Psalm 37: Feeding on His Faithfulness

Psalms 37:3, 5, 7, 23 NKJV

"Trust in the Lord , and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness." (vs 3)

"Commit your way to the Lord , Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass." (vs 5)

"Rest in the Lord , and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass." (vs 7)

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way." (vs 23)

I am so grateful to God for Psalms! Such an amazing book. I particularly love vs 3 of this chapter:

"Trust in the Lord , and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness."

I love this. We are supposed to dwell in the trust of the Lord. Simply put, David is saying we should live in the confidence that God has everything covered.

Even better, not just live in the confidence that God has our back, but to feed on His faithfulness.

Making this as basic as possible, think about how often you eat. Typically a minimum of three times a day. Imagine, reminding yourself of God's faithfulness to you a minimum of three times a day. Constantly living out of the reminder of God's faithfulness leaves no room to doubt Him.

Granted, sometimes we doubt God has our back not because of His own unfaithfulness, but because of our own, but we don't need to. God's behaviour toward us has NOTHING to do with our behaviour towards Him. Psalms 73:1 says "Truly God is good to Israel, To such as are pure in heart" If we have accepted Jesus as our saviour, as our righteousness, then we are counted as those who are pure in heart, and God is good to them. Even when we fail, God doesn't; 2 Timothy 2.13 says "If we are faithless, He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself."

David continues in vs 5 and 7 "Commit your way to the Lord , Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. Rest in the Lord , and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord , And He delights in his way."

He says we should commit our way to the Lord, to put all our plans into God's hand, and then trust Him to work it all out. He says we should rest in God, relax in Him, enjoy Him. We should be in a perpetual state of relaxation in God, patiently waiting to see what He's doing. Not worrying because we see things working out for others, but relaxing and resting and dwelling and feeding on the knowledge that God is directing and leading us and enjoys doing so.

It has been almost a year since I moved here, and I moved here without a job and without a place to live. It felt crazy, but I knew God wanted me here and had to take a leap of faith and believe that He would take care of me.

If there is one thing this year has taught me, it's that resting in God and feeding on His faithfulness really pays off. Even when we feel like we are wasting time, or going nowhere God is still doing His thing; fixing all the tiny details so we are ready for the next step and it is ready for us.

Too much has happened this year for me to summarise properly, but I want you to have a vague idea of what has gone on, so here's a rough timeline:

September 6th: Move to Sweden
End of October: Find an apartment but have no money to pay rent for the month
A week later: Get given money for rent and living expenses for the month
End of November: Start job as an au pair which gives me job and accomodation (Yes, I was unemployed for three months)
April: Start thinking about what to do when done au pairing
May: Get invited to live with two friends at the end of my job
June: Apply for school also phone a bar about a job, find out the owner is English, arrange interview
End of June: Go for an interview at school, get rejected. Realise it is not possible to move in with friends till a month after I finish my job
Following day: Get a call inviting me for an interview for another course at the same school
Following week: Go for interview at school again and go for bar job interview, successful job interview, invited for two trial shifts
Following day: Get accepted into school
A few weeks later: Get call from friends saying a friend of theirs has an apartment I can potentially stay in before I move in with them

This year has been all over the place, up and down and nothing I expected, but God has had and continues to have my back. I have not been without a place to sleep, I have not been dead broke. Truly, God has been faithful and ordered each and every one of my steps. I do not know what the future holds for me, but I know that as I continue to commit my way to God, He will continue to order my steps and sort everything out.

Blue Skies

Sitting in my room, some worship music playing quietly, eating my breakfast and staring out of the window, looking at the clouds and I notice something for the first time. It's at the moment when the smallest piece of clear blue sky appears in the foggy white-grey mass of cloud and grows and grows until the sky is blue,as if God Himself has breathed and His breath has parted the clouds.

I think He does the same thing in our every trial, obstacle and challenge. His breath, the same one He breathed into us to give us life, He breathes into our challenges, so that despite the storm around, the rain clouds as grey and dark as can be, we can see with clarity, the hope in Him that is eternally ours.

Behind every 'cloud' there is a 'blue sky', and His name is Jesus.

Personal: Trusting God

Life is fairly testing at the moment...awesome but testing. I'm finishing my current job at the end of July with the plan to start studying mid-August. It's a huge step for several reasons because:

1. I have quit my job not yet knowing if I have been accepted onto the course I plan to do.
2. I am supposed to hear back about the course this week but haven't heard anything.
3. Living arrangements whilst I study are foggy to say the least.

