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Psalm 4 – God Listens to Us

Psalm 4:1 reminds me that God pulled me out of the miry clay and set my feet on firm ground. He gave me reasons to live when life seemed meaningless. Do I routinely remember that? In the day to day minutia of life I think it’s easy to forget that God rescued us from sin and gave us life – not just any life but eternal life with Him. He gave us a way to defeat death. Nobody else could give us a gift like that. Look how David remembers God:

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of David. Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!
Psalm 4:1 (ESV)

When my life sucked God gave me relief. Nobody else could have done that for me. My life was nothing but a total disaster (that’s putting it lightly) at one point. God rescued me when I was in distress. I need to remember that and thank Him!

This Psalm reminds me that God loves me. He loves and protects all those whose hearts are blameless toward Him. We can rest in peace and assurance knowing God will protect us. I ask the question, “Does this mean Christians won’t be poor or get sick?” I don’t think that’s what David means. I think David means that trusting God results in an inner peace that surpasses understanding. We no longer have to fear when we trust God with our lives. No matter what happens in this life, we will spend eternity with Him.

We often find blessings on earth when we follow Him. But people who trust God also suffer. Look at Job. Look at Paul. I choose to look at Scripture in light of eternity. And I choose to trust God and believe that He will protect me, as I would protect my own child.

In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.
Psalm 4:8 (ESV)

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Matthew 10:8 (ESV)

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Psalm 3 – Words of Encouragement

Psalm 3 makes me think of my troubles. It causes me to think of the “enemies” I have at work. OK, they’re not really enemies, but they always seem to be against me. If I make a decision to use red, then I should have used black. If I say, “turn left,” then I should have said, “turn right.” It’s as if they’re out to get me; it’s as if nothing I do is the right thing to do. And guess who tells me these things? My bosses, of course. The ones with the power.

So, I feel helpless. I feel victimized, pressured, threatened. But you know what? I’m thinking about the minutia of life, about the little things that really have no impact upon my eternal security. If I pull the wool off my eyes and see the big picture of life and death, of heaven and hell . . . I realize that my enemies can do nothing to me, regardless of the power they seem to wield in this present time.

The Lord is my shield. He is my glory. He is the lifter of my head. If I meditate on His Word and focus on His faithfulness, the small troubles that surround me in my day to day life simply fall away.

3 But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.

4 I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah Psalm 3:3-4 (ESV)

David had it a lot worse than I have it. He had people trying to kill him. Absalom, his own son, was after him, trying to murder him. David didn’t just have nagging bosses; he had real enemies trying to end his life. It’s time for us, especially us Christians here in America, to stop whining and realize how good we have it. Especially me. We may have our daily struggles, and those who seem to be enemies, but if we turn our hearts to God and give Him all the glory, He will sustain us, protect us, and ultimately, give us an eternal home with Him.

Psalm 2

Psalm 2 immediately got me thinking about how this earth and our God are at odds. It kind of makes me wonder why God created us at all. Perhaps that question will be answered somewhere on down the road. But if He knew we were going to hate Him and plot against Him, why in the world did he speak us into being? But He did; that was His will.

It reminded me of the stubbornness of humans – of my own stubbornness. There are times that I’m wrong, and I know I’m wrong, but I still dig in my heels and fight. It amazes me that I can be so idiotic. But that’s human nature. Verse 2 says:

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed . . . (ESV)

Utter stupidity. But it’s real. Read the news articles scattered all over the Internet. Read your local paper. Listen to the news. Opposition to Christianity and morality is everywhere; people have to know there’s a God, yet they openly oppose Him; they loudly scoff at Him.

Psalm 2 reminds me that we need to be wise in our decision making. It would be better for us in the final day to believe in God and in His Son. God gives us fair warning here; He says:

10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.

