In principle, we agree with the psalmist when he writes, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the ungodly.” But we also know the power of sin in our lives. We do those things we do not want to do. We do not do the things we want to do. We know futility and wretchedness by experience. How do we quit the way of sin when it seems impossible?

The answer is Psalm 1:2, to delight in the law of the Lord, and to meditate in it day and night. Meditation in the law of God brings delight and prepares a person to do the law of God, which results in blessing now and eternally.

“Delight” parallels “meditate.”

Hebrew poetry deals, not with the sounds of words, but with the rhyming or contrast of ideas. A line will state an idea, and the next line can repeat the same idea in different words, or it can contrast ideas. This approach is called parallelism.

These two lines are saying the same thing with different words. Notice in the passage that “delight” is paralleling “meditate.” They are the two verbs being used in dealing with the law of the Lord.

Here are two things you can and should do with the law of the Lord: delight in it and meditate in it.

Meditating is preparation for doing.

Meditating is for the mind what digestion is for the body: It is the way to inwardly receive what one needs to live.

When you eat, you chew your food and enjoy the flavour. Then you swallow it. Your stomach adds enzymes and acids to further break down the food into its constituent elements: amino acids, fats, glucose (simplest sugar), minerals, vitamins. Then in the intestines, these elements are absorbed into the body and utilized as needed. In particular, the glucose is circulated through the body via the blood system and is absorbed into the cells. Finally, the body secretes a hormone, a chemical message that tells the cells in the body to open up and take in the glucose.

There is a disorder in which the body loses the cells that secrete the hormone. When that happens, the cells do not take in the glucose. Instead, the blood sugar rises to a level that endangers the system. Thus the system reacts by flushing out the unused blood sugar through the kidneys and urinating it out of the body. A person with this condition eats and digests adequately, but because the cells never properly receive the needed glucose, the person eventually starves to death. It is as though he has not eaten at all. This disorder is called type-1 diabetes.

Similarly, you can read scripture and study it, but still not receive any benefit, because the last step of inwardly receiving the scripture doesn’t happen. It is as though you have not read at all. When you meditate on the scriptures, you are internally receiving those words into the deepest part of your heart. Just as your food becomes part of you, that Word becomes part of your heart. The will of God is no longer coming from outside but lives in you. You do the will of God from the heart.

Meditation is preparation for doing. We see this in Joshua 1:6-8:

“Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. 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 success.”

Notice first what God told Joshua to do: Joshua was to bring the people of Israel into the Promised Land to possess it. It was a formidable and intimidating assignment. Not even Moses, with his glowing face, accomplished that.

Next, God told Joshua how to do what was commanded: Obey the law of Moses without fail.

And then God told Joshua how to obey the law of Moses: He was not to allow that book to depart from his mouth but to meditate on it day and night. He was to receive God’s law continually, inwardly. God confirmed that if he did this, He would make Joshua’s way prosperous, and he would succeed in doing the will of God.

The law of the Lord is delightful?

Somebody might say: “I thought the law was all a bunch of dos and don’ts. Where’s the delight there?” That would echo the counsel of the ungodly: How could obeying God’s law possibly be fun?

But we are talking about something beyond mere fun or entertainment. We are talking about blessing, which leads to eternal life. Anything less than eternal life is a stay of execution.

The psalmist spoke about the delights of the law of the Lord in Psalm 119:97-104:

“O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have observed Your precepts. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I may keep Your word. I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me. How sweet are Your words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth! From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.”

Never Gets Old

Notice how the psalmist can meditate on the law of the Lord all day long and not get tired of it. You can get tired of music, movies, games, books. But here is something that delights all day long. That’s because the word of God is eternal. When you meditate, you are putting something eternal into your innermost being.

You Become More

In the next three verses, the psalmist says he is more than his enemies, his teachers and even the aged with all their experience. The law of the Lord gives us the wisdom, insight and understanding of God Himself, who is above and beyond any human or angel. The psalmist had enemies who were more powerful and more numerous, who wanted to kill him, yet the law of the Lord enabled him to have insight that nullified all their superiority. You are not supposed to be greater than your teachers, yet the law of the Lord surpasses human knowledge. And the aged may have the experience, but experience alone is not superior. That experience can be a mistake after mistake. You don’t have to learn in the school of hard knocks. The law of the Lord enables a person to avoid bad decisions and experience the goodness of God.

Security

Verses 101-102 show how meditating on the law of the Lord enables a person to avoid deception and sin. Through meditation, God Himself teaches a person to continue in doing what is right. You will not fall away. That results in security now and forever.

Sweetness and satisfaction

The word of God is sweet like honey, says the psalmist, and we think: “How could that be?” Because these two commandments express the entirety of God’s law: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself. A life lived in the love of God is sweet and satisfying. Nobody was ever satisfied with a life of sin and rebellion against God. Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is truth woven into the fabric of the universe: If you genuinely want to be blessed, then give to someone. Make someone else’s life better. Live in love.

The only catch is that you have to be connected to a source of love that doesn’t run dry. Otherwise, you will run dry, and that’s no fun. The good thing is that when you meditate, you are connected. There’s more about that in this psalm that we will look at next time.

If you don’t meditate, you won’t “do.”

The biblical order of obedience is: Meditate on the word of God, receive it inwardly, then you will do it from the heart. If you are not doing the will of God, don’t beat yourself up. You’re likely behind on your think time. Check to see if you are consistently meditating on that will of God that you are failing to do. Meditating prepares your heart for doing. You do what you meditate on.

This principle also works the other way. That’s why there are books, music, videos and movies that all present rebellious, sinful ideas. Murder, adultery, jealousy, revenge, hatred, self-centeredness, lust, it’s all present in our entertainment. “Entertain,” by the way, means to maintain, keep, hold in the mind. The devil wants to actively keep sinful ideas in your mind so that you will eventually do them. If you meditate on sinful things, don’t be surprised if you do those sinful things.

But you can decide what you think about. You are not a victim; you are a volunteer. What are you volunteering for? What do you set your mind on?

“For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things” (Philippians 3:18-19).

Can you imagine believers in Jesus who are actually working against their own salvation? People who are not going to make it to heaven? Paul knew them personally. It was a grief to him that they were unreasonable, stubborn, refusing to consider their ways and change what they thought about.

Challenge yourself

Here’s a challenge. If you believe in Jesus, and you want to experience His goodness, then delight in His word for the next 30 days.

While you do this, it might be a good time for a media blackout. The reason is to get your taste buds for the word of God recalibrated.

When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they complained about the manna God gave them to eat (Numbers 11:4-9). Manna tasted like wafers made with oil. It had a good taste, but evidently, it didn’t register on Israel’s taste buds. They were used to more zip, bang, pow in their food, with garlic, leeks and fish. The effect might be similar to always having your food with Sriracha and Tabasco sauce. Israel was discontent because they couldn’t taste God’s bread from heaven.

Is the Bible tasteless to you? That might be because you have been conditioned to want zip, bang and pow in your media. Advertisers, writers, marketers and video producers are all aiming to stimulate your body’s dopamine production. They want to make you addicted to a media-saturated lifestyle.