All that being what it is, I know that I know that I know that God has a plan for my life and I am in it right at this moment. I know He has everything figured out and it will all work out for my good because that is what He promises.

Now...as I'm sure many of you know, trusting God when you can't see how things are going to come together can be rather difficult. We are so used to relying on what we see or what we know that we find it difficult to envision things coming together, but thank God, He both sees and knows more than we do.

This morning as doubts crept in I encouraged myself in God and asked Him to strengthen my faith. Immediately after praying the song Oceans (below) dropped into my heart and I just started singing it. It reminded me that despite the darkness of the great unknown and all that it holds that I cannot see, I can still see Jesus, and He knows and sees everything.

Faith

I'm reading through Hebrews at the moment and just hit Hebrews 11 which has to be probably my favourite chapter in the whole bible (I say probably because there are so many awesome chapters that that is likely inaccurate!).

Hebrews 11 begins with an amazing explanation of what faith is...

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11.1)

It is a beautiful verse even before you grasp all that it means...but I'll do my best to explain.

Faith comes from trust, and trust comes from knowing someone really well.

Think about it like this...you wouldn't tell your secrets to just anyone. You would wait to get to know someone, see them actively demonstrate an ability to keep schtum when it comes to important information, and then when you'd seen it enough times, you would entrust them with your secret, having faith that they will keep their word to you and not tell anyone.

It's the same in faith with God. God is personal; as in He knows us inside and out and wants us to know Him and have a relationship with Him and be ourselves with Him. As with any relationship, it takes time to build up that kind of familiarity and trust and such a deep friendship only comes from spending time with Him; reading His word (the bible) and talking to Him (prayer) and hearing what others who know Him personally have to say about Him and what He's done in their lives (the testimonies of other Christians). The more you hear and see of Him the more you trust Him!

That's what Hebrews 11 is all about. It's about what happens when you take the leap of faith and get to know God and trust Him with your heart and hopes and future. Hebrews 11 is all about the amazing miracles that happened when people took the step of faith to trust God.

The thing about a relationship with God is that the faith it produces is extraordinary. It starts small. Maybe you trust God with something you feel you have no real control over anyway, like friends at a new school...and then when God blesses you with good friends you trust Him with something bigger, and so on until you're trusting God with everything, you put all your eggs in His hand and wait to see what He does with them.

What makes trusting God even better than just empty hope is the fact that in a world where nothing is certain - people are corrupt, sickness and death are everywhere, wars and famines abound everywhere - God is certain.

He is the same yesterday today and forever (Hebrews 13.8). He never leaves us (Deuteronomy 31.6). He always holds our hands (Psalm 37.24). He has good plans for us (Jeremiah 29.11). He is not a man that He could lie (Numbers 23.19). He promises that even though we see trouble in this life He has overcome and we are with Him (John 16.33).

So our hope for the future isn't an empty one. It's not this empty wish we have that maybe if we are good people, or maybe if we work hard,or maybe if we are lucky, maybe everything will work out.

The hope we have anchors us because it is certain. It is rooted in something, in someone; Jesus Christ; the author and finisher of our faith, the Saviour, the Messiah, the King, God's final word, Emmanuel - God with us!

Faith in God and His word saved the human race when the earth flooded, faith in God and His word led Abraham into the promise land, faith in God and His word gave the Israelites Jericho and that isn't even all of it, there is so much more!

Faith requires nothing more than trusting God. You don't have to be sure of yourself, you just have to be sure of Him.

If I'd moved to this country just because it's nice, the moment it got tough (a week in) I would have packed up and gone back home. BUT because I knew without a shadow of doubt that Stockholm was where God wanted me right now, even after three months of unemployment, I knew I'd made the right decision and I was in the right place.

Our feelings and emotions are about as certain and sure as on-time buses or hospital waiting times...they aren't at all!!! But God is certain. You know that if He says He'll do something He will for sure do it, and not only will He do it, He'll do it better than you could have ever imagined, over and above your expectation (Isaiah 55.9, Ephesians 3.20).

Such is the God of the bible. If you put your life in His hands, He will do far better things with it than you EVER could have.

"Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass." Psalm 37.5

Doubt hinders, faith in God opens doors

Hebreerbrevet 3.19/Hebrews 3.19 > After the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites who had witnessed probably one of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament were unable to walk into the fullness of what God had for them because of their lack of faith in who God was and what He could do. God proves Himself again and again to us, but when we allow ourselves to be paralysed by fear and doubt Him and His power like the Israelites (4 Moseboken 13/ Numbers 13) and Elijah (Första Kungaboken 19/ 1 Kings 19) we miss out on our 'promise land'; the abundant and exciting life God has planned for us.

