus’s authority while clinging to hope in your broken self, or with joyous hope for healing and redemption? We know both these people found the same redemption offered to us through Christ.(Ephesians 1:7 – “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace!”)

I wholeheartedly believe God commands all might over illness and death, as I’ve experienced through prayers, witnesses, and much practice & patience. But more so than just physical illness and pain – He wipes clean spiritual uncleanness and sickness. Psalm 30 proclaims “O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit.” Or 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God sent His only begotten Son to offer Himself up for our forgiveness of sins, and as our bridge to eternity with God; all we need to do is confront, confess, and surrender our sins. When prompted with this decision, will you cling pridefully to your inner demons and flee from redemption as so many people do today, or will you reach out and accept the cleansing power of His blood in your own life?

Reading Matthew 18 & 19 this week has brought to mind the presence of humility in my life, and what it looks like to me to humble myself before God. In chapter 18, Jesus answers the question of the greatest among those in heaven with a nearby child, saying “unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Looking through the lens of Matthew’s focus on telling the Gospel for Jewish audiences, we should consider how kids were generally treated in that day & age. While loved & a blessing, kids were generally viewed more of extensions of the family, less of their own people & more of familial property: to quietly learn by observing, not speaking out, and being subject completely to the rule of their parents over their own autonomy. Seen & not heard, as it were.

Jesus is a paragon of the humility and submission before God’s will we should embody (in the garden of Gethsemane – “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” – Matthew 26:42). I think of Jesus’s parables & responses in these passages, and reflect on how I too can be a more humble man. Peter says in 1 Peter 5:5-6, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.” In my daily life, am I humbling myself under the mighty hand of God? Are my decisions based on my own pride & self-interest, or based off how God is moving my heart during prayer? Am I humbling myself to His greater command, considering myself His subject, or is a haughty heart trying to convince me I can do it alone? Do I view my actions towards others & my opinions of them through eyes of humility and righteousness, seeing myself as equally dead in sin as others, or through blind eyes of judgement, contempt, and scorn? Do others see these qualities in me as an act of service and a demonstration of my resurrection through Christ?

Matthew 18 & 19 offer many different convicting examples of how we’re called to humble ourselves before God & others. From valuing being righteous and obedient to God (and leading others to do the same) over anything in this world, even physical life itself; to putting joy in others finding salvation over our own wellbeing in the Parable of the Lost Sheep; seeking forgiveness and mercy for those who’ve wronged you & are indebted to you, as God has forgiven you in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant; submitting yourself to God’s plan for your marriage if you’re so called, fully committing to forgiveness of your spouse and God’s bestowed love (and in honoring God in your sexuality, married or not); even submitting your finances to God’s will, putting doing good works in His name and helping the needy with your money above using or hoarding it beyond your needs. Seems like many issues stemming from putting focus on the self over focus on the greater haven’t changed too much over these thousands of years!

Simply put, being a humble person is about thinking less about yourself, and more about God. It is joyously accepting and following the path God has laid for you rather than forging your own twisted trail. It is putting your ego aside to help others as our savior Jesus did, and as He commands us to as well. I pray you would ponder and follow Jesus’s words in these passages today, and better lead others to more blameless lives, be a more forgiving and understanding person even in the face of those who wrong you, and live with intention and thoughtfulness of God’s will in all aspects of your life. Psalm 138:6 says “for though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly, but the haughty He knows from afar.” I would pray you would draw close to the Lord today in humble spirit and find grace in His presence, so that we may please Him and better proclaim His good name to this world.

Today’s writing is on Matthew 1 & 2.

With the conclusion of the book of Psalms yesterday, for the remainder of the year, our Bible Journal’s going to be shifting on covering the entirety of the New Testament. Please pray alongside us that our Father God would empower us and fill us with His Holy Spirit throughout this new series, so that we may continue bringing glory to Him.

With a change in series, and the halfway point for 2021 coming up shortly, it feels like a good moment for self-reflection. What has this year looked like for you? Has it felt like forever at this point, as if time has crawled to a standstill? Maybe you’re like me, and this last half-year has flown by in what feels like a blink. What has your walk with Christ looked like in that time? In what ways did you do well, and in what ways did you make mistakes to learn from? How did you navigate the difficulties that life has brought you in that time, and How did you call upon God for help through them when you needed Him? And how have you furthered your relationship with Christ, and come to grow closer to Him?