In a world filled with things that scream for your attention, the Bible is not one of them. God will not lunge at you and compete with marketers for your attention. Did you notice that when He spoke to Elijah (1 Kings 19:11), He wasn’t in the raging wind, nor the earthquake, nor the blazing fire? He speaks in a still, small voice. To some people who are accustomed to incessant media exposure, it is silent and tasteless.

I often suggest to people wanting to hear from God to get desperate. Do the media fast for 30 days. Cut out all the stuff that you allow into your life that you know has nothing to do with Jesus. These blogs, news sources, chat groups, forums, magazines, music, videos or whatever, may not be harmful in themselves, but what do they have in common with Jesus? For this particular time of seeking the Lord, I would even suggest cutting out Christian media. The good can be the enemy of the best. The best is you receiving from God Himself. Nothing else compares when God is speaking.

For the sake of the challenge, be brutal. Make it just you and the Bible.

Read several chapters every day. Find out what is a good, daily amount for you. Pick out pertinent verses in those chapters and think about them deeply. Write down your thoughts in a notebook: your observations, your questions, other verses as they occur to you. Pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to get insight. Pray about those things that you learn.

You will probably experience some unpleasant cold-turkey withdrawal from the media you cut out. You don’t have to feel bad about it. After all, we are still physical, “carnal” beings. At the same time, you will also find yourself increasingly satisfied by God. You will want more of God speaking to your heart. You will find yourself delighting in the law of the Lord.

Do you think it will take 30 days for God to start speaking to you? I sincerely doubt it. I think it will be a fabulous time of communion with God.

And then what?

What you do after the fast is over is totally up to you. But consider the long run. What do you think would happen if your top priority was to meditate in the Bible for the rest of your life?

The answer is some seriously transcendent, wonderful, glorious things. We will discuss them in my next article.

We have looked at what it means to be blessed, and how much better that is than being happy. We want to connect with blessing. We want to connect with God.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1).

Psalm 1 shows us that if we are to connect with God, we must first disconnect from everything that is going away from God. The first reason is opposing directions cannot lead to the same place. Choose one way or the other, but pursuing both directions is impossible. The second reason is that only one direction leads to God and eternal life. The other direction leads to self-deception, unworthiness and death.

1. Stop going in the way of the ungodly.

What is so bad about ungodliness?

Consider first that the ungodly have left God. They are wicked because they are not going in God’s way, with Him.

“For cross to the coastlands of Kittim and see, and send to Kedar and observe closely and see if there has been such a thing as this! ‘Has a nation changed gods when they were not gods? But My people have changed their glory, for that which does not profit. “Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate,” declares the Lord. ‘For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water'” (Jeremiah 2:10-13).

The wicked have left God, the fountain of living waters, where life itself comes from. Water is a metaphor for life, but notice that that life is found in the context of relationship with the living water. When people forsake their relationship with the Lord, they are forsaking life.

The second evil is to think that, without the Lord, they are okay, self-reliant and nothing bad will happen. They have left the fountain, the only source of life. “That’s no problem,” say the wicked, “We have made for ourselves buckets!”

Everything apart from the infinite, eternal God is temporary and finite.

Buckets aren’t sufficient. And worse, these buckets leak. They are man-made, and thus, defective. Whatever life there is in the bucket leaks out. Then the buckets are dry. Where do we go to find life?

The ungodly have counsel, tips and life hacks to help you find life. They bring forth a huge variety of solutions. They encourage and exhort the world to pursue almost anything to find life. There are intellectual and fleshly pursuits, indulgent and ascetic pursuits, religious and secular pursuits, big goals, small goals. They contradict and complement one another.

In the end, every pursuit of life suffers from a mortal flaw. They don’t work. We have to keep on existing without satisfaction of our needs.

When I visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, my friend pointed out the roadside vendors, standing next to what seemed to be a pathetic, odd assortment of little things to sell. My friend explained that these people only ate when they sold something. They might go two or three days without a sale. But they were forced to keep on existing while hungry. Misery. Think of being thirsty, with no way to satisfy that thirst. Misery. To be forced to exist without the satisfaction of our need is the very definition of misery.

We are more than merely physical beings with physical needs. We have mental and spiritual needs that cannot be satisfied with physical things. It’s possible to satisfy and glut every physical need, far beyond satisfaction, and yet still be starving and miserable because these physical needs don’t touch our minds and our hearts. We have mental and spiritual needs that must be satisfied in order for us to function properly.

Our needs cannot be satisfied with just any old input.

Wouldn’t it be great if our cars could run on sugar water? It would surely be cheap, but there’s a reason we can’t do this. You and I know that if you put a different fuel in your car than the one it was designed for, it won’t work. Have you ever put petrol in your diesel car? There is no substitute for the fuel your car was designed for.

We were designed too, with operating specifications that we can’t ignore without wrecking ourselves. Our physical bodies are designed to operate on glucose as our fuel, but man does not live by bread alone. Our minds are designed to operate on 100% truth. If we try to fill our minds with something that isn’t true, our minds can’t operate properly. We will act on something that is not true, and we will certainly be disappointed that it doesn’t work out according to our expectations.

Our hearts are designed to operate on 100% pure, divine love. If we substitute anything else for love, our hearts will not operate properly. Those substitutes for love will only disappoint, deceive and betray us. How many of us have to keep existing as we starve for truth and love?

Are you miserable? Do you need life?

There is no other source of life than God. Only He is 100% true; only He has 100% love. If we try to substitute anything else in our minds and hearts, we deceive ourselves, and we live in misery. We keep existing without our definite inner needs being met. We are like those roadside vendors in Congo, only we are worse off. They might make a sale. With us, there is no sale to expect. We are away from God. We only have buckets with holes in them. There is no other source for life when we have no relationship with God.

Therefore, we cannot accept the counsel of people who have left God. Whatever solutions people may offer to the need for life, if they do not involve Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, who died for our sins and rose again from the dead, they are offering death. We reject that way.

2. We notice that man away from God is away from God’s authority, and he sets himself up as the only authority.

This is an obvious corollary to the first point. If we reject and discard God, there is no higher being than man. So man becomes the final authority. People say what is right and what is wrong.

Now we have a problem with authority. Who is right and who is wrong? What is the right way to live? Why should I believe you and obey you? Why don’t you obey me? Who is the standard? Who is the measuring rod? Who is to say that I’m wrong? It opens the door to absolute chaos. Chaos can only be resisted by imposing order by force. Chairman Mao famously said that authority is found at the end of a rifle barrel.

Not only that but without authority, there is no mercy or forgiveness or peace. We can absolve one another of wrongdoing. A priest can hear confession and say a person is forgiven. A psychologist can help a person make better choices and think in a more integrated way. But where is their authority to give peace?

When I was a Boy Scout, I had to pass certain outdoor cooking requirements to earn advancement. I had to cook a potato by putting it into the coals of a fire. My potato came out a little hard because I hadn’t cooked it long enough. My scoutmaster didn’t accept it. I had an older friend, higher ranked than me, who later sympathized with me for failing the requirement and having to do it over again.