God is more than able to do what He has promised you will He will do. Hold on to Him and see the miracle.

Psaltaren 31.5/ Psalm 31.5 " I entrust my spirit into your hand. Rescue me, LORD, for you are a faithful God "

"But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed..." - Romans 3.21

When Jesus Christ came to earth, it was the culmination of years of planning and hard work. The Jewish people up until then had been governed by law (See Exodus 20). Law that told them not to take God's name in vain, not to covet, to rest on the Sabbath, to honour their parents and so on. The ultimate purpose of the law was to show the Jews what was right in the eyes of God, and how to live in a way pleasing to Him.

The problem with the law was that it made it impossible for the Jews to live in a way pleasing to God. No matter how carefully they watched themselves and tried to do no wrong. All it took was one sin...and they'd stepped out of God's will and into judgement.

To escape the judgement that resulted from sin, sin offerings were given to God to make atonement. God would look at the offering and not make them pay the penalty for the sin, but it still didn't really deal with the problem. The offerings didn't deal with the sin, they covered it. On the outside, it looked as if there had been a change, but the real root of the sin, originating in mankind's heart remained.


Paul talked about the strange condition of the human heart in Romans 7.15, saying 'that I will to do, that I do not practise; but what I hate, that I do.'


So there were two problems that needed to be resolved;

1. No matter how hard everyone tried to do the right thing, they couldn't.
2. Even though God forgave the sins, the root of the problem remained; the sinful nature of man's heart.

So God created Jesus; fully God and fully man.When God created Jesus, He created Him to be the final sin offering. This meant that after Him, no-one, ever, would have to offer a sin offering. Jesus came to earth, blameless and sinless; perfect.


You see Jesus role as the final sin offering was to personally take on all the sins ever committed and ever to be committed and call them His own (2 Corinthians 5.21). Taking them on, Jesus would have to pay the penalty for sin that was not his own. Romans 6.23 tells us what the penalty for sin is; it's death.


Death in the physical sense, (if you look at Genesis and the record of the fall, it tells us that as a result of the fall sin and thus death entered the world), but not only that, death to God, and separation from all that pertains from Him, all that is good, all that is love, all that is hope, all that is faith; Hell, in short.


So when Jesus cried out on the cross ' elohi elohi, lama shavakhtani?' (Mark 15.34 - HNIV) He was experiencing Hell.


On our behalf.


But it was not the end. Jesus had been a willing sacrifice, fully God and fully man. He had descended into the very depths of Hell to account for all our sins, committed and to be committed, and then He rose again to overcome death, and show that the power that was in Him was stronger than sin, and stronger than death.


He did it so that every time we sin, we are rescued from our rightful punishment; eternal separation from God. So when God looks at us, where he should see sin, darkness, and evil, He sees the face of His son, who took all our punishment on His own back so that we would no longer have to be enslaved by sin, always doing the wrong thing and constantly falling short of God's standard, but instead could be righteous, relying on a power greater than our own.


God sent Jesus so that we would be free to achieve our full potential.

This was problem one dealt with, but God was still not finished.

Romans 10.9 tells us that everyone who believes God loves them and as a result sent His son to die for them is saved. When Jesus was on earth He spent time talking to people, He spent time showing them His character; what was important to Him and good in His sight. He spent time with all kinds of people, tax collectors, women that were having affairs...nobody was too low for Him. You see in doing this, Jesus was tapping in to people's hearts.

By nature, God is relational. He loves us, He talks to us. When Jesus was on earth He wanted us to get to know Him, so that we would in turn tell others about Him. He wanted us to get to know Him so that the more we got to know Him, the more we wanted to be like Him. He wanted to instigate a change of heart, so that instead of our inclination being to do things our way, and therefore sin against Him, our most earnest desire would be to behave in a way that would please Him.


And of course, even if our desire was to please Him, He knew, as I mentioned earlier, how hard it was for us to do the right thing without help from someone outside of us and more powerful than us to do so. So when Jesus left earth for heaven, He left us the Spirit of God (sometimes called the Holy Spirit), the third member of the trinity, so that we would be able to call out to God and receive help in time of need (Hebrews 4.16) and be able to do God's will.

'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.' - Romans 8.14

Allow yourself to get to know Jesus, fall in love with Him and He will transform your life. It won't happen overnight, but you'll notice it. You'll no longer measure yourself by what you have done, can do, or what others tell you that you are, but instead will see yourself as God sees you; perfect and blameless in His sight. Your outlook on the world will change; you'll understand more clearly God's grace and what it means to be forgiven and forgive others. You'll be able to discern between what is good (of God) and evil (not of God), and you'll be able to love others as Christ has loved you.

