Pray for President Obama today as he welcomes to the White House Shimon Peres, President of Israel, giving thanks for the excellent relationship our two nations enjoy, and praying for God's guidance and wisdom for these two leaders as they meet and speak together...
1-3 God majestic, praise abounds in our God-city!
His sacred mountain,
breathtaking in its heights�earth's joy.
Zion Mountain looms in the North,
city of the world-King.
God in his citadel peaks
impregnable.
4-6 The kings got together,
they united and came.
They took one look and shook their heads,
they scattered and ran away.
They doubled up in pain
like a woman having a baby.
7-8 You smashed the ships of Tarshish
with a storm out of the East.
We heard about it, then we saw it
with our eyes�
In God's city of Angel Armies,
in the city our God
Set on firm foundations,
firm forever.
9-10 We pondered your love-in-action, God,
waiting in your temple:
Your name, God, evokes a train
of Hallelujahs wherever
It is spoken, near and far;
your arms are heaped with goodness-in-action.
11 Be glad, Zion Mountain;
Dance, Judah's daughters!
He does what he said he'd do!
12-14 Circle Zion, take her measure,
count her fortress peaks,
Gaze long at her sloping bulwark,
climb her citadel heights�
Then you can tell the next generation
detail by detail the story of God,
Our God forever,
who guides us till the end of time.
"If the joy which men experience and cherish is without God, the issue of their joy at length will be destruction, and their laughter will be turned into gnashing of teeth.
"We do not have an uncertain God, or a God of whom we have only a confused and an indistinct apprehension, but one of whom we have a true and solid knowledge. When the faithful here declare that God will continue unchangeably stedfast to his purpose in maintaining his Church, their object is to encourage and strengthen themselves to persevere in a continued course of faith."
(Commentary from Heart Aflame: Daily Readings from Calvin on the Psalms)
"A Solemn Charge"
1 Timothy 1:3-4
3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.
The "myths and genealogies" cited here are evidence that the false teachings Paul is writing about originate with Jewish legends.
Christians in America today can get lost in such speculations as well, and would be wise to heed Paul's warnings in 1 Timothy. "Let us take care that we not get absorbed in uncertainties, let alone break fellowship over secondary issues."
Week 3/Tuesday "What Is Grace?"
Romans 5:20
Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
"Grace is God's free and unmerited favor shown to guilty sinners who deserve only judgment. It's the love of God shown to the unlovely. It is God reaching downward to people who are in rebellion against Him."
It also stands directly against any sense of worthiness we think we might have. Hear this: "Grace and works are mutually exclusive."
"Our relationship with God is based on either works or grace." Read that again. IT CANNOT BE BOTH!
And furtermore (as is the ongoing topic of this book), grace doesn't rescue us from our sins, give us some new spiritual "super power," and then leave us on our own. Paul writes in Philippians 1:6 that "he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
It will all be accomplished by his grace!
Grace and peace, friends.