He suddenly said, “Oh heck, that’s good enough!” And he signed off my requirement card. I thought that was pretty cool and went off to complete other requirements. When it was time to be reviewed for promotion in rank, my scoutmaster said, “How did that cooking requirement get signed off? I didn’t sign you off!” I explained that my friend signed it off. My scoutmaster was unimpressed with this end-run around his authority. He informed me, to my acute embarrassment, that my friend did not have authority to sign me off. My now-vanished peace and relief were not founded on authority, just on the advice of a well-meaning but unauthorized pretender. My friend’s mercy wasn’t mercy because it wasn’t his place to hand out mercy. The only one qualified to be merciful was not inclined to let me slide through. He insisted that I fulfill the requirements.

“But the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. ‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked'” (Isaiah 57:20-21).

Why is there no peace for the wicked?

Because only God has authority to forgive sins. If people refuse to deal with God, they may not have forgiveness or peace. Those sins are retained regardless of anything a person believes, whether atheism, humanism or philosophy. Just because a philosopher says, “I think this is the right way to live,” means nothing. Where is the authority? He is just another human being. Only God has the authority to forgive sins through Jesus and make peace.

With lack of authority comes lack of power. We can make 10,000 good suggestions that we ought to carry out, but there is no power to do so. We ought to be better educated, have better health, have better government. We should be better people, but it is not possible because, with lack of authority, there is lack of power.

This means that the wicked, the ones away from God, are stuck on a wrong path. As it says here in Psalm 1:1, “standing in the path of sinners.” There is a double problem here. One is that the path goes away from God. The second is that the wicked are firmly fixed in that path.

Any path away from God is wrong. It can be in any direction, even diametrically opposing directions. Both are wrong because anywhere away from the center of a circle is still away.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Being firmly fixed on this path away from God is its most fearful aspect. A person convinced that they are right is hard to change. Sin is hardening and deceptive.

“Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (Proverbs 26:12).

In the Proverbs, a fool is not one who is intellectually deficient, but one who is morally deficient. One can be intelligent and still be a fool. There is something worse than being a fool, and that is to be wise in one’s own eyes. That person is proud.

With pride comes ignorance.

A proud person has a higher opinion of himself than is warranted. Because he thinks he is better than he is, he won’t learn anything. If I think I’m wise, I have arrived. I’m not going to listen to anyone else. What have they to teach me? I have it all. Have you ever met anyone like that? Have you been that person? If you learned anything at all of any worth, it probably was the hard way. Instead of learning directly the right way, you went ahead and did something you regretted. You learned, but you became a little more humble in the process.

If you don’t learn from anything you go through, you’re going to ruin your life. Wisdom really is with the humble. But a proud person is headed straight for destruction. Pride goes before a fall.

Psalm 1 says a wicked person sits in the seat of the scornful. He looks down on others. He criticizes. He has a low opinion of nearly everything. He thinks he knows what he is doing, but he will find that the things he has trusted in will fail him. Arrogance and ignorance lead to disillusionment and cynicism.

To sum up, the wicked, those going away from God, are arrogant and ignorant. The two go hand in hand. Anyone who thinks they know how to live better than the Author of life is arrogant and ignorant. Anyone who sets themselves up as an authority in the place of God is arrogant and ignorant. Anyone who is wise in their own eyes and rejects God is arrogant and ignorant.

The blessing of God begins with humbling oneself, repenting of that fatal attitude: I know what I’m doing.

Remember the centurion who was crucifying Jesus? What do you think he would have said if you had asked him, “Sir, do you really know what you are doing?” I bet he would have said, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m nailing a condemned scum to a piece of wood! Are you trying to tell me I don’t know my job?! Get out of here!”

In the midst of excruciating pain, Jesus showed His humility by drawing utterly painful breaths to say over and over, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing!” He was being humble, not thinking of Himself, but others.

“When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mark 15:39).

The centurion changed his mind about what he had done and who he had nailed to a piece of wood. He became afraid. He became humble. If you asked him, he would have replied, “I didn’t know what I was doing!” That’s a change of mind that we also need. We need to go from, “I know what I’m doing,” to “I didn’t know what I was doing!” That is repentance.

In order to be blessed, we must reject what ungodly people say brings life.

We must turn back to God in our heart, mind and life, and go His way. It means becoming humble under God’s mighty hand. A humble person is teachable. A humble person goes God’s way. A humble person lives not for his own glory, but for the glory of God. A humble person receives grace from God. These ways are greater and better than seeking our own ways and our own glory.

If you turn away from what comes from men, what is arrogant and ignorant, and leads to death, what do you turn to?

You turn to that which has authority, that which humbles, and that which gives eternal life. You saturate your life with the word of God. That’s the subject of my next blog.

Blessing is all or nothing at all.

For the next few months, I will be writing on a psalm that has held my attention for quite a while. I hope you find this as thought provoking as I do.

Psalm 1 begins with that declaration, “Blessed.” And then the psalmist describes two ways to approach that blessedness. Only one of those ways works. The other way leads to the exact opposite condition, which we will consider in due course.

But we want to consider this one word at the outset: blessed. What does that mean, and why is it all-important?

In the original language (Hebrew), “blessed” means “happy.” We are not talking about subjective happiness. If we were, what makes you happy doesn’t make me happy. It’s a matter of taste.

We are talking about ultimate happiness, complete, total, so transcendent that translators always use the word “blessed” instead.

What’s the difference?

First, in the etymology. Happy contains the Anglo-Saxon particle “hap,” referring to chance and external circumstances. It shows up in “happen,” “mayhap,” and “happenstance.” (Luck, chance, it all came together, and I won the Lotto.) If I don’t like what is happening, I’m not happy. It’s all about impersonal chance and all about “me.”

“Bless” comes from an Old English word meaning “blood,” because in the Bible, blood was used to consecrate a thing to be holy. Holiness separates a thing from all defilement to be God’s possession, sacred, pure, clean, for His purpose and for His glory.

There’s a big difference right there. On one hand, there’s my purpose and my happiness, and on the other, God’s making holy that brings His purpose and ends in His glory.

Another difference is in permanence.

Happiness comes through my own efforts. If I work hard, take advantage of opportunities, make the breaks, then I can achieve completion and success. But then, things happen that are outside my control that affect my happiness, despite all my hard work. Industrial actions, government regulations, wars, storms, earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, power outages, delays, economic turndowns, stock market crashes, terrorist attacks, broadband slowdown and death. Stuff happens. Time and chance are such a big component of happiness.

But blessing is always under the supervision of God. He is always watching over His people. He won’t leave them until He has finished His eternal purpose to bless His people.

I know this because I read one day in 2 Timothy and noticed:

“…who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Timothy 1:9).

This fragment of a sentence shows us that God’s purpose and His grace are eternal because they are both given in Christ Jesus before time began. God has always purposed to bless us with salvation, not to give us the destruction that we deserve. In contrast, the devil opposes that purpose with all his plans and might. He wants to nullify grace and destroy salvation. What this scripture shows is that he cannot succeed because he is not eternal. His temporary purpose is limited by his finite power. At a certain point, the time allotted to him will run out. His power will come to an end. But God’s purpose is eternal. His power is eternal. His grace is eternal. God’s purpose and goodness cannot be changed or nullified by anything that opposes Him.

