Ascribe to the Lord . . .

Of the many churches we have attended on vacation and as we moved about, a few stand out as special places of worship. Their common denominator is not the denomination, order of service, or any other practice or ritual except that in each one the focus was not on human responsibility but on what God has done.

As I think about that, I realize that my problems and temptations all come when I forget what God has done. Then I stop worshiping and start worrying or trying to control things. Neither one accomplishes anything.

Tozer writes, “God wants us to worship Him. He doesn’t need us, for He couldn’t be a self-sufficient God and need anything or anybody, but He wants us. When Adam sinned, it was not he who cried, ‘God, where art Thou?’ It was God who cried, ‘Adam, where art thou?’”

God does not leave me when I am in trouble or even when I cannot sense His presence. It is my problem, my drifting, and my lack of worship that makes me a sitting duck for everything from worry to personal pity parties to feeling lost and alone.

In today’s devotional, verse two is featured, but verse one has a clue to being able to worship:

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. (Psalm 29:1–2)

I checked out the Hebrew words for “heavenly beings” and found that it could be translated as “sons of God or sons of might.” By using this term, the psalmist (David) is pointing his readers to their identity. They are children of God. As His mighty ones, they are to give God the glory due Him. He has made them His own and because of that, and because of His great power, they ought to worship.

Sometimes I go through the alphabet and think of God according to the letters: A is His almighty power; B is blessings bestowed; C is Christ who died for me; D is the eventual destruction of sin; and so on. These designations are not always the same, but by the time I’ve named twenty-six of them, I’ve forgotten all my problems and complaints. How can I focus on me when I have such an incredible God who loves me and gave Himself for me! Everything fades and becomes dim in the light of His glory.

^^^^^^^^^^

Jesus, the past few days have brought hours of grief and sadness, yet You have not abandoned Your people. You are with every family, every person, every heart that is broken. You are with me too, and because of who You are and what You have done and will do, today I will give You the glory due Your name.

Restoration after a Fall

2 Chronicles 29:1–30:27, 1 John 2:7–14, Psalm 104:1–15

Reading today’s passage about the next king over God’s people is a blessing. It even includes guidelines for restoring order in my life when I mess up. Like Israel, I can get out of step with God and my “temple” is in disarray like theirs was.

“Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem . . . and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, according to all that David his father had done.” (2 Chronicles 29:1–2) Many of the kings did not do what was right, but this man had a heart for God.

In the first month and year of his reign, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. (2 Chronicles 29:3) For me, that speaks of opening my life for what God intended, allowing Him to fix whatever was closed and keeping me away from Him. This fix always involves confession of sin.

Verse 5 says he called for consecration and to “carry out the filth from the Holy Place.” This speaks of forsaking sin. Confession is not enough. God needs to cleanse me and change my attitude toward sin in general and toward the particular sin that is tripping me.

When I mess up, my prayer life goes down the tube too. This is Hezekiah’s next fix. He put out the incense lamps that represent prayer (verse 7).

He also turned his heart toward the covenant with the Lord. For me, this is crucial. When I sin, I need to turn my heart toward the new covenant that spells out what Christ has done for me, going to the foot of the Cross in humility and gratitude (verse 10) for His grace. There I let Him examine my life and dig out the deeper things that tripped me so I am thoroughly cleansed by His Word and His blood.  

This parallels what the priests did: “The priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it and carried it out to the brook Kidron.” (2 Chronicles 29:16)

After that, the worship started. “Hezekiah the king rose early and gathered the officials of the city and went up to the house of the Lord . . . The whole assembly worshiped, and the singers sang, and the trumpeters sounded . . . . All this continued until the burnt offering was finished. When the offering was finished, the king and all who were present with him bowed themselves and worshiped . . . . And Hezekiah the king and the officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. And they sang praises with gladness, and they bowed down and worshiped.” (2 Chronicles 29:20-30).

“Thus the service of the house of the Lord was restored. And Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had provided for the people . . .” and God promised His blessing.

Hezekiah called to the people to keep the Passover (celebrating God’s deliverance from bondage). Some laughed, but others “humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 30:10–11) and “The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the Lord” (30:12).

The last important instruction is about persistence. They kept the Passover for a week, but “the whole assembly agreed together to keep the feast for another seven days. So they kept it for another seven days with gladness” (2 Chronicles 30:23).

When I mess up, confess, return to loving God as before, I’ve always a renewed attitude that “I never want to do that again.” Yet years of experience shows me that repentance is not about trying harder, but about surrender to the Lord who covenants to keep His people. In the NT reading, John’s words are right on:

“Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.” (1 John 2:7–8)

So also are the words of the psalmist who expresses how I feel when God blesses me — I want to bless Him! “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.” (Psalm 104:1–4)

God wants my life clean and obedient, yet when it isn’t, He provides all I need for restoration!

