Peace in a Restless World

Psalm 23.1-3 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

“Depth and strength underlie the simplicity of this psalm,” observes Derek Kidner in his book, Psalms. Often quoted in times of trial and suffering, Psalm 23 offers hope to the faithful.

The reality of the peace that comes from God is far from naive and simplistic. In his book Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity, Abraham Joshua Heschel asserts, “It is hard to dismiss the popular concept that religion is a function of human nature, an avenue in the wild estate of civilization. We have been indoctrinated with the idea that religion is man’s own response to a need, the result of craving for immortality, or the attempt to conquer fear.”

Heschel, who walked arm-in-arm with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Al, knew this at a far deeper level than most of us have experienced. “Many people assume,” he continues, “that we feed our body to ease the pangs of hunger, to calm the irritated nerves of the empty stomach. As a matter of fact, we do not eat because we feel hungry but because the intake of food is essential for the maintenance of life, supplying the energy necessary for the various functions of the body. Hunger is the signal for eating, its occasion and regulator, not its true cause.”

“To restrict religion to the realm of human endeavor, or consciousness would imply that a person who refuses to take notice of God could isolate himself from the Omnipresent,” Heschel expounds. “Religion is not a cursory activity. What is going on between God and man is for the duration of life.”

To say, as the Psalmist does, that “I lack nothing” is to acknowledge the full peace of God. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom which points to the holistic peace which is a result of the presence and pleasure of God.

“Peace is not escape; its contentment is not complacency,” Kidner concludes: “There is readiness to face deep darkness and imminent attack, and the climax reveals a love which homes towards no material goal but to the Lord Himself.”

Prayer Fill us, dear Father, with your peace. Renew our hearts and engage our minds. You are our hope and our future, and we long for your peace to make right all that we suffer in this world.

Today’s Readings Leviticus 19 (Listen – 3:08) Psalms 23-24 (Listen – 2:03)

Cultivating Faith Part 3 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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The Future: Faith in Suffering

Psalm 22.30-31
Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

Tim Keller suggested, on the CNN Belief Blog, that answers to the question, “Why me?” are generally inadequate. He wrote that people usually say one of four things:

  1. “I guess this proves that there is no God.” – which is inadequate because “suffering does not go away if you abandon belief in God.”
  2. “While there is a God, he’s not completely in control of everything.” – which is inadequate because “that kind of God doesn’t really fit our definition of ‘God’”
  3. “God saves some people and lets others die because he favors and rewards good people.” – which is inadequate because “the Bible forcefully rejects” this idea.
  4. “God knows what he’s doing, so be quiet and trust him” – which is inadequate because “it is cold and because the Bible gives us more with which to face the terrors of life.”

“God did not create a world with death and evil in it. It is the result of humankind turning away from him,” Keller reflected. “But God did not abandon us. Only Christianity of all the world’s major religions teaches that God came to Earth in Jesus Christ and became subject to suffering and death himself, dying on the cross to take the punishment our sins deserved, so that someday he can return to Earth to end all suffering without ending us.”

Where do we find this? Psalm 22. On the cross, Jesus quoted it: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yet neither the Psalm nor Jesus ended with abandonment. When Jesus made atonement, as Psalm 22 foreshadowed, the Father raised him up.

Prayer
Lord, We may not know the reason that you allow evil and suffering to continue, but at least we know that the reason is not that you do not love us. In Gethsemane, Jesus chose to suffer for us and, on the cross, he atoned for our sins so that we need not suffer eternally. Therefore, we proclaim your righteousness in our generation and to a people yet unborn, that he has done it. Amen.

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 18 (Listen – 3:46)
Psalms 22 (Listen – 3:49)

Christ – Our Hope Black Lives Matter

Psalm 20.7
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Civil Rights, let-alone equality, for African Americans have been notoriously difficult for The United States to secure, structure, and maintain. Names like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and now Walter Scott, shot eight times in the back by a police officer in South Carolina last week, have become representatives of this national tragedy.