Notice how many bad things happened to God’s people in the Bible:

. Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was barren. So were Rebekah and Rachel, the wives of the patriarchs. Manoah’s wife, Hannah, and Zacharias’ wife, Elizabeth, were also barren.

. Jacob was cheated over and over by his father-in-law.

. Joseph was hated by his brothers, sold into slavery, slandered, imprisoned, forgotten.

. David was attacked and hated by Saul and by his own son, Absalom.

. Job was oppressed by God, who listened to Satan.

. Zerubabbel was overwhelmed by the enormity of his task to rebuild the Temple.

. John the Baptist was left by Jesus in prison, later beheaded because Herod liked the way Salome danced.

. Paul was shipwrecked, in dangers, hungry, cold, exhausted, fearful.

God’s people do not live in a hermetically sealed glasshouse with only good things happening to them. They went through terrible things that seemed random and purposeless. After 20 barren years, Rebekah conceived and then had a difficult pregnancy. She asked what we all would have asked: “If all is good, why am I this way?” But we see throughout the Bible God causes all things to work together for good for those who love Him, to those who are the called according to His purpose, so that Paul says, “We know this” (Romans 8:28).

“Happy” is pitifully weak by comparison. To be happy, everything has to work itself out. Chance and randomness are in control. Maybe things work out, and maybe they don’t. There is no plan and no power in randomness. But God has an eternal plan that He works out with all knowledge and power. Because it’s eternal, nothing can stop it. All the opposition is temporary, limited, weak in comparison.

Blessing is different from happiness in its scope.

Happiness is about me alone. If I attain to happiness, that’s all that matters. I just want to be happy.

Blessing is about me, but it doesn’t stop with just me. God’s purpose for blessing me is a prelude to blessing the world. God revealed that when He blessed Abram:

“Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed’” (Genesis 12:1-3).

Yes, God was concerned to bless Abraham, and He began to do that with Isaac, the child of promise. God started a river of blessing that began small and has since grown into a tremendous flow of blessing. It led to the creation of God’s chosen people, the Jews. It led to the written Scripture, the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms. It led to their fulfillment in Jesus, the Messiah, His crucifixion and resurrection. Then Jesus poured forth His Holy Spirit upon the church, beginning the evangelization of the world. What will come next is still greater: the restoration of Israel and life from the dead. God’s blessing always goes beyond personal blessing.

David found out that his sufferings were actually part of God blessing him so that others would trust in the Lord and also become blessed:

“I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:1-3).

When God saves David, other people will see and will themselves put their trust in the Lord. His example of trusting God influences others to do the same. The principle is that our lives are intended by God to be significant. We were created to be blessed by God, to affect others for good, so that we bless others. That’s why Jesus said it is more blessed to give than receive. We get to participate in God’s blessedness by becoming blessed and then being a blessing to others.

It helps to define a thing by its opposite.

The opposite to blessing is cursing. What is cursing? It is the power of God to oppose, to harm, to make bad, to destroy.

Is there any state in between blessing and cursing? God wants the best. The devil wants the worst. Blessing is binary: It’s a matter of eternal life and eternal death. It’s all or nothing at all.

You want to be definitely and certainly blessed by God forever. You don’t want to be temporarily and uncertainly happy, as a result of time and chance and your hard work. You certainly don’t want to be cursed. Anything less than eternal life is a stay of execution.

What are the things that make for blessing? That’s the subject of my next blog.

“Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:13-14).

I read the above scripture recently, and was nonplussed for a bit. How do you be brave when you know you are not brave?

Slight digressive disclosure: I am afraid of everything. It’s more than a miracle that I have been a missionary for the last 28 years. I tell prospective missionaries, if I can do it, anybody can, because it doesn’t depend on what I bring to the table. It depends on God. That’s my secret to being a missionary.

But getting back to being brave, another translation is “act like men.” Technically, I am a man. Some guys are really manly: They are often referred to as the alpha male. That’s not me. I’m not much at being a leader, I am not a dominant personality that sways crowds with magnetic charisma. (I’m not whining; I’m okay in my own skin. I do have certain life skills.)

My question was, how do I do what Paul is commanding? Seriously?

I read the next line, and it clicked: Let all that you do be done in love.

I remembered those times that I have loved, I have been utterly fearless.

Like in witnessing. When I love that other person, I have been fearless. If they brush me off, I’m not destroyed. Or I persevere after an initial brush-off, and suddenly, we are having a significant conversation; and the other person doesn’t feel like I’m pushy or obnoxious but realizes that I care. I know that I could be ridiculed or despised, but I don’t care about myself.

I have seen this fearlessness in giving money, in going on outreach trips, confronting people and doing memorial services. I could not have done them if I was concerned about myself.

That’s the great part about love. You can’t worry about yourself and the other guy at the same time. Love is concerned about the other person. That makes love the true bravery. I have been aware that something bad could happen to me. This might cost me. I could lose somehow in all this, but I’m concerned about the other person, not myself. If you were concerned about yourself, it wouldn’t be love.

So then, the challenge is to do everything in love.

Watch out because you live in love. Stand firm in the faith because you love. Be brave because you love. Be strong because you love.

One application of this exhortation is to be humble. If I am going to love, I need to be unconcerned about myself. For this, one needs Jesus.

All I do, on my own, is think about myself. I really need something to happen to me before I can love, and that is the cross. Thank God for the cross of Christ, which ends my life, so I can be joined to Christ raised from the dead.

Arrogance and thinking more highly of myself than is warranted, is out. Paul says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4 is about love. If we are arrogant, we are not acting in love.

Another application is to love all the time.

There isn’t an appropriate time to not love. Love has to identify us. This makes me think of so-called “discernment” ministries that slice-and-dice the people they think are “off”. When do we get to be arrogant, or slander, or treat others badly?

But for me, this way to truly be brave excites me. Even a guy like me can be fearless legitimately, to be able to do the things God wants me to do. Maybe those things aren’t impressive in themselves, but for a guy who’s really not a Jason Bourne type, it’s significant.

“Come and see the works of God, who is awesome in His deeds toward the sons of men. He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot; there let us rejoice in Him!” (Psalm 66:5-6).

One effective temptation to despair is that our experience of Jesus doesn’t seem very miraculous.

We read in the Bible of waters dividing, of food raining down from heaven and chariots of fire. But where is that in our lives? Here’s a scripture that suggests we as believers in Jesus share in those major miraculous moves of God.

Notice the pronouns in verse six: “He turned the sea into dry land,” “they went through the river on foot,” “there let us rejoice in Him.” It’s about God, Israel, the psalmist and us. We all have something in common. We are in the middle of a miracle of God.

Do you see where we are encouraged to rejoice in God?

The psalmist is referring to two miracles. The first is when He made Israel cross the Red Sea on foot. He split the waters by an east wind blowing through the night, so that a way on dry land existed for the people to cross. They walked on this path between two enormous walls of water. The second is 40 years later, the next generation of Israel crossing the Jordan River in full flood. When the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant stepped into the waters, they stood up in a heap far up the river, allowing the people to cross on a dry river bed.

