Mission Faithwalk

              I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be a blessing. Turn from evil and do good; then you will dwell in the land forever. For the Lord loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. wrongdoers will be completely destroyed; the offspring of the wicked will perish. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.             The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just. The law of their God is in their hearts; their feet do not slip. The wicked lie in wait for the righteous, intent on putting them to death; but the Lord will not leave them in the power of the wicked or let them be condemned when brought to trial. Hope in the Lord and keep...

                 For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity. The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.   Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked; for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The blameless spend their days under the Lord’s care, and their inheritance will endure forever. In times of disaster th...

  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...

                   I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.  Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30)                 First, a side note and answer to prayer. My boss gave me the rest of the week off to recover from my knee “ injury. I’m angry with myself for the injury but I’m grateful to Terry and God for the time. Part of the anger is that the time feels like it’s lost. I don’t get paid and I’m not getting things done at home, either. I’m healing from something I inflicted on myself while trying to fix what I thought was wrong. I think. Stupid, stupid….                 Now, to today’s passage. You...

                 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)                 It’s been spring for a month, and my vegetables and herbs aren’t in the ground. Forget the fact that it’s too cold and that they generally look better than any of my previous sets of seedlings. It’s a week before my birthday, and I’m feeling set adrift – no goals, no plans, no ideas for direction other than the same direction that hasn’t proved wildly successful yet. I did something to my left knee yesterday, enough that I had to call off work, which is irritating my right knee. And, I’m having a pity party. OK, maybe it’s not quite as bad as all that, except when I start wallowing in it. But it is enough that I appreciate the reassurance that God is still guiding me and s...

                 A person’s own folly leads to their ruin, yet their heart rages against the Lord . (Proverbs 19:3)                 A man rages at God because the alcohol he’s consumed for decades has finally destroyed his liver. If God were a good God, alcohol in excess would do no harm. People move into an area near the sea where the land’s altitude is below sea level and when the tidal surge of a hurricane destroys their  homes and ruins their lives (in some cases for the second or third time), they rage at God. If God were a good God, there would be no hurricanes and their land would rise sufficiently that even if there were, the tidal surge would do no harm. People get out of their vehicles and stroll within feet of an American Bison and grumble in their hospital beds about how God could make fluffy cows with such rotten dispositions.  W...

                  This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Roman 13:6-7)                 Pay taxes? Pay revenue? Pay respect ? Pay HONOR? Didn’t Paul read the Declaration of Independence?  We must fight for our freedom! We might fight for the freedom and dignity of others! He didn’t understand what we face and have faced! Well, except the Jews were conquered by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Greeks, and Romans before Paul’s time and Rome still controlled Israel at the time Paul wrote, and what’s more, the Christians (not called that yet) were being persecuted and martyred.    ...

              For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (I Corinthians 1:18)                 You’ve seen the movies or read the book. Someone (usually a scientist) comes forward with some warning about a disaster, and “everyone” laughs. Then it happens. The boy cries “Wolf!” repeatedly, and then he cries “Wolf!” because there really is a wolf. The cliché of “a wise man raises an alarm and is called a fool” is alive and well and thriving in our culture. I suspect it is in every culture and always has.                 This is just reality. Last week, I mentioned schismogenesis, and it comes into play again. We can warn everyone, and we’ll be ridiculed and worse, because they have a choice between their worldview, which ...

                     Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8)                 Debt: something owed: obligation                 Financial advisors tell us to get out of debt. Even if they don’t, at least some of us have the sense that debt is a bad thing. It may be something we believe we’ll never escape, but when one is in debt, one is not free. Some people think that certain people owe endless debts to others that we can only repay by handing over everything we own and spending the rest of our lives as their slaves. In a sense, they’re right, but I do not hate those to whom I am indebted in this way to require that they take on the role that they described as evil when ...

                 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. (Romans 10:9-10 NIV) This is a case where I am not satisfied with the NIV translation. Anyone can declare anything. We lie through our teeth in our declarations. Supposedly, declarations are given in a solemn and emphatic manner. The NASB uses “confess” instead. And again, a person can make a false confession, but it in terms of the words, I prefer “confess.” What is truly significant is the combination of the declaration/confession and the belief. This is because “belief” that does not produce declarations, proclamations, or confessions and other actions or behaviors is not belief. The other thing that needs to be noted, however, is the tense of the verb in th...

