Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: Psalms

An Acceptable Sacrifice

Psalm 50

The Acceptable Sacrifice

A Psalm of Asaph.

¹The mighty one, God the Lord,
    speaks and summons the earth
    from the rising of the sun to its setting.
²Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,
    God shines forth.

³Our God comes and does not keep silence,
    before him is a devouring fire,
    and a mighty tempest all around him.
⁴He calls to the heavens above
    and to the earth, that he may judge his people:
⁵“Gather to me my faithful ones,
    who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”
⁶The heavens declare his righteousness,
    for God himself is judge. Selah

⁷“Hear, O my people, and I will speak,
    O Israel, I will testify against you.
    I am God, your God.
⁸Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;
    your burnt offerings are continually before me.

John 10: 17-18 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

Though Israel understood the power of the Lord to deliver them from Egypt and potentially from Rome, they did not understand the power of the King of the Jews to deliver them from sin.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Mark 11:

⁸And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. ⁹And those who went before and those who followed were shouting,“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! ¹⁰Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

¹¹And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

+

The LORD does not establish His Kingdom on earth (as it is in heaven) in the same sinful ways as man!

Psalm 50:

¹⁶But to the wicked God says:
    “What right have you to recite my statutes
    or take my covenant on your lips?
¹⁷For you hate discipline,
    and you cast my words behind you.
¹⁸If you see a thief, you are pleased with him,
    and you keep company with adulterers.

¹⁹“You give your mouth free rein for evil,
    and your tongue frames deceit.
²⁰You sit and speak against your brother;
    you slander your own mother’s son.
²¹These things you have done, and I have been silent;
    you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

+

Mark 11:

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

¹⁵And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹⁶And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷And he was teaching them and saying to them,

“Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

¹⁸And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. ¹⁹And when evening came they went out of the city.

+

Psalm 51:

¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
    O God of my salvation,
    and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness…

¹⁷The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 68:

¹⁹Blessed be the Lord,
    who daily bears us up;
    God is our salvation. Selah
²⁰Our God is a God of salvation,
    and to God, the Lord, belong deliverances from death…

²⁴Your procession is seen, O God,
    the procession of my God, my King, into the sanctuary—

Psalm 69:

⁹For zeal for your house has consumed me,
    and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

¹⁹You know my reproach,
    and my shame and my dishonor;
    my foes are all known to you.
²⁰Reproaches have broken my heart,
    so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
    and for comforters, but I found none.
²¹They gave me poison for food,
    and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.

+

To be continued…

March 31, 2015
Reflections in Windows of Time

Looking back, running away from God is nothing new. We who would be so critical of Peter denying Jesus three times have now looked back to others faithful to God with moments of doubt.

Note: Our Lenten reflection continues from where ‘Running from God‘ left off – an introduction to examining a history of relationships between God and believers.

Moses, God’s chosen Prince, Prophet, Law Giver, Chief Justice, Administrator of the day-to-day lives of the rescued Hebrew nation: even Moses had had it!! – with these rebellious chosen people. Moses was ready to give up on the whole exodus thing more than once during their forty years stranded in the wilderness.

Elijah, God’s great Prophet who stood against the evil King, with his foreign Queen – Elijah, a true Prophet of God who mocked the false prophets, who mocked the false idols – Elijah, God’s Prophet who both predicted and demonstrated the immeasurable Power of the One Almighty Creator of the heavens and the earth!! as the LORD Jehovah came into the place of his witness – Elijah turned from the victory of God and ran in fear for his own life.

Christ Jesus never shrunk back from the fearful inevitable providential call of the Lamb of God to become the Living Perfect Sacrifice for our sins.

Not only Peter turned away from what seemed like defeat for God – defeat for righteousness – defeat for the witnesses of God’s true word and God’s true will.

You and I turn from God as well, in our everyday lives.

Look through the many windows of time. What do you see?

Are the reflections of our unrighteousness not evident in every millennium, in every century, in every generation?

Look though the reflection of time: at Jerusalem; at Israel and Judah; look at the Hebrew people before they had a King, before they conquered a land; look before Judges and Generals, reflect before Moses and Abraham: what do we see through the reflections of the windows of time?

We see God’s patience, God’s mercy and God’s love.

IF YOU were God or if I was God, WE would have done it differently, wouldn’t we?

None of this rebellion stuff! None of this disobedience allowed! And the SIN… why.. we would wipe it right out EVERY time, just like in the days of Noah and just like when God destroyed the evil men and the evil women in Sodom and in Gomorrah.