But there’s a problem, isn’t there? That place where we are to rejoice is a place that only a particular group of people experienced once. These experiences were never repeated. Those places are underwater, inaccessible. So how can we go there in order to rejoice?

God was taking a group of people and saving them, delivering them and introducing them to a new life. And they were in the middle of that miracle.

Imagine if Moses had stopped in the middle of the Red Sea and said, “Hey, everybody, why don’t we stop and have a little time of thanksgiving before we go much further?” I think it would have been charged with gripping emotion! Several things would have been abundantly clear to the worshipers:

“I’m doing something impossible!” “There wasn’t a way forward, now there is!” “I’m being saved by the power of God!” “God is absolutely brilliant!” “God is for us!” “Let’s do this quickly!”

What God did with a certain group of people is also what He is doing with us.

As long as they were in the Red Sea or the Jordan, they were in the middle of their salvation and deliverance and entrance into new life. That’s where we believers in Jesus also are. The psalmist is saying that we are right in the middle of our salvation, our deliverance, our entrance into new life. We can rejoice in God in the middle of our miracle.

Our lives may not appear to be as miraculous as waters standing up vertically like walls. You might be tempted to consider your life completely ordinary and unremarkable. But every person being saved is a miracle of God. Merriam-Webster defines “miracle” as “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” It took the power of God intervening in your life for you to be saved (see 1 Corinthians 1:30-31). It takes the power of God intervening in your life to encourage, protect and keep you saved (see Psalm 27:13-14; Psalm 138:7; 1 Peter 1:5). You who believe in God through Jesus are an ongoing intervention of God’s almighty power.

There, as though between walls of water, is where the psalmist invites we who believe in God to rejoice. And if we see our lives rightly, our worship can be gripping and intense.

We can rejoice that we are going to make it all the way through, just as they did. What God started He will also complete, until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:5). We can rejoice that the power that brings us through the waters is also the power that will destroy the enemies of our souls: sins, difficulties, devils. Through God we will outlast them all. We can rejoice that through Jesus we are being brought ever closer to laying hold indeed on eternal life.

Can you see God at work in your life? If you can’t, then maybe you need to begin with turning to Jesus. Ask Him into your heart, to introduce you to His new life. Make Him your Savior and Lord.

Think about it and rejoice!

“When I remember God, then I am disturbed; when I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah. You have held my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak”– (Psalm 77:3-4)

It’s one thing to bring your troubles to God. It’s another when the trouble is God Himself.

If God is causing the problem, who in the world is going to help you? This is the situation Asaph found himself in. He was a contemporary of both David and Solomon. He prophesied under the direction of David, and he was among that first generation who ministered in the newly-built temple, precious beyond value, filled with the very glory of God. Israel was at the height of its power, in the reigns of its greatest kings. There was peace all around, and such prosperity that silver was accounted as nothing. In the midst of this fabulous blessing, Asaph began receiving visions from the Lord. They are recorded in Psalms 74, 77, 79, 80 and 83.

He saw Jerusalem defiled and sacked, the enemies of God putting up their standards in the midst of the smashed, burned and destroyed temple. He saw a conspiracy of all the nations around Israel to wipe Israel out as a nation. He saw all the meeting places in the land burned, the worship of God suppressed. He saw God’s people oppressed, afflicted, poor and needy. He saw an end of prophecy from God, that He would simply stop communicating with His people, no more answer to prayer. No end in sight, either. He cries out, “How long, O God, will the adversary revile?” (Psalm 74:10). Asaph openly asks questions that are a contradiction for anyone who trusts in the living God:

“Will the Lord reject forever? And will He never be favorable again? Has His lovingkindness ceased forever? Has His promise come to an end forever? Has God forgotten to be gracious, or has He in anger withdrawn His compassion?” (Psalm 77:7-9).

Asaph thought and pondered, trying to figure out what all this ruin and destruction he was seeing meant, even as he was living in the height of peace, prosperity and the nearness of God. And he came to an inescapable conclusion:

Then I said, “It is my grief, that the right hand of the Most High has changed” (Psalm 77:10). What else can it mean? We’re dead; we’re doomed! God has changed His mind! He will abandon us! We’re all dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! But Asaph doesn’t stop there. At least, the Holy Spirit did not let him stop there. Evidently Asaph could not accept that conclusion that he had thought out. So he did something else. He meditated on the word of God.

“I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds” (Psalm 77:11-12).

What good will meditating on the word of God do?

What difference will that make with these visions of certain destruction from God? For one thing, Asaph begins thinking about God’s existence.

“Your way, O God, is holy; what god is great like our God? You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. You have by Your power redeemed Your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah” (Psalm 77:13-15).

Because he thinks about all God’s works, he has to start at the very beginning: God created the heavens and the earth. Why did He create? Because He is good; His steadfast love endures forever. What god is like the living God? Answer: There is no other god. Every other power is dependent upon God. He alone is the self-existent God who was and is, and is to come. He is, from eternity to eternity. Then Asaph considers that particular work of power God accomplished in redeeming Israel from slavery in Egypt. This was in public, a historical intervention of the power of God, smashing flat Egypt and killing all the firstborn, propelling Israel out of bonds and oppression. Israel exists because God is. Then Asaph says something profound as a result of his meditation:

“Your way was in the sea and Your paths in the mighty waters, and Your footprints may not be known.” Paths are usually made by repeated beating down of vegetation by people’s steps in a way that is seen and known. But God only ever went through the Red Sea once, and His steps may not be known. He doesn’t think like us; He cannot be figured out.

He is unfathomable, beyond finding out.

“’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts'” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

God showed Asaph visions, had him write them down, and then did not explain them. Some of those visions were fulfilled centuries in the future. Others have not yet happened, even thousands of years later. But figuring out what God was up to was not part of Asaph’s job. Ultimately, he had to trust in God, be satisfied with what God had revealed and not necessarily understand what God was doing.

If you’ve ever tried to figure out what God is doing in your life and your ministry, you know that it doesn’t work. It’s super-turbo-hyper frustrating too. You can ask God, “Why?” till the cows come home, but He won’t budge one inch. God is unfathomable, which means you can’t get to the bottom of what He is doing. It doesn’t matter what kind of genius you are, here your intellect will fail you. But you can think differently by meditating in the word of God. And you can start now and do it every day. Then when God does something in your life that is outrageous, and you try to figure it out, and come up with an answer that contradicts everything you know about God, you have a legitimate way out of your dilemma.

You can think deeply on all His acts and wonders. You can be at peace. You can be humbled. You can even grasp God’s thoughts and His ways. You don’t understand everything, but in a significant and growing way, you do know God. That’s more important. Don’t you think?

A building is only as strong as its foundation. The walls can’t even support its own weight. But when that weight is transferred to the foundation, the whole building is stable.

I learned this as I meditated through Psalm 55:22: “Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.”