I read these two chapters of Matthew and see the cumulative effects of many people whose walks with God differ wildly. Some of these people in Christ’s genealogy were on fire for Him; some were very wicked people. Some worked towards building God’s kingdom out of hard work & reverence; for others, God used their mistakes and sins to create a way to bring glory to Him and demonstrate His true influence over man. God is working His plan for this world, whether we’re helping make a way for Him or just getting in the way. Whether it’s by doing good works to build up His kingdom, or displaying His ability to heal & change us, or simply acting as a vessel for His righteous wrath to display its power. And on day, we’ll all have to stand in front of the Lord and answer whether we helped Him or just got in His way. But what a blessing this can: even the most troubled, broken person can be of worth to God and be a part of His plan to redeem this world! How have your contributions to God’s kingdom reflected your gratitude towards Him in this way? Have your words & actions showcased the desire of someone who wants to serve the living God who has rescued them?

For example, I see Joseph as portrayed in these first two chapters of Matthew as a great example of someone willing to make difficult decisions in order to follow God’s will for him and further His works. Joseph listened to God when commanded, even though it meant making some incredibly counter-cultural choices that could not be easy to make. No one in that day would have blamed him for walking away from an unfaithful spouse-to-be and washing his hands of the situation. But when God spoke, Joseph listened and obeyed – even when the results put his life in grave danger due to King Herod’s self-conscious fear. What greater example for acting on faith could we ask for than this: to place your trust in God’s providence over your own life. In a time when God asks us to move in radically counter-cultural ways to display His love & changing grace, have you made bold decisions & actions to do what is right by Him rather than what is easy or comfortable for you?

Above all, this passage brings me great joy and makes me thankful for the gift of a savior in Jesus. I am amazed that God would do all that he has & suffer through the death of His perfect son so that we would be able to so readily afford life with Him. I am overjoyed that Jesus, fully God, would walk among us in order to truly know the plight of man as we do, so readily die on our behalf in our rightful place, and to be our perfect example on our own walk of life. I pray this sense of thankfulness and wonder would never escape us, that we would continue to hold this fearful reverence of our God that He truly deserves. I pray it would motivate each of us to better serve God every day, and desperately want to contribute to His kingdom with all we have.

Psalm 139 is one of deep comfort and connection to God, and a loving reminder to me of how much my walk with God has changed my life. In past seasons of depression, I’ve fallen prey to believing all sorts of terrible things about myself; I’m unlovable & unworthy of being cared about, I can’t do anything right, nothing I accomplish or work towards would matter, I have no hope for the future. I’d self-medicate and self-isolate, trying to hide my shame and embarrassment in myself from others, probably even convincing myself I could hide it from God if I really tried. But this psalm is such a great weapon against the Deceiver’s lies and attacks, and such a vital reminder that I am a precious child of God; that He has known me since before I was even a thought in this world and will be with me long after I die; that like all of God’s children I am evidence of His loving & caring creation, and that I can accomplish whatever He has planned for me for His glory.

Knowing God is always with you and knows the deepest thoughts of your mind & stirrings of your heart is such a relief when you’ve shared your burden with Him and felt the relief and joy that follow. But when our sin-borne pride convinces us our pain should be ours alone, that can become scary, or even painful knowledge. “I don’t want God knowing how I feel, or seeing how devoid of hope I am! How embarrassing would that be!” The thought process might be something along those lines for those going through such struggles. But let me tell you, there is such incomparable freedom when you surrender your selfishness and shame to God, and instead allow yourself to be immersed in His word, wisdom, and love. There is true comfort in the vulnerability of allowing yourself share all of who you are with God & knowing He will love & cherish you all the same. I implore you, in times when Satan tries to whisper in your ear how you it’s preferable to hide how broken you are, arm yourself with this psalm like a sword, knowing you are indeed the meticulous and intentional creation of a wonderful God who loves us, broken as we may come.

Paul knows God’s love conquers all in this life, and says so in Romans 8: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” I pray in times of need you would know the love of Christ is inseparable from you; it is an integral part of our being, woven deeply into the very fabric of who & what we are. Pray that you would be armed always with the knowledge that God is with you, that He knows and sees you as you are, and loves you dearly for it. Be thankful today that God would craft you just how you are, as a loving child of Him who serves an irreplaceable role within His Kingdom.