I do not think you or I could be a merciful God (not even in our best moments).

No work of any good man or any good woman is sufficient to the Holiness of God.

The Bible only gives us glimpses into the windows of time at just part of the lives of a few righteous imperfect examples of God. Yet these good men and these good women had their moments of failing – every one of them.

Jews and Christians and Muslims, who all believe in the ONE GOD, all tend to hold up story lines of convenience, while failing to acknowledge the sins and failings of our fathers of the faith.

ALL men and ALL women of faith fail in the light of the example and teachings of Jesus Christ!

The zealous and learned Jew and Pharisee, Saul of Tarsus, who we know as Paul, addresses God’s righteousness in Romans 3:

“None is righteous, no, not one;
¹¹ no one understands;
no one seeks for God.

David, in a moment of weakness appeals to God:

Psalm 143

Hear my prayer, O LORD;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!

Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.

+

We are too harsh! God is merciful.

King David was not only God’s anointed King who united the Hebrew tribes into a United Israel; David, recall, was an adulterer and murderer.

According to the Law of Moses, should not David have been executed for his sins?

We see even through the broadcast windows of these evil days, merciless zealots of a false prophet executing judgment without mercy!

God is patient; God is merciful. Our loving God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ will save yet more enemies of the One True God. Was Saul of Tarsus not one of these?

God seeks repentance in the hearts of all men and all women of every faith; that these will come to the love and grace of His mercy through Jesus Christ, Son of Sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Look through the windows of time with eyes to see and ears to hear. God has given us the Holy Bible. NO other book is Holy!

History reveals the hearts of men and women are only continually evil. Why should we worship any man or woman who is NOT God? Why would we kneel or bow down at their idols or lift up their ancestry or follow their teachings from man-made books?

None is righteous, no not one. Yet God in His mercy reveals both His love for us and our own failings in the lives of the best of us.

To be continued…

March 14, 2015
Prayer List
May our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, who we worship with the Father and Holy Spirit, kneed our impenitent hearts of stone into soft sands of His overflowing love. Amen.

To begin, let’s not forget that God is a Person who cares about us. In Christ Jesus we have a personal relationship with the Living God!

And by our intimate relationship with the God of Heaven, a spirit to Spirit relationship the Bible describes as most like that of a wife to her husband, we have the intimacy of the love of God and the ear of His loving heart.

Who, then, do we pray for? (and to whom do we pray?)

Can we begin any relationship without attention given to the intimacy of love between the one who asks and the person we would have answer?

IF you ignore the loving question of your loved one, how is it that you ask God and expect to receive an answer? His is an even more intimate relationship, not unlike that of husband and his wife.

Did I say, ‘His wife?’

Yes. Unless we are submitted to Jesus Christ as our Lord, He cannot be the Bridegroom of our hope. What a shame that He would say to you, betrothed christian, “I never knew you.”

Prayer is most personal with the Person of God!

If we pray privately, which I pray you do and will do so even more, the intimacy will give you more understanding of His will, alongside your dedicated devotion to the scripture of God’s written and living word. (I am too often guilty of a lack of intimacy in my prayer with God, a lack of time and commitment.)

Privately, (& trying to praise and thank the lover of my soul) I ask God my Lord for what I need, showing me what I need rather than what I want which is not in His will. I guess that I would say that I NEED God to sustain me in my prayer for my own heart-felt needs.

Corporately, that is in praying as part of our church or a prayer group, I find that prayers like my deepest prayers to God are sorely neglected by most of those asking ONLY for prayers for others, not confessing our own deepest hurts, needs, and desires for God’s love and the love of our Christian community.

We border on hypocrisy in our false, hopeful faces before our brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we only ask prayer for our family, friends, loved ones and others, while hiding the depths of our brokenness from those who would, along with God, sustain us in prayer; is our prayer request not disingenuous, an easier substitute for our own heart-felt needs for love and prayer?

Our God is a God of relationships – loving relationships. We dare not neglect His expected intimacy in our prayer relationships in which we would intercede for others by our own prayers.

I pray first for my wife, then for our three (grown) children. I try to do this more than daily. This has always been my first priority of prayer.

I try also to pray for my Christian family, as if they are nearer to me than my own biological family; for through Christ in eternity, they are also adopted alongside me into His body, through the Blood of His Holy Sacrifice of love for all of our sins.

Pray first for the person. Pray then for their need.