As I looked up words and studied this passage, I learned first that the word “burden” was used here only, not repeated anywhere else in the Old Testament. It means literally, “that which is given.” I asked myself, What is given? Who gives it?

I realized that God is the one who gives, and He gives a person all there is to do with that person.

He gives life and existence. He gives gender and nationality. He gives health or lack of it. Height, weight, potential, ability, gifting, lack of gifting, weaknesses, strengths, status, opportunities, difficulties, setbacks, perplexing times, light and dark. Everything connected with our lives do not originate with us but from Him. “John answered and said, ‘A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven'” (John 3:27). Like a standing wall, I cannot bear my own weight. I don’t have stability. My own burden overwhelms me at the slightest tremble. I am a house of cards.

The Lord says, He actually commands us, to cast our burdens onto Him, and He will sustain us.

Transmit the weight of all that He has given you upon Him, all of it. Strengths as well as sins. Money as well as debts. Health as well as sickness. ALL of you. And He will bear up, carry, take the load. Stability comes from God taking upon Himself our burden. Isn’t that presumptuous of us to dump all our baggage on God and expect Him to deal with it like a cosmic bellboy? Crazy enough, He has always intended to carry our burden.

“Bel has bowed down, Nebo stoops over; their images are consigned to the beasts and the cattle. The things that you carry are burdensome, a load for the weary beast. They stooped over, they have bowed down together; they could not rescue the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity. ‘Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, you who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you (Isaiah 46:1-4).

God made us to cast our burden on Him. It is perverse that we avoid what He expects us to do. Perverse as I am, I found myself objecting to the conclusion of the verse: He will never permit the righteous to be shaken? Can that possibly be true? I get shaken all the time! Have you ever felt like the promises are for everyone but you? That you’re the exception?

As I considered and blew off some steam, I was reminded of Hebrews 12:27: “This expression, ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

And there is my answer: I might get shaken, but it shows where I am putting my trust. If I am trusting in something other than the Lord, that created thing cannot bear the burden; it will crumble and shatter. And when it does shatter, I cry out, “Lord! Help me!,” and He does. I learn by valuable experience how foolish it is to trust in anything but the uncreated Lord. And then it happens all over again, in a different part of my life, more shaking, more abandoning of misplaced trust, more repentance and trusting in the Lord.

It is righteous to cast our burden on the Lord. It is unrighteous to not leave it with Him.

When does it end? When my life and all that I am has been fully cast upon the Lord, and all the crumbly dirt, rock, chaff and dross has been shaken and removed; and my life is founded on the unshakeable. What is left is eternal, more precious than gold, a foundation encrusted with rubies and precious stones, that nothing can shake.

Nothing lost in the process is worth keeping. That which remains is valuable beyond price. The Prince of Peace rules there, and great is His peace.

“Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29).

A “wannabe” is defined as:

1. A person who wants or aspires to be someone or something else or who tries to look or act like someone else.

2. Something (such as a company, city or product) intended to rival another of its kind that has been successful; especially: one for which hopes have failed or are likely to fail.

There is dissatisfaction, aspiration, emulation and failure in being a wannabe.

Dissatisfaction, because what they are doesn’t impress them as much as someone else. Aspiration, in that a wannabe wants to be more than they already are. So instead of staying themselves, they work on being like somebody else. But that imitation is not likely to succeed. There is already a person who is the real thing. People do not want an imitation; they want the real thing. Granted, there is a niche for tribute bands and Elvis imitators. But imitating Elvis is not like being Elvis. When a company comes out with a “me too” product, they are not likely to be as good as the original product. So that attempt to be like someone else or something else is already headed to failure. No one is going to take the place of that original person or thing.

One of the powerful conforming tendencies of our culture is to be something more than we naturally are. We have a culture full of wannabes. It shows itself in imitators of all kinds. There is also a deeper current of personal dissatisfaction in the gay and trans movements. I don’t like myself as I am. I would be happier if I were another gender, another person altogether. There seems to be no end of official encouragement to be something other than who you are, that satisfaction and happiness is in being something other than what you are right now.

I got on to this line of thinking as I meditated through Psalm 86:10, “For You are great, and do wondrous things; You alone are God.” I thought about how there is only one God, and almost immediately I thought of a verse that augmented that, 1 Corinthians 8:5-6:

“For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.”

Isn’t it interesting that there are many gods and many lords? There were all the Greek and Roman and local deities that Paul and the first Christians had to deal with. Behind those are the principalities and powers, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. And behind those is the devil.

What struck me then was the realization that the devil is a wannabe.

He had aspiration to be something greater than he was because he was dissatisfied with what God made him. Because there is no one greater, he wanted to be God. And so he emulates God. He is the god of this world. He has his angels. He gives favor to those who seek him. He wields power, and he schemes; and he exercises authority. He falls short of being God and is now lower than what God originally made him.

Since the devil is the prince of the power of the air, he determines the environment, the atmosphere in which this dark world lives. Part of the mindset of this world is dissatisfaction with the person we are. We don’t measure up. We compare ourselves with one another: Am I better than they, or are they better? Do I win or lose? Many of us don’t measure up because we are duds and lumps. Emulating others does not lead to success. It leads to being seen as a wannabe. Not measuring up leads to discouragement. Even in Christian circles there’s the tendency to compare oneself and measure oneself by others. There is a real temptation to emulate successful ministers and to despair if emulation is impossible.

I wish I were somebody else is the doorway to discouragement and despair. The answer is not in somehow trying to change ourselves to be like someone else. It lies in the opposite direction, to become what God intends for you to be. The good news is we are not to be like anyone else. To be like another sinner is simply not enough. What are we going to be, then?

God wants us to become like Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

That is far better than becoming like someone else. The Son of God is a one-of-a-kind. Unique. As we follow Him and imitate Him, we become unique, one-of-a-kind people. You can see this in 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7, “And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe.”

“Followers” is the Greek word from which we get the English word, “imitate.” The Thessalonians imitated Paul, what he believed, did and said. As they imitated Paul, they became “examples.” The Greek word is tupos, from which we get the word “type.” A type is an original from which one makes copies. These believers started out emulating and imitating Paul, but they didn’t end up wannabes. They became originals that others began to imitate in following Jesus. In following Paul, the Thessalonians were following Christ. Paul said to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

What will that look like? Outwardly, it might look rough. We will suffer, as Christ did. God will do a work in us to make us humble, just like Jesus, even as He does a work through us to benefit others. There will be setbacks, betrayals, the work will be hard and not always appreciated in this life.

Inwardly it will be glorious. We will be sustained by strength from heaven. We will know God’s love for us in Christ. We are going to love everybody. That may not look outwardly spectacular, but love is always eternally significant. Eternal significance is a lot better than being temporally famous and building huge monuments to ourselves. Our names may not be widely known in this world, but we are well known by God.

The source of our individuality is our calling in Christ.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

As we pursue those good works that God has prepared for each one of us to do, we will inevitably become unique. That course God has for you and its experiences will forge your character and develop you to be the person He wants you to be. It also makes comparison irrelevant. Why should your path look like anyone else’s? All that matters is doing what God wants each one of us to do. Then we can enjoy, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” forever.

