Well, we’ve made it through another week at the Bickleyhouse. Christi continues to improve, although we pushed a little too hard this morning. Stephanie wanted to go out for breakfast, so we decided to go to Joe’s, a local coffee shop. Christi decided to try to go with us. It didn’t turn out real great. She wound up not being able to get comfortable, in a place where her knee didn’t hurt. Plus the chairs were not real soft, so that didn’t help. This escalated her anxiety and she got kind of dizzy-feeling. We made it through, though, and got home, and she’s back in her comfy chair, resting. Doesn’t look like she will make it worship tomorrow. Maybe just not quite ready. But we will see how she feels in the morning.
A Musician Looks At the Psalms, by Don Wyrtzen
Chaconne of Confession
Seeking Forgiveness
Psalm 106:40-45,48
40 Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he abhorred his heritage;
41 he gave them into the hand of the nations, so that those who hated them ruled over them.
42 Their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their power.
43 Many times he delivered them, but they were rebellious in their purposes and were brought low through their iniquity.
44 Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress, when he heard their cry.
45 For their sake he remembered his covenant, and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
48 Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting! And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the LORD!
God is not distant. God is not deaf. He does not turn his fact from us, even though it seems that way, at times. God did turn Israel over to “heathen” nations, as punishment. But under this punishment, they soon cried out for deliverance, and God heard them. “For their sake he remembered his covenant.” “Despite their stiff-necked rebellion and the pitiful waste of their lives, God still loved them and wouldn’t let them go!” Ultimately, we will return to our Lord, after we have strayed for a time. And we will praise him, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen!
Matthew Henry Daily Readings
Type of Christ
Psalm 26:1
Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.
Can it truly be said of David that he walked in his integrity and trusted in God without wavering?? Only in that this statement is made as a “type” of Christ. “The man that walks in his integrity, yet trusting wholly in the grace of God, is in a state of acceptance, according to the covenant of which Jesus was the Mediator, in virtue of his spotless obedience even unto death. This man desires to have his inmost soul searched and proved by the Lord. He is aware of the deceitfulness of his own heart; he desires to detect and mortify every sin; and he longs to be satisfied of his being a true believer, and to practice the holy commands of God.”
It is said of the psalmist, “He feels his ground firm under him; and, as he delights in blessing the Lord with his congregations on earth, he trusts that shortly he shall join the great assembly in heaven, in singing praises to God and to the Lamb for evermore.”
Tabletalk Magazine
Weekend Reading–“Murder and Anger”
Matthew portrays Jesus as the Davidic King, “whose ministry began with the message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'” It could be said that the “Sermon on the Mount” is his “inaugural address.” It “outlines how His kingdom will be identified and how God’s rule will be exercised in the lives of His subjects. It is, in other words, the formal inauguration of His kingdom: the King sets out His plan, the program by which His kingdom is identified and His rule administered.”
There are two recurring themes that run through the King’s speech. He says, in Matthew 5:17, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Then he uses the phrase, “But I say to you,” repeatedly.
“These parallel themes help us to understand what Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount. On the one hand, He is preserving, continuing, and fulfilling what God had previously revealed in the Old Testament. His function is not to ‘abolish’ either the Law or the Prophets.” Jesus wants to bring his listeners back to fundamental principles.
This does not, however, mean that everything is to continue as it was before. The sacrifices and ceremonies are done away with by his own fulfillment of them. And when Jesus said those words, “But I say to you,” he “actually teaches us that the rules require us to go deeper than the shallow religion of the rabbis might suggest.”
He illustrates this by referring to six practical issues. The first has to do with prohibition against murder. “The commandment is clear: ‘you shall not murder.'” The Pharisees assumed that they were okay on this one because they had never shed innocent blood. But Jesus expanded the command to “emotional murder,” even to a point of resentment and anger against another. Jesus digs deeper…”He reminds His subjects that the standards of God go beyond external morality to the very thoughts and intentions of our hearts. If we are angry, we run the risk not of being subject to human judgment but of being subject to God’s judgment.”
“Kingdom living under the sovereignty of Jesus means living before God’s face, our hearts exposed to His all-seeing eye like an open book before Him. That is the religion that matters, not one that is based in external conformity to the letter of the Law, but one that conforms to the Law from a heart careful not to offend God.”
I know that I needed to hear all of this. I’m sure that many of us would do well to heed these words. Jesus looks at the heart; he always looks at the heart. Sure, there are things we are supposed to refrain from doing. But there are many things I have never been guilty of physically committing in my life, nevertheless, in my heart, I am not so innocent. Why doesn’t the Church have power? Could it be all the petty, ill feelings we have toward each other?? Could it be because we “go to church” wearing our feelings out on our sleeves and get upset at the slightest little thing that the pastor doesn’t do “right?” Could it be because we have these preconceived notions about how things should be done and we can’t consider that they could work a different way? Or maybe we want power so much in the church that we force others out of their positions so we can have them! Perhaps we give all the glory and honor that belongs to God alone to men! God forgive us all for being so arrogant.
The Valley of Vision
THE DEEPS
Lord Jesus,
Give me a deeper repentance,
a horror of sin,
a dread of its approach;
Help me chastely to flee it,
and jealously to resolve that my heart
shall be yours alone.
Give me a deeper trust,
that I may lose myself to find myself in you,
the ground of my rest,
the spring of my being.
Give me a deeper knowledge of yourself
as Savior, Master, Lord, and King.
Give me a deeper power in private prayer,
more sweetness in your Word,
more steadfast grip on its truth.
Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action,
and let me not seek moral virtue apart from you.
Plough deep in me, great Lord,
heavenly Husbandman,
that my being may be a tilled field,
the roots of grace spreading far and wide,
until you along are seen in me,
your beauty golden like summer harvest,
your fruitfulness as autumn plenty.
I have no Master but you,
no law but your will,
no delight but yourself,
no wealth but that you give,
no good but that you bless,
no peace but that you bestow.
I am nothing but that you make me,
I have nothing but that I receive from you,
I can be nothing but that grace adorns me.
Quarry me deep, dear Lord,
and then fill me to overflowing
with living water.
Prayers from the Presidential Prayer Team
PRAY FOR OUR JUDICIARY
As more states seek to challenge “Obamacare,” the Florida Supreme Court said “no” to state lawmakers who tried to
give voters a chance in November to decide whether they should be penalized for not buying health care.
(The United States Supreme Court is on summer recess.) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has again
ruled that there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism.
Pray for the members of our judiciary on both the State and Federal levels to seek wisdom from the Lord.
My God, I am almost speechless today. The prayer from the Puritan book spoke very well for me today, and I have not much that I can add to it. My heart is heavy today. I pray for your Church. I pray for power for her, because she has become concerned with things that matter not, and has lost much power in today’s world. We need to return to your principles, as you have told us in Matthew. We need to begin again to live by the principles taught us by Jesus, not by what we have drummed up in our own hearts and imaginations. How could we give precedence to ideas that we come up with in our corrupt flesh and even begin to think that they are better than the principles taught by Jesus??? What wicked creatures we are, Father! Forgive us. Forgive me! Lead me back to the right path. I am nothing, have nothing, can be nothing without you.
Grace and peace, friends.
Spaces of Beauty, Grace, Prayer, and Mercy 