God bless x

Romans 4.18

"When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said He would do."

- Romans 4.18 (The Message)

I love this verse SO much. Our circumstances always seem so hopeless. Let me share something with you for a second.

I believe with ALL my heart, that God wants me to go to Sweden and live there and help start a church, so that those that don't know Him yet can do. We hope to start churching from this summer, and considering the fact that Swedish summertime pretty much begins in early June, that's fairly soon.

As yet, I have no job over there, I haven't got a place of my own to live in, and I don't know the language as fluently as I wish I did (although I am making massive headway - praise God for that!).

The situation looks pretty grim. How can I still plan to move this summer with no job and nowhere to live, especially when I don't speak the language?

YET, what does the verse say? "When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway." Why was Abraham's faith so big? How could he have confidence in a situation that in all human terms, was practically hopeless?

In order to have faith and hope in a hopeless situation, Abraham had to look beyond himself, and beyond his capabilities and the capabilities of his wife. Abraham looked beyond the situation, toward God.

God had made a promise to him, therefore God would make it happen.

In the same way, I know God has told me to be a part of this church in Sweden this summer. God will make it happen, despite the current circumstances. So I am going to look beyond what I see, and look to God, and all He has said and done so far in my life and in the lives of those around me, and trust Him, that even though as of right now I have no clue where I'll be working or who I'll be living with, He's got it covered. He will make it happen.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

- Hebrews 11.1 (NKJV)

The Fear of Stepping Out

On Sunday in church, a man called Jeremy stood up to tell us about two occasions when he had stepped out in faith and spoken to people. He told us of how when he had been obedient to God and talked to people or prayed with them God had moved in a big way. The statement that he said that really stuck with me was this:

"When we pray for people we give God the opportunity to move."

I think too often we act as if praying for people and talking to people is about us. At least, this has definitely been the case for myself. So many times I've thought, 'but what if they laugh?' or 'but what if nothing happens right now and it's really embarrassing?'

Stepping out in faith is not about any of us. Honestly, whether or not we are embarrassed is irrelevant. We need to stop being afraid of talking to others about Jesus, and start being happy to do so. Look for opportunities. Share with everyone as you feel prompted. The good news of Jesus was not given to us to be hidden in small boxes, and glimpsed every now and then. It was given to be shared.

At the end of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul asks them to pray for him that he might '...open his mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel' [Ephesians 6.19]. That is my prayer for each and every one of us, that we will not shy away from sharing the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection with others, but we will rush to do so, willing to share with others the blessings we have received.

God bless

A Promise

I am feeling a little stressed out at the minute with my Final Year Project for University. Coming home late tonight after work on it, frustrated, confused and worried, my bible fell open to a well-thumbed passage: Psalm 91.

When I lived at home I would read this everyday with my dad and my sister, and now I only read it every so often, but when I read it just now, I was particularly encouraged by the last few verses and thought I would share them with you:

"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him

and show him my salvation."

- Psalm 91.14-16

LOVE

One of the big things I think you'll find most human beings, irrelevant of race, culture or religion; will agree on, is the existence of love. People explain it in different ways, and not all of them have experienced it first-hand, (which is an extremely sad thing if you think about it), but most will agree that it exists. Love of money, love of popularity, love of objects, love of people...the list could go on, but what is real love? How do we spot the real thing from the counterfeit?

Films have been made about it. Stories written about it. Chemical equations have been formulated to discuss the scientific explanation of it. Even in the bible itself we see countless examples of relationships with 'love'. Samson and Delilah, Rebekah and Isaac, David and Bathsheba, Jacob and Rachel...

But the only relationship in the bible with a love described as 'real' is that relationship between God and us:

1 John 3.16 - We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.

1 John 4.10 - This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

The love that God has for us, as described in the bible, is multi-faceted. In Hosea; we see the jealous love God has for us, like the love between a man and wife; in Jesus, we see the compassionate love God has for us, and the most popular presentation of God's love is much like the love a parent has for a child:

Jeremiah 3.19 - "I thought to myself, 'I would love to treat you as my own children!' I wanted nothing more than to give you this beautiful land— the finest possession in the world. I looked forward to your calling me 'Father,' and I wanted you never to turn from me.

Jeremiah 31.20 - "Is not Israel still my son, my darling child?" says the LORD. "I often have to punish him, but I still love him. That's why I long for him and surely will have mercy on him.