How do you have a decent quiet time? What does one do? And most importantly, why even do it?

George Mueller, who sustained his orphanages by prayer, thought he had to travail in prayer every morning. He would go quite a while working at it, and often not getting very far at it, in his opinion. George changed his mind later in life. He realized the main order of business was that he be happy in the Lord every day. Everything else in his life came out of his relationship with the Lord. So that’s what his morning time was about.

What a great way to spend your morning time: getting happy in the Lord!

How George did it was prayer through the Bible. This is another big change: He put the Word first instead of prayer first. He read, meditated and then he prayed.

When we spend time with the Lord, we end up developing our relationship with Him. I don’t have a quiet time because I’m a pastor. I was not born a pastor. I probably won’t die as one. But I am a man of God. Men of God and women of God pursue their relationship with God.

I want to tell you about three main activities we can do to pursue God. You need all of them.

1. Read the Bible

This is so simple that people miss it, and yet it’s so wonderful. Read the Bible to become familiar with it, not to understand it. Don’t worry if you don’t understand the Bible, just read it every day for the rest of your life. Make it your goal for the Bible to be the first thing you read in the morning and the last thing you read before you go to bed. The more Bible you are familiar with, the more the Holy Spirit can use it to speak to you. You will become familiar with His voice. It’s part of our salvation, that God Himself teaches us (Isaiah 54:13), and He will put things together for us as we have an ongoing read through His Word.

2. Study the Bible

If you study it, you will grow in knowing what it says and what it doesn’t say. Study is looking closely and carefully at the words, their syntax and grammar, and asking questions and getting answers from the text, dictionaries, lexicons and reference books (like Bible encyclopedias). Study is difficult if you don’t know what questions to ask and what you are looking for. So give yourself a treat and consider Living by the Book by Howard Hendricks and William Hendricks, the Holy Grail of how to study the Bible. Just to learn from somebody who really knows what they are doing is a fabulous experience.

3. Meditate in the Bible

This is Psalm 1, Joshua 1 and Romans 12:1-2. Meditation is the spiritual equivalent to digestion. There is only one way for you to live: eat, chew, digest and absorb the nutrient results of digestion. Your fuel is glucose, simple sugar, and you must get that glucose into every cell of your body. What would happen if you ate, chewed, digested, but didn’t absorb the glucose into your cells? That would mean your kidneys would flush the glucose from your blood stream, and it would be as though you had not eaten. Unless you get the glucose all the way into your cells, you will starve to death, even though you eat like a horse. This is not a hypothetical example, it’s a real condition that real people experience known as type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetics have to manually get enough blood sugar into their cells, or they will die. There is no substitute for that glucose.

This is also true spiritually: We can read and study and still starve in our souls, because we don’t take in the Word of God by thinking deeply on it. Just as there is only one way to digest and absorb your food, meditation is the only way to internalize the Word of God. If you don’t practice meditating in the Bible, you are missing a vital link in your spiritual nourishment. It’s a possible reason why you look elsewhere for fulfillment than Jesus.

Meditating in the Word of God satisfies because it brings you into contact with the divine, uncreated, eternal love of God. Just like He created you to live physically on glucose, He created you to live mentally and spiritually on His love. There is no substitute for the love of God. You must receive it into the deepest areas of your life, or you will starve.

Let’s say you decide that gasoline costs too much, so you economize and put sugar water into your gas tank instead of gasoline. Is that a viable, cheap alternative? Like it or not, you can only put one kind of fuel in your car; your body runs only on glucose, and only the love of God will satisfy your heart and soul.

Moses prayed, “O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (Psalm 90:14). David declared, “Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips will praise You”(Psalm 63:3). Put everything in life on one side; put the love of God on the other. Ask David to choose which he will have. David immediately says, “The love of God! I don’t need that other junk; I don’t even need life. But I absolutely need God’s lovingkindness!”

Seeking the Lord every day isn’t spectacular.

It’s like putting a seed in the ground. Planting a seed isn’t a spectacular event. There’s nothing visible to see. Watching a seed grow is not super exciting either. As we seek the Lord, reading, studying, meditating, we are planting seed after seed in our lives. Seeds are small, but do not despise small things: They are highly significant. They contain living blueprints for growing a living entity that is powered from the heavens, steadfast and immovable, able to reproduce itself, benefiting everyone around it by giving strength, shelter, food and pleasure. In nature, we call it a tree. Spiritually, that will be you.

Not planting the Word of God into you means you stay just the same as you are right now. That’s Isaiah 40:7.

I once watched a debate between Frank Turek and Christopher Hitchens. The topic was, “Which explains the existence of the universe better, theism or atheism?” Frank was loaded with points, facts, and spoke easily and effectively. Christopher responded with disdain and contempt. He did not quote facts, cite studies or use any hard science at all. The gist of his reply was, “I hate God. So, if I don’t tell God how fabulous He is, I’m going to hell? Is that it?” The audience’s sympathy obviously lay with Christopher, and they cheered him often during the debate. Frank was dead in the water. He didn’t make any headway in the face of such contempt and engage-less debate.
I couldn’t answer that, either, and it started me thinking. Christopher’s big point was God is egocentric and arbitrarily demands worship where none is deserved. People resonated with that and showed their agreement. But Christopher is really wrong. Do you know why? Because Christopher can’t tell the difference between the devil and God.

Here’s how the devil became the devil.

He was created to be an amazing, angelic being. Somehow he began to consider his own beauty over that of God. This is what God says of him: “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings, that they may see you” (Ezekiel 28:17).
This angel turned away from seeing the eternal glory of God and began to contemplate his own created beauty. And God tells him he destroyed his wisdom in so doing. What is any glory in comparison to the glory of the only true God? There is no other glory. This is where the angel began to be the devil:
“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit” (Isaiah 14:12-15).
The angel thought that being God means power and glory, and evidently, thought, “Hey, I got power! I got glory! Why aren’t I God? Why should He be God? I want to be God!”

What does it mean to be God?

What makes Him God? We immediately think of the attributes of God: He is everywhere at once (omnipresent), knows everything (omniscient), is all-powerful (omnipotent). What else do we think makes Him God? He is the Creator, eternal (thus, not created), holy, personal, outside of time, not limited in any way. He is glorious, blessed forever, satisfied within Himself (Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and therefore, doesn’t need anything outside Himself. He doesn’t need the universe to bow down and worship Him. He doesn’t have a crisis of identity such as: “Wow, nobody worships Me! That really hurts My feelings.” I have taught this subject before and asked the question, and people generally answer along these lines.

But there came a point when God took all the attributes that we consider intrinsic and essential to being God and laid them aside.

He became born as one of His creations, a human being. Paul speaks of this in Philippians 2:
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11).

Jesus has the form of God, meaning essence. It’s who He is. Unlike the devil, He was not trying to be equal with God: He is there already. He is God.