Few in our country believe governance and the mental resolve of the masses alone are sufficient to solve such an insidious problem. In this way we observe part of the words of the Psalmist: we no longer trust in chariots (governance) and horses (power). Yet few of the dominant voices in American culture would offer up “the Lord our God,” as the Psalmist does, as the solution to racism. Perhaps this is to our detriment.

History has its share of those who maligned Scripture to condone racism, slavery, and worse — but it was the words and work of Christ that ultimately crumbled the foundation slavery sat upon. 

Throughout the 1790s William Wilberforce worked tirelessly to eviscerate slavery’s justification in English jurisprudence. “Wilberforce’s embracing of the anti-slavery cause was from the direct effect of embracing the Christian worldview,” The Wilberforce School reports.

Years later, back in the United States, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life to see needed changes in governance and society. We know from his writing and teachings that King knew the catalyst for this change was Christ — the gospel was the solution.

Rev. Dr. King’s seventh “I have a dream” statement — the crescendo of his seminal I Have a Dream speech — quotes the Messianic prophecy found in Isaiah 40.3-5. King was sure to have known this is the only section of the Old Testament quoted in all four gospels — inaugurating the incarnation of Christ in each. 

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.”

Social activism can raise awareness. Governance can eliminate impunity and protect the vulnerable. Only Christ is sufficient to change the hearts of men, bring justice to the wicked, and heal the broken.

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 17 (Listen – 2:39)
Psalms 20-21 (Listen – 2:37)

Finding Faith in Future Glory

Psalm 17.15
As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

“A little patience can go a long way,” wrote Alexei Barrionuevo in the New York Times as the economy began showing signs of recovery in 2012. “At least that’s the lesson to be drawn from developers who have crawled from the ashes of the housing crisis – or from behind the barricades where they waited it out – to a Manhattan high-end market that has become a first-choice destination for the cash of the world’s wealthy.” 

Yet what has their patience really gained? They may be building bigger condos, but are they making better homes?

When David fled from his enemies, he fixed his eyes on his future home. “The Psalmist looks beyond the grave into another world;” Spurgeon once preached, “he overlooks the narrow deathbed where he has to sleep, and he says, ‘When I awake.’ How happy is that man who has an eye to the future.”

Spurgeon’s sermon, The Hope of Future Bliss, continues, “So says the Christian. I ask no royal pomp or fame now; I am prepared to wait … I want not a pitiful estate here – I will tarry till I get my domains in heaven, those broad and beautiful domains that God has provided for them that love him. Well content will I be to fold my arms and sit me down in the cottage, for I shall have a mansion of God, ‘a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.’”

How do we know that we have such a home? Jesus promised his followers, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Prayer
Lord, You are the ultimate developer. Not only have you created our current home out of nothingness by your mere word, you have also prepared an eternal home in glory for us. Therefore, let us not long for ultimate satisfaction in any earthly home. Instead, by your Spirit, fill us with patient endurance in this life so that we hope in your home, where we will be satisfied in your presence. Amen.

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 14 (Listen – 8:11)
Psalms 17 (Listen – 1:58)

Finding Faith
Part 5 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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This Weekend’s Readings

Saturday: Leviticus 15 (Listen – 4:59); Psalms 18 (Listen – 5:47)
Sunday: Leviticus 16 (Listen – 5:36); Psalm 19 (Listen – 1:52)

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Finding Faith in Doubt

Psalm 16.2-4

I say to the LORD, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.” As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply.

TBT: Finding Faith in Doubt | by C.S. Lewis

Though Christian charity sounds a very cold thing to people whose heads are full of sentimentality, and though it is quite distinct from affection, yet it leads to affection. 

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

People are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.”

On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. 

Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. 

The great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.

Prayers from the Past
“I believe; help my unbelief!”

— Father of the boy healed by Jesus in Mark 9.14

Today’s Readings
Leviticus 13 (Listen – 9:34)
Psalms 15-16 (Listen – 2:04)

Finding Faith
Part 4 of 5, read more on TheParkForum.org

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