According to the bible, our ability to love, originates from the love that God has for us:

1 John 4.19 - We love each other because he loved us first.

1 John 4.7 - Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

But probably the most notable thing about the way in which the bible defines real love, i.e. God's love, is that it is unconditional:

Romans 5.8 - But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

God's love is not a reaction to good behaviour, it is given freely to all who wish to accept it, regardless of sin. God's love is so patient, that even to those who reject Him in this life, He offers a second chance at knowing Him. God's love is so kind, that He chose to extend the capacity of it to include those who were not even relations of those whom He first made the promise of love to. God's love is so humble that it came in the form of a baby boy born to a carpenter in an animal feeding trough. God's love is so unselfish, that it gave itself up for those who did not deserve it, rewarding them with a gift they could never have earned. God's love is so hopeful that it comes with mercies new every morning. His love is so faithful that even when others renounce and deny it, it holds on. And God's love is so persistent that nothing; not life or death, not angels or demons, not fears and worries, and not even the powers of hell itself could separate us from it. [1 Corinthians 13.4-6, Romans 8.35-39]

“Come to a land that I will show you…” – The Story of Genesis 12.1

Put yourself in Abraham’s position. You are happily married, comfortable, surrounded by much loved family and friends, in a land full of all that you could ever need. And then God tells you to take your wife, and your brother’s son, and move away. But He doesn't tell you where to.

Would you move?

So many times I’ve read that story in the Old Testament without batting an eyelid or giving a second’s thought to how Abraham must have felt.

I wonder how long he thought about it before he went. If it was me, I’d take a pretty long time to decide. How could I uproot my life and family without being one hundred percent sure that where God was taking me would be better than where I was already?

The simple answer is that there was no way I could be one hundred percent sure.

And Abraham couldn’t have been either.

Sure, God made him rich and took care of him, but all of that came after he had taken up the invitation.

Later on in the Old Testament, when Moses had the tiresome task of leading the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promise land, there was an interval of time when the Israelites were stuck in the wilderness, living off whatever God gave each day.

And only after that did they get into the promise land.

In both cases, the parties involved had no choice but to put their trust and faith in God, and it is this idea that incites the fear of God in me.

Why? Because I realise that what was required of the characters in those Old Testament stories is exactly what God requires of us.

When God took Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan, He wasn’t just moving him geographically; He was moving Him spiritually too. Abraham had to be taken away from the earthly way of life and into a spiritual one, and on the way He had to learn to trust God.

When God took the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promise land, He wasn’t just moving them geographically either, He was moving them spiritually too. He was taking them out of Egypt and the slave lifestyle they had become accustomed to, and into a new way of life: His way. And on the way, they too like Abraham had to learn to trust Him.

In my weaker moments; when I’m tired, lonely, hungry and irritated, and feeling tempted to do things the way that the world does them, I’m reminded of God and Abraham. God’s way is better. His way is truth and life (John 14.6). The way of the ungodly is darkness (Proverbs 4.19). And whilst the way of the world may seem easier when I’m in those weaker moments, I need to be like Abraham, who, though unsure of where he was going, knew that he was with God and as a result went willingly.

May God give me the strength and grace to be like Abraham.

From the very first day that we become Christians God begins to pull us further and further away from what we know, i.e. the worldly way of doing things. It can be a struggle, especially in those moments when falling back into the ‘natural’ way of doing things seems so much neater. What we really need to do is trust God that His way of doing things is better. As He takes us away from the earthly way of doing things into the Godly way of doing things it can feel a little bit confusing; after all, why leave what you know for what you don’t?

GOD. Whilst He is so far from anything ‘normal’ to us, we can rest in the knowledge that;

He is all powerful. He is Good. He is Love. (Genesis 17.1/Job 36.22, Luke 18.19/Mark 10.18, 1 John 4.8/1 John 4.16)

These three statements are enough to persuade me. I’d rather have my life in the hands of someone who can do something about it than my own. So maybe right now I can’t see all that God has lined up for the future, or certain areas of my life, but knowing that He is God, I know that whatever He has planned, it’s the best thing for me. So I’m not going to worry or fret, but I’m going to trust God and do things His way.

So now when I am unsure of what’s coming next or how to cope with situations, I pray like this;

Lord, I choose to trust in You. You are all powerful. You are Good. You are Love. Yours are the hands I put my life in. I trust that in all things You are sovereign. I trust that You have the best plan for my life. Help me not to fret or worry, but to believe that You have everything under control. Amen.