                 Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise . (Proverbs 15:31)                  The first reason those who heed life-giving correction will be at home among the wise is that they will be alive to give it.                 The second reason they will be at home among the wise is that, by listening to life-giving correction, they will grow in wisdom.                 The third reason they will be at home among the wise is because the wise will recognize that allowing this person to be among them won’t be a waste of time and breath. Instead of suddenly not being home or having pressing business elsewhere, the wise will invite them to stay for tea.    ...

                 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:22-23) The Eight Core Worldview Issues: Origin, Identity, Meaning/Purpose, Morality, Destiny, Ultimate Reality, Nature of the World, Knowledge                 The German word for “worldview” is weltanschauung, and it is described as “a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world, especially from a specific standpoint” (Merriam Webster)  It seems to me as if someone wanted to claim a concept higher than religion or philosophy. This might partly be because they saw religion as limited to “spiritual” ideas (or as only a corporate entity) and philosophy to “material” (or as only an individual entity) but I don’t see a functional difference among the three. They all explore the nature of the universe (including ...

                  Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. (Luke 9:23-24 )             Someone has pointed out the very real point here that when Jesus referred to taking up our crosses daily and following Him, He wasn’t referring to the drudgery of dragging around a heavy object. He was talking about carrying the means by which others were going to punish and execute you in the most painful way they could think of doing it. It was also the focus of the mockery and scorn of others who would delight to shame you for your “crime.”                 In part, I think this includes our carrying in our...

                      " He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” (I Peter 2:24)                 He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the Lord and the other for the scapegoat.   Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the Lord and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat. (Leviticus 16:8-10)                 This is another of those ideas that doesn’t make sense. How could Jesus bear our sins on the cross? How could His dying be the means by which we m...

                  You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8) Timing is everything. Actors, comedians, magicians, cooks, athletes, writers, and gardeners all agree. If you do something too quickly, too early, too slowly, or too late, something is likely to not work out well. Cross the finish line in a race after someone else has and you’ve lost the race. Put anything in the oven for too long, and it’s extra-crispy. People aren’t likely to ask you for your recipe. Part of the problem is that those who don’t have the big picture, or who aren’t aware of the intricate details, are likely to be unhappy with the schedule. What’s the hold...

                  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Hebrews 1:3)                 J059-4351 (“Jay”) stretches about seven light-years across…the quasar shines more than 500 trillion times brighter than the star in our solar system…  Nature Astronomy . Keep in mind that the sun is comparatively lackluster. Sort of like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Israelites, and the Christians for the first 300 years of their existence. Perhaps like you and me. Jay is beyond what we can imagine in terms of distance, size, and brightness. When the writer of Hebrews describes the Son as the radiance of God’s glory, this is what I think of. If anything, this ...

                 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)                 Yesterday, once again, I came across one of those bits of logic that argued that if God were this, that, or the other that we claim He is, he should have been able to create a universe in which there was no sin or evil. If the atheist posting the meme doesn’t believe in God, it’s all God’s fault because He would have made the poster believe.                 Theoretically, he’s right. God could make him and everyone else believe. Life ...

                 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit. (Judges 21:25) Two reactions: “Oh, they were free!” and “Oh, those rotten, terrible, stupid Jews!” And the answer to both those is “Sorry. No.” Israel didn’t have a king. It did have a series of judges. What it also had was a series of invading armies, rulers, and oppressors. The cycle was simple. Israel got blessed by God. Israel forgot God and did whatever they wanted. God let them face the consequences of their freedom from Him, which involved their being oppressed by other nations. Israel humbly called for His help; He blessed them by freeing them from their oppressors. Return to top. Being “free” led to their being rotten, terrible and stupid. But you have a habit. You let it slide. Your life falls apart. You re-establish your habit. You have a secure relationship. You take it for granted. It falls apart. You have to re-establish that rela...

                   This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. (I John 3:16)                 No, I’m not suggesting that you should catch a grenade, throw your hand on a blade, jump in front of a train, or do “anything” for your brothers and sisters (with thanks to Bruno Mars). I’m suggesting something far worse. One of my pastors has said that he would do battle with a dragon for his beloved wife, but taking out the trash for her was a challenge. Yes, we are to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters, but what if the death involved was of your ego, your control of your time, money, talents, or skills? What if it required giving up your social position, your job, your reputation? What if the “life” you are called to lay down was convenience, or freedom? O...