Recently, during a pretty typical conversation at work with my manager, she asked me this question: “So what’s been motivating you lately?” A fairly innocuous and usual question, but I’d been thinking about Psalm 127 and, playing this conversation back in my head later, it got me feeling as though God was asking me that question about my walk with Him. What has been motivating me in life lately? Has it been my own ambitions, pursuits of my own accomplishment and provision of my own supply; or has it been pursuing God, and what He has given me? Have I been thankful for & driven by the works of my own hand, or by the works of His hand guiding me?

Psalm 127 lays out the simple fact that if we’re motivated solely by our own work and the whim of whatever we can find to bide our time, we’re pouring ourselves into temporary distractions that will be crushingly disappointing. Anything we can do is done in vain, when we do it because we only trust the work of our own hands over God’s. My mind goes to Ecclesiastes – all is meaningless and vain if you don’t remember the Creator. But on the flip side, any work and labor we do to honor our portion graciously given to us & to glorify Him and His kingdom becomes an act of glorification and thankfulness.

Verses 1 and 2 of this passage repeat this idea of toiling in vain; this makes me think of Jesus’s words in Matthew 6:25-27: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” When we needless run ourselves way too thin doing as much as we can because we misplace all the burden of providing on ourselves, are we reflecting Jesus’s assurances against our anxieties? When we stay up at night losing sleep because we’re worried about our work, our family life, our finances, our house, etc., who should we be listening to: Satan whispering lies of failure and fear into our ear, or God telling us He’s got it handled? Rather than needing to dwell on our concerns alone, God offers a reprieve from the shackles of worry through trusting that He provides what is fair and necessary.

And yes, this includes trusting God’s plan for your children! The latter half of this passage goes into the blessings of growing your family – and it’s no mistake these two topics going together. I’m not a parent myself, but between my own parents, my mentors with now-adult kids, and my younger friends having children right now, I’ve seen how raising your children to grow into good, God-centered people can be difficult at all steps. As this psalm says, the end result a blessing and reward from God. But this increasingly stressful path is one that requires putting your trust in God, that He has great plans to grow and watch over your young. You can put all the effort into your parenting possible and worry endlessly over your children, but no matter what you do, Christ alone saves His followers (John 10:28, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand”). Knowing Jesus is watching over your loved ones as they walk through life with Him has been a valuable encouragement for me – I pray it would be for you too.

Now, this is convicting for me to write, because I am definitely not without sin in this area. Almost everyone I know gets too worried about something from time to time. But I know God speaks through the most opportune moments – and I pray he would remind you to offer up your need for control as well today. Pray for conviction to recognize the need to surrender our feelings to God in times of toil; for wisdom and insight into how His word and His Scripture can deliver peace and spiritual rest; for a radical trust that will allow God to shine a light of unfailing hope through your life; and that in whatever you do, you would do it for the glory of Christ.

Whenever the notion of the Israelites’ repeated habit of idolatry pops up in Scripture, like in Psalm 115, I tend to ask myself “wow, how is it they keep doing this over and over when God straight-up tells them not to do that.” What a hypocrite I am then – because how often do I catch myself falling into the same trap!? In ancient days, they may have crafted their own gods of wood and metal to bow to and built places of worship for various supposed deities, which sounds bizarre to us; but the idols we build our adoration around are more conspicuous. Satan has clearly been keeping up with how to best tempt us 21st century Christians: between all our technology, simultaneous connectedness/isolation, and an increasingly jam-packed daily life, it’s frighteningly easy to throw our valuable time and effort at superfluous lesser things.

Remember the first two of the commandments in Exodus 20: “You shall have no other gods before me,” and “you shall not make for yourself a carved image… for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” Or Isaiah 42:8 – I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.” We know how God feels when we devote the habits of worship to lesser things. But consider this in the context as well of Psalm 115:2. This is a frequent complaint of the Israelites – “Why do the nations say, “Where is their God?”” – also popping up in Psalms 42 and 79, Micah 7, and Joel 2. We know God is the true living God above all else, so of course such comments by pagan peoples won’t stand the test of time.
How then is this a frequent complaint? Well, when the majority of God’s people keep disobeying Him and fashioning other gods to put before Him, it’s no wonder these mislead masses can’t put two and two together.

