Mission Faithwalk

  Of David.   Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. (Psalm 37:1-8) Psalm 37 is the third wisdom psalm, but it’s too long to cover in one day. Like Psalms 1 and 14, it focuses on relationships. Today’s section is book-ended with “Do not fret” and the apparent prosperity of those who do wrong. It’s the bread of the passage. In between, there’s a ...

  For the director of music. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no  one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread; they never call on the Lord. But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, for God is present in the company of the righteous. You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge. Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the Lord restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad! (Psalm 14) The second wisdom psalm begins with the same idea. Mind the company you keep. There are people who claim “There is no God.” They think they’re smarter than everyon...

                   Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.   For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1)             Yesterday, two tracks of thought met. One was to focus on the four cardinal virtues (Prudence/Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, and ...

                  For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (I Peter 1:18-19) All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world . (Revelation 13:8)                 I’m not finding the passage I want to right now, which speaks of God’s plan for the sacrifice of Jesus from creation, or possibly before. Since I can’t come up with the right words for the search engine, Revelation 13:8 will have to do. It says what needs to be said, that the death and res...

                  It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” (Romans 14:11)                 Here we go, once again, we’re being told that God can’t cope without our constantly reminding Him that He’s so much better than we are. His ego just can’t it if we don’t treat Him like He’s special. Isn’t that precisely what the Pharisees had against Jesus? He insisted on claiming that He was better than they. Not only did He use messianic titles like “Son of Man,” but He even claimed that “the Father” (AKA God) and He were one. What audacity! The hubris was beyond measure.                 Now, suppose you walked up to a vehicle in a parking lot and someone shouted, “Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”  ...

              For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse . (Romans 1:20)                 Oh boy. Say something like this to many people and you’ll get laughter, eyerolls, and possibly argumentation that probably includes lots of name-calling and gaslighting. But if you ask them how the universe began, they are likely to say that 1) it didn’t, it’s always existed, 2) the Big Bang, or 3) some combination of the two in which the universe cycles through multiple Big Bangs with billions of years of development and destruction between them. Mind you, there is no good evidence for possibilities 1 or 3. Most cosmologists claim that some variation on the Big Bang theme is best answer to the question of how th...