But then Jesus did not consider His position and essence as something to hold onto at all costs. To obey the Father’s will, He emptied Himself. This is a mystery, because we, as human beings, cannot change our essence. I can change my shirt. I can take off my ripped t-shirt, and change into a shirt and tie, and look better on the outside, but I can’t change my arm. It’s part of me. It would be cool if I could exchange my arm for one that looked like the Hulk with lots of muscles. But Jesus, laying aside His attributes, would be like me laying aside my arms, my legs, my internal organs, my bones. He laid aside what we would consider essential to being God and took the form (essence) of a slave. The form of God merging with the form of a slave is not a contradiction. The two co-exist. He did not stop being God. He was God even without all the things that we consider essential to being God.
When Jesus was asked by His disciple, Philip, to show them the Father He said: “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (John 14:9).
Imagine the disciples looking at Jesus, trying to see the glory, the power, earthquakes, angels crying out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty!” All there is to see is a man about their size, looking back at them with amazement (“You guys don’t get who I am!”) But He said it. When you see Jesus, you see what God is really like.
Being in appearance as a man (like my shirt sleeve), He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death. This is really the important point: He humbled Himself. He is God, but He did not think about Himself; He thought about the Father first and others second. Nobody made Him submit; He submitted Himself to the Father. He voluntarily took a position that was concerned, not with Himself, but with all others. He served God and all other people by giving His life to make propitiation for them. No one has humbled himself more nor served more people than Jesus.
This is why God is going to make the whole universe of intelligent creatures bow down before Jesus and acknowledge that Jesus is God. Jesus clearly shows us who God really is, not a tyrannical CEO at the top, ordering people around, making things go His way or else. He is the one who loves and cares about people far below Him who despise and hate Him, and will even give His own life to save them. He does not think about Himself, but about others. He is humble.

Humility is the essential nature of God. This is what makes Him God.

All the power, knowledge and abilities are cool but, in His mind, are not essential to who and what God is. He does not think on Himself but thinks on others. I imagine someone saying, “Okay, that’s cool, but how important is this, really?”
Well, the Bible says I am nothing without love. But love means suffering long with the Beloved and being kind. If I care more about myself than the Beloved, I won’t love the Beloved. The Beloved is a pain to live with. But if I don’t think about my own personal comfort, then I can value the Beloved more than myself and preserve the relationship at all costs because that’s what love does. The Bible says God is love. And without humility there is no love. Humility is the precursor for love.
How about obedience? Obedience cuts across our personal comfort. At some point, it will be personally inconvenient to obey the one to whom obedience is due. If I value my own comfort more than my obligation, I won’t obey. Jesus was obedient to the point of death. No humility, no obedience.
How about faith? If I am thinking on myself and my wisdom and abilities, I am not going to depend on someone else. Without humility there is no faith.
Learning requires humility. If I think I know it all, I am not going to listen to someone who I consider beneath me. What can he show me? Humility says, I know some but not all. A wise man is humble and keeps learning. Without humility there is no learning.
Think about any good character trait. The basis for that trait is humility. It is the source of every good thing. And God is good because He is humble. That is what it means to be God.
If you reverse it, you find that every evil thing comes from pride and arrogance, which is thinking more of myself than is warranted. Arrogance means only I am important, and I can be indifferent to those around me. I can treat them any way I want because they aren’t important. I can be brutal. I will be ignorant, because no one can teach me anything. I will be disobedient, unloving, undependable and incapable of keeping a relationship together.
This is really like the devil. He is not humble; he thinks only of himself. He would not and could not disregard himself to serve someone else. He only wants to serve himself, and he wants everyone else to serve him too.

God shows us through the example of the devil that pride and desire for personal glory is not worthy.

It leads to every wicked thing. God shows us through Jesus that humility leads to every good thing. Humility is worthy of glory and honor.

So, to get back to Christopher, he is actually right in being disgusted at a being who is bent on self-glory. But he is angry at the wrong person. Everything he despises, God despises too. Christopher attributed the pride of the devil to God and ignored Jesus, who serves and blesses the world. That is unworthy and wrong.
Christopher is no longer among us. He now knows the truth. It’s too late for him to change his mind about the God he despised. But how about you? Can you tell the difference between the devil and God?

The above original image is sourced to Christian Post.

In February 2017, an interviewer on Irish television asked Stephen Fry, “You walk up to the Pearly Gates and you are confronted by God. What would Stephen Fry say to Him, Her, or It?” Mr. Fry responded, “I think I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare You? How dare You create such a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world that is so full of injustice and pain? Because the God who created the universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac, totally selfish.”

Mr. Fry allows that God created the universe.

Does he really believe this? He hints that it may not be so. If there is no God, then for Mr. Fry to severely criticize and blame a non-existent being is a waste of time. We appeared out of nothing, hence there is no one to blame with wrongdoing. That’s the moral conclusion of evolution: There is no moral standard outside of what is to appeal to. What is, is right, simply because it is. Mr. Fry is wrong to waste hostility on nothing.
But Mr. Fry is morally outraged by God and blames Him for disease, suffering and death. Since he allows that God created the world and blames Him for what is wrong, this is why Mr. Fry is wrong.

If you allow that the universe was created by God, then you must admit that He made human beings.

You must admit that the first man and woman disobeyed God and incurred the penalty. God said they would die if they disobeyed Him. Since they did disobey of their own free will, Mr. Fry is wrong to blame God.

Should God have made robots who could not disobey? Then you can’t know the possibility of love, because for love to have meaning, there must be choice. God gives everyone a real choice.

Should God have said, “You chose wrong, therefore I am nullifying your choice.”? That removes freedom. We’re back to being robots. Where Mr. Fry is most wrong is his position that he knows better than God. Does he really know everything? Is he eternal? Is he perfect?
Before Mr. Fry appeals to a universal moral standard, he had better realize that a universal, moral standard applies to him as well. Does Mr. Fry act with complete moral purity? Does he steal? Does he tell lies? Does he love his fellow man in tangible, actual ways? Does he think about anyone other than himself? Has he caused hurt in others merely because he was acting in self-interest? Every person knows that they do immoral things. God says every man sinned and falls short of His glory. For Mr. Fry to know what is right but not apply it to himself is to know the truth but suppress it in unrighteousness. “It’s okay for me to do it, but it is wrong for everybody else.” This is wrong.

Mr. Fry can criticize God for bone cancer in children, but he himself is powerless to do anything productive to heal it.

Unlike Mr. Fry, God has done something about bone cancer in children. He sent His only Son to take the consequences of sin upon Himself, so that anyone who comes to Jesus Christ and asks can receive eternal life, forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God. This offer even applies to Mr. Fry. God forgives those who hate Him without a cause if they come to Him through Jesus Christ. Jesus, who is the Son of God, denied Himself to save people who are far below Him. It is worthy to think of the suffering of others and relieve their suffering. Mr. Fry disregards this amazing compassion and self-denial. It is wrong to ignore Jesus Christ.

Mr. Fry does not offer any options for what would have been a better way. He is morally outraged but is content to severely criticize from his high, moral throne. But this is wrong. If a terrorist bombs a building built by an architect, do you say the architect doesn’t exist; and then blame the architect for the ruined building? But that is what he is doing.
If God doesn’t exist, Stephen Fry is wrong. If God exists, Stephen Fry is wrong.