11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Psalm 2:10-12 (ESV)

How stupid would it be, with a clear warning from God to listen to His Son, to then ignore Him? Pretty stupid. I fall into the “stupid” category a lot of the time. I hope that, in time, my stupidity will fade and that I will learn to love God’s Word, and to take refuge in His Son.

It’s smarter to be on God’s side . . . to be a leaf that does not wither . . . than to tick God off by working against Him.

Those who continue to do so will, ultimately, perish.

Psalm 1 – Eternal Blessings

I’m going to be reading through the Psalms. I’ll be making an effort to write a bit about each Psalm that I read. I’m not going to preach about the Psalms; I’m just going to comment on what I read, sharing my thoughts and feelings. Feel free to comment on what I write.

Today I read Psalm 1. It reminded me of a conversation I had not too long ago with a gentleman who didn’t feel that the Old Testament really talks much about life after death. I think the Old Testament does, in a lot of places, and Psalm 1 is one of those places.

Look at the first three verses.

1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (ESV)

What does that mean? To me, it means that the person who meditates on God’s law and find his delight in it will live forever. Does it mean that the person who delights in God’s law will be rich or never get a deadly disease? I don’t think so. I think the focus is much more expansive than that. I think the idea here is eternal prosperity, not fleeting riches.

Verses 4 and 5 say the same thing to me. The wicked are like “chaff that the wind drives away.” And they will not stand in the judgment (what judgment?), and they will not be counted among the righteous, but they will perish.

This Psalm also reminds me where my focus should be; on God’s Word. Very often I delight in other things more than God’s Word: my high def T.V. for instance, or my computer, or my bike, or my wife . . . the list is long. But God’s Word is life. It is knowledge. It’s the voice of God, available to you and to me, anytime we have the will to pick it up and look at it.

What do you delight in?

Surety or Not?

Tonight we studied Proverbs 11.

Verse 15 talked about not being a surety for a stranger. Read it for yourself:

Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.
Proverbs 11:15 (ESV)

Then the question was asked, “What about co-signing for a family member?” Our fearless leader went on to read Proverbs 6:1-3 to us:

1 My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, have given your pledge for a stranger,
2 if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth,
3 then do this, my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbor: go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor.
Proverbs 6:1-3 (ESV)

And I think the point was that it’s better not to co-sign for anyone, anytime. What do you think? Should we co-sign for friends or relatives or is Proverbs telling us that this is an unwise thing to do?

We want your Christian Testimony!

Submit your Christian testimony to us and we’ll post it on our site.

I know I’ve said this before, in other places, at other times . . . but we’d really like to have your Christian testimony! Your testimony could be the one that someone needs to hear. Sometimes it’s a bit of a pain to write something up, or perhaps you don’t think you’re a good writer at all. It doesn’t matter! We can help you edit your testimony until it’s just what you want. Jesus didn’t call us to be sedentary and keep all the Good News bottled up. He commanded us to share His Word to the nations.

No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a vessel or puts it under a bed, but sets it on a lampstand, that those who enter may see the light.
Luke 8:16

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:19, 20

Sharing what He’s done in your life is an easy way to do this!  All it takes is a few minutes of effort on your part to write up your testimony and email it to us.  We’ll post it for the world to read.  Our website, in terms of traffic, grows monthly.  This last month (December 2007) was our busiest month yet.  If you post your story with us, the world will read it.   You will be obeying God’s command to let your light shine.

Your testimony doesn’t have to be a shocking story, or an amazing story that will blow people away.  We’re not looking only for sensational, unbelievable, dramatic, earth-shaking Christian testmonies (although we like those too).  We just want your story of God’s grace and forgiveness in your life, whatever that may be.  Every Christian has such a story.  Every person who has experienced God’s grace has a story worth telling.  And every story is a story worth hearing.  If you feel the Spirit prompting you to share His truth with others, now is a good time to get started.  Sit down and start writing it up.  We’ll not only post it here, but if you’d like, we can also recommend other sites that will post your testimony as well.

In His service,

Eric

A Long Day . . .