I try to bow my head and thank God in prayer before I eat or enter into some activity of the day. (I seek to do this both privately and publicly as witness.) This is not so much about the person, as it is for our immediate need. For example, my wife once insisted on praying for our safety most times we left home in the car. Our security and safety are needs, of course. Yet the soul of a loved one is certainly more important to God and to me than any thing I might ask for a trip across town.

Is it right that one who claims Jesus as “Lord,” should pray for help in winning in the world so that they might live comfortable in Christ?

Do you pray that you or someone in your family will ‘hit the Lottery’ and help answer your unanswered prayers? Do you pray for a blessing from God, nearer than the blessing God already sent for you to have and to hold?

We know the true answer in Christ.

Yet is not forgiveness and grace so necessary in dealing with the struggles and sins of our most beloved ones as they trustingly share the concerns of their own heart?

The false face of our prayer requests (sometimes)

Some of the sins of our lives and struggles of our flesh remain even more as anathema to ‘church’ prayers. Who will hear our cries to God, a crying out for help, love, forgiveness and grace; cries from some of our beloved Christian sisters and brothers?

Dare you even mention one of these at ‘church?’

Dare your brother or sister even mention: an abortion, adultery, a homosexual experience, pornography or any other such ‘christian’ taboo?

Dare any of our Christian youth even mention the passions and indiscretions which most commonly lead to the pregnancies the church must hide? For that matter, dare one divorced, widowed or unmarried for a time ask the help of a brother (sister) in prayer for the same?

Dare any ‘grace-faced christian’ even reveal these struggles and prayers to a pastor, let alone a dear friend of the church? Again, let us be careful not to judge too harshly.

You know why you put on the mask of hypocrisy.

Do you not suspect that those you love in Christ are not threatened by the judgment of your rejection?

How difficult it is for us to not judge (for even Jesus would not judge). I am guilty. May the Lord have mercy on me, for I endure the punishment of His curse. Yet I include loved ones guilty of each or these sins just mentioned and more in my prayers to God.

If God can forgive them (should they turn to His love), how can I not also pray for their repentance and return to God through the same Blood of Christ Jesus shed for me?

David committed adultery with a woman and murdered her husband! Yet when the man after God’s own heart finally repented, David prayed:

Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment. – Psalm 51

How difficult it is for us to reprove in love – give a Christian sinner the help for which they have asked God in their own deepest prayer. How difficult to love AND forgive those most dear to us.

Yet by the Blood of Christ, God has covered even our sins of today (in addition to those long past).

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. – Psalm 32:1

The revelation of God’s love for us is in Christ Jesus, who died on the Cross and IS risen! He hears our pray. Jesus hears our plea. He is revealed to us. We are freed by his blood.

Amazingly, by his blood, we are made His Priests and His intercessors!

Revelation 1:5 … and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Help us, God. Help us, beloved believer. We all need prayer. Allow us, as His Priests to intercede for those near and dear to our hearts and our souls.

Who is important in your life?

Are you praying for your VIP in humble humility to God and asking your loving brothers and sisters in Christ to stand by you in prayer for their needs?

Who is most import in God’s will?
- A husband to his wife &
- A wife to her husband.
- BOTH parents to every child.
- a loving father to all of his children, at home and by example in Christ,
- a nurturing mother to all of her children, at home and by example in Christ.
We all FAIL in some of these most important relationships God expects from us in His love, don’t we?

So why not ask God, with whom we have a personal relationship in prayer, to help us to do what is right in His will and not our own?

And why not ask our most intimate of friends, Christian brothers (sisters), who care for us in Christ deeply, to support us in prayer for these same relational needs for the VIP’s of our daily life? Sometimes the difficulty of these struggles of life are more appropriate for a small group of believers or even one life-minded brother (or sister) in the Lord, than for the prayer list of the entire church (often as fodder for speculation and gossip).

It seems the ‘perfect christians’ must go to some other church.

OR perhaps some we know just hide behind their masks of Christ’s perfection.

Let us, dearly beloved of Christ Jesus, love them as He has loved us.

Let us bow down before the Lord our God in great humility, with hearts overflowing in love and pouring forth forgiveness, through our prayers for for the family of Christ Jesus. Amen.

How may I pray for you, adding you to my personal prayer list?

Please comment. If you would like any of our readers to also pray for you, please share your personal prayer needs with us.

(IF you would rather have your request remain private, please begin your comment with the word, ‘Private,’ and I will not post it publicly.)

Pray also for me, that I might return to a purer committed faith in God to both hear and answer my ceaseless prayers for my most beloved.

Roger Harned, author and site administrator
February 1, 2015