The prophet Hosea says in Hosea 8:5-6: “I have spurned your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them.” For it is from Israel; a craftsman made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces.” God proclaims loud and clear through Scripture that our trust belongs to Him, and His righteous wrath will be turned against anything who’d try to take away what is rightfully His – like the Israelites worshipping a golden calf amidst experiencing God’s miraculous patience as He lead them out of Egypt in Exodus 32. So Psalm 115 is a wonderful refreshment on refusing to place our trust in worthless, powerless idols of our own meager creation, which offer nothing in comparison to the living God. Verse 8 of this passage is clear: you grow to reflect what you pour yourself into. Pouring your self into blind, senseless, worthless beings will result in ourselves becoming blind to truth, without sense, and without worth. But pouring yourself into God’s word and into worship of Him transforms you into a reflection of Him, bringing clarity, meaning, and the priceless gift of eternity with Him. Only our true God acts out of selfless love and kindness, unlike the personal gain sought in self-worshipping and self-servicing idolatry.

In verse 9, 10, and 11, we hear God is the “help and shield” of His people. Like in Deuteronomy 33:29 – “Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph” – or Psalm 33:20-21 – “Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in Him, because we trust in His holy name.” We pour ourselves into God because only He embodies truth; the gods of man’s creation bring no everlasting joy nor triumph. Only our God can provide those, even over evil and death. So pray today a prayer of thanks for the Lord who sees, hears, acts, and loves on our behalf; that we could give repay Him in kind for His blessings, that the light of our trust in Him would continue to overpower the shadow of any idol of our own creation, and as verse 1 of this psalm proclaims, that all the glory life brings would go not to us, but to His name.

When I think of Psalm 103, my mind goes to the song 10000 Reasons (Bless the Lord). Based off an old hymn inspired by this passage, it’s such a relatable, genuine expression of just how much we have to really be thankful for in God. Matt Redman said when writing this song: “We live beneath an unceasing flow of goodness, kindness, greatness, and holiness, and every day we’re given reason after reason why Jesus is so completely and utterly worthy of our highest and best devotion.” Amen, Matt! Everything God does to deserve praise is so abundant & convicting that when we are devoted to worship, living turns into an act of worship, because every little thing we do & everything within us reflects His providence and glorifies Him – “Bless the Lord, o my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.”

This psalm acts as such a refreshing list of just a few of the qualities that paint us a picture of who God is, and act as a good grounding point for me when I need to be reminded of the important things. Reading through, I think: how has God displayed this attribute in my life lately? How can I honor Christ by learning from these qualities & using these lessons to glorify Him through my own thoughts & actions more than the day before? We see throughout this psalm how God is:

• Forgiving & healing (v. 3)
• Redeems us from sin (v. 4)
• Satisfies us, renews us (v. 5)
• Righteous & just (v. 6)
• Revealer of all knowledge & wisdom (v. 7)
• Full of mercy & grace (v. 8)
• Genuinely forgiving (v. 9)
• Merciful towards our wrongdoings (v. 10)
• Boundless in love, all-encompassing (v. 11-12)
• A sternly compassionate teacher (v. 13)
• Eternally steadfast (v. 14-17)
• Rewarding of faithfulness & faithful in kind (v. 18)
• Sovereignly & ultimately in charge (v. 19)

This only scratches the surface of God’s qualities, but going over all our reasons to praise the Lord is a great reminder of how blessed we really are. Scripture helps & encourages me through these reminders to want to be more Christ-like, to share His love with this world better – increasingly turning my life into an act of worship. Psalm 34:1 is a great missive to this regard: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” I want more and more to be forever singing God’s praises, to where my existence is seen as the act of praise that it is; as Paul put in 1 Phillipians 1:20, “that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” This Psalm rejuvenates me and strengthens my need to surrender my life to Christ and to pray for Him to transform it into a candle of His light and a song of His praise. I ask you join me in prayer today as well, that God could move in & through us that we would sing His praises through our words & all we do. Though this, may our lives be beautiful and contagious songs of his countless blessings and immeasurable glory.