Have you ever had one of those day which, when it began to draw to a close, felt like a very complete waste of time and energy? I have . . . today. I got up this morning, posted a couple outlines and a poem on truthsaves, then I got a very stupid idea. I thought I’d try to run the Knoppix distribution on my computer. Not knowing much about Linux, but knowing that Knoppix was a non-installing distribution (a demo, as it were) I thought it’d be fun to see it. According to the instructions, I downloaded it and burned it onto a disc, then tried booting my system with the disk. Nothing. I thought, “What a waste of time.” I took out the disk, restarted my computer and proceeded straight to the blue screen of death. I restarted the system. I began to do something when again the blue screen struck. I restarted again, quickly deleted my temp files, restored my registry to a few days earlier and restarted again. No more blue screen.

I then tried calling my parents on Skype. But Skype had disappeared. So I re-downloaded it, re-installed it, and then tried calling my parents. Needless to say, Skype didn’t work properly. I kept getting errors and losing my parents. So, I uninstalled Skype, looked up possible solutions, cleaned my temp files (again), deleted everything to do with Skype, cleaned my registry deleting every reference to Skype, updated my Logitech software and drivers (for my webcam), signed up for a new account with Skype and tried again. More errors. How frustrating! I had already gone through this on Christmas day and had fixed the problem by following the same steps. But today the same steps failed.

In the middle of the day I went out with my wife and Tim and we hiked around Round Lake. It felt good to get out. I took some pictures, came home a couple hours later and got busy on the computer again. Nothing worked. My website went down, my email quit working, my webcam stopped working, I was re-installing and un-installing programs . . . the frustration and irritation continued to mount.

Then, as the day wound down, I downloaded my pictures from my camera onto my computer and I stopped and started to think. I stared at the trail disappearing into the fog and I thought about the line in the Lord of the Rings:

The road goes ever on & on . . .

Then I thought about my own life. It’s a journey. It has a destination. Each day marks another step toward that destination. Did I get anywhere today? Did I step closer to my goal? What is my life’s goal? Where am I headed?

As I filtered through the jumble of thoughts in my frenzied mind the light came on. I’m headed toward Jesus. My life will end with Him. My journey should be leading me into His presence. But today I took some side-roads. I didn’t move toward the goal. I didn’t pray. I didn’t read the Word. I didn’t think in a productive manner. I let the challenges of the day defeat me and I wandered in circles. I let the little things control me. I didn’t see the big picture of life and death – of heaven and hell.

Jesus told us to:

Pray without ceasing.
I Thessalonians 5:17

Did I pray today? Do I normally pray? Do you? We should. In the Psalms we’re told:

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Psalm 1:2

Did I think on God’s Word today? Did I let it guide my thoughts and my actions today? No. And that’s why my day turned to crap. That’s why I swam through a swamp of negativity today.

Thankfully we serve a merciful God.

As I travel the unpredictable journey I pray that each step will lead me closer to Him.

New Content

I’ve just posted a new poem and two new outlines.

The poem is the author’s portrayal of his struggle with addiction.

The outlines are:

1 & 2 Kings

1 & 2 Chronicles

Enjoy! And don’t forget . . . as always, we’re looking for YOUR content. We have poems, articles, and testimonies from many different authors on truthsaves. But we’re constantly looking for more. Your words could be just the words someone needs to come to a saving knowledge of our Great God & Savior, Jesus Christ. If you feel the Spirit’s prompting, send us your writings today.

Two New Articles

I have a couple of great new articles on truthsaves, thanks to Tim. Both are a result of questions asked by site viewers. The first answers the question:

Are Infants Saved When They Die?

The second article is amazing. It answers the question:

Who is Our Savior?

Tim does an excellent job of answering that question, and also of painting a clear picture of God’s plan of salvation. If you’re new to Christianity, or if you’re wondering what Christianity is all about, then this article is definitely a good read.?