God’s incredible love and patience

Judges 9:22–10:18, Philippians 2:19–30, Psalm 68:1–14

Looking back over my Christian experiences, I can identify with the folly of God’s people during the time of the judges. They would worship idols and do their own thing until it got them into trouble, then they cried out to the Lord and He delivered them, usually by sending a new judge to lead them. But not always...

And the Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight also against Judah and against Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, “We have sinned against you, because we have forsaken our God and have served the Baals.” And the Lord said to the people of Israel, “Did I not save you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites, from the Ammonites and from the Philistines? The Sidonians also, and the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you, and you cried out to me, and I saved you out of their hand. Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will save you no more. Go and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.” (Judges 10:9–14)

How horrible to be left without the saving power of God. He has rescued me, bailed me out, sent help in so many ways; I cannot imagine life without Him. Yet sensing that He has turned His back is a huge lesson. God knows my need to rely on Him alone and all the time. He is not a genie in a bottle, nor a last resort. His goal for me has always been that I love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the best way to live and learning that has often involved finding out the hard way that all other ways are folly, futile, and fruitless. Lord, I am filled with regret for wasting so much time and effort standing in a corner when I could have been serving You.

Today’s NT reading is a favorite passage and challenging. It offers the example of a Christian man who truly cared for his Christian brothers and sisters. Paul writes about him with these words, “I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.... So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.” (Philippians 2:25-26, 29–30)

Epaphroditus cared about the well-being of the Christians at Philippi so much that he didn’t want them to worry about him when he was sick. He also didn’t care about his own life compared to his care for them. They could not serve Paul, so he risked his life to do what they were unable to do, filling in for them without complaint.

This demonstrates Christian love for one another as it should be. How much easier to complain and gossip, or become annoyed and even bitter when others do not perform as expected. And if I am sick, do I want people to worry about me? Sometimes I do. This is why Epaphroditus always produces an emotional response in my heart. I want to be more like him, and certainly he was like Jesus who considered dying for us more important than anything else.

Going back to the OT passage from Judges, the Lord eventually did send help. His promises to His people held, even as they treated Him like their puppet. They put away their idols and He became “impatient over their misery.” He is so good.

The psalmist may have remembered this story, but if not, he knew that God is committed to His people from experiences in his own life. This shows in what he wrote....

God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him! As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God! But the righteous shall be glad; they shall exult before God; they shall be jubilant with joy! (Psalm 68:1–3)

If it were not for this relentless love of God and His determination to save His people from our sin, I’d have fallen by the wayside a long time ago.

Our God Reigns

Joshua 1:1–3:17, 2 Corinthians 9:1–5, Psalm 47:1–9

Moses died and Joshua was thrust into leadership. He would take the Israelites across the Jordan into the Promised Land. He must have been fearful, for God said this, then told him several times not to fear . . .

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:8)

Joshua, like Moses did forty years prior, sent in spies to check things out. He send only two men, and when they arrived at Jericho, they went to the house of Rahab and she hid them on the roof. Then she told them something remarkable that God had done . . .  

“Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.’” (Joshua 2:8–11)

The people of Jericho heard about the Israelites and the promise of God and fear melted their hearts. God took from them any fight they may have had because they realized that He was God Almighty. When Rahab told them this amazing thing, the spies did this . . .

“Then the two men returned. They came down from the hills and passed over and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and they told him all that had happened to them. And they said to Joshua, ‘Truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands. And also, all the inhabitants of the land melt away because of us.’” (Joshua 2:23–24)

Forty years prior, the spies Moses sent in said that the land was amazing, but the people were too many, too large, too frightening. They refused. So God led them in circles until that generation died. Then, He ramped up their reputations so that these two spies were ready to tackle their opponents and take the land God promised them.

I’m praying for people but this passage shows me that they need to hear about the great deeds of the Lord God so that their hearts will melt! I need to talk more!

The NT reading isn’t about melting hearts, but about making sure of my boasting. Paul said to the church at Corinth, “But I am sending the brothers so that our boasting about you may not prove empty in this matter, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be. Otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—for being so confident.” (2 Corinthians 9:3–4)

If I talk the work of God in the lives of His people, I also need to be an encouragement and a support to those people. They need to live up to the claims that I make, not let me down because I’ve let them down.

The psalm for today just made me feel glad for God, glad for the power He has, glad that He gives so much to His people, even as we are so undeserving. Sunday is a day to sing praises, so these are words that do just that . . .

“Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy! For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet. He chose our heritage for us, the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm! God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted!” (Psalm 47:1–9)