Psalms 3:7 - written words

Psalms 3:7   Arise, O Jehovah; / Save me, O my God! / Oh that You would *strike all my enemies on the cheek; / And break the teeth of the wicked.

David’s prayer for vengeance against his enemies is contrary to the New Testament, which teaches us to love our enemies and to bless those who persecute us and pray for them.

Matthew But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you

Luke 6:35 But love your enemies, and do good and blend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the unthankful and evil.

In the Psalms the words concerning the psalmists’ hating their enemies, their asking God to avenge them, and their cursing others are not the words of God but are words that issued from the psalmists’ natural sentiment while they were praising God. They are recorded by the Spirit of God in the Holy Scripture to serve God’s purpose of exposing the psalmists’ spiritual condition, i.e., that although the psalmists loved God and sought Him, they were natural, not spiritual, in their sentiment

The old testament had some violent verses, indeed. Especially those pertaining to God, we must recognize which words were spoken by Him and which words came from the natural human conditions. We must try not to take such words in the scriptures to heart and see only what is written. We must consider the instances and conditions in what is written, spoken in. Let us not disregard the context of the words in the Bible, for if taken out of context could cause much more harm to our lives than good.

Romans 12:14 Bless those who persecute you; Bless and do not curse.

Romans 12:20 But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head."

Psalms 2:12

PSALMS 2:12 Kiss* the Son, lest He be angry and you perish from the way; For His anger may suddenly be kindled. Blessed* are all those who take refuge in Him.

Kiss:
To take refuge in the Son is to believe into the Son, Christ (John 3:16, 36), taking Him as our refuge, protection, and hiding place. To kiss the Son is to love the Son and thereby to enjoy Him (John 14:21, 23). To believe in the Lord is to receive Him (John 1:12); to love the Lord is to enjoy the Lord whom we have received. These are the two requirements for us to participate in the Lord.

Blessed:
Or, Happy. The human concept that man is blessed by keeping the law of Jehovah (1:1-2) is in contrast here to the divine concept that man is blessed by taking refuge in the Son

Hebrews 11:1 - Faith

(CREDIT NOTE: edited from an e-mail I received through a friend)

Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Our Christian life is a life of faith.
 

With every genuinely saved Christian, they have been given this wonderful capacity called faith. With every child born of God, they have been allotted equally precious faith. So we don't need to ask God for faith. Faith is already in us!   

 

Faith is not just hoping that God will do something for you. 

Rather, faith is seeing what God has already done for you and what God has already given to you. This is where the genuine growth in life is. The exercise of faith is related to our human spirit. Our spirit is a spirit of faith.   

This faith is also infused into us by God's Word. 

 

Faith is solid and substantial because it is founded on the Word of God. Whenever we feel that we are lacking in faith, we just need to stand on the Word! 

 

We know that God is true, we know that we are saved, we're cleansed by the blood and forgiven by God because the Word tells us so. 

Romans 8:24 For we were saved in hope. But a hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees?

All things hoped for are things not seen. As people of hope, we should aim our life not at the things that are seen but at the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things that are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Romans 4:18 He beyond hope believed in hope in order that he might become the father of many nations according to that which was spoken, "So shall your seed be."

We don't say, "I hope God will forgive me." That's not faith. Faith is saying, "Thank You, Lord, that You have cleansed me, You have forgiven me, and You are living in me."

Hence we walk in faith.

Psalms 1:3

Psalms 1:3
And he will be like a tree
Transplanted beside streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season,
And whose foliage does not wither;
And everything he does prospers.

prospers:
The human concept here is that the man who delights in the law of God prospers in everything, whereas the wicked man suffers loss (vv. 4-5). But the experience of the psalmist in Psa. 73 was the opposite (73:1-7, 12-14). This seeming contradiction troubled the psalmist until he was instructed, in the sanctuary of God, to take only God Himself as his portion, not anything other than God (73:16-17, 25-26). According to the Lord’s teaching in the New Testament, those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness (not those who are prosperous) are blessed (Matt. 5:10). In his pursuing of Christ, the apostle Paul did not prosper outwardly but suffered the loss of all things and counted them as refuse that he might gain Christ (Phil. 3:8).

Baptism

Today, during fellowship, we were speaking to some new to the church. We found them to be seeking the Lord, but have yet to proclaim him as our savior. The fellowship went on to find that they have not been baptized properly. In their pasts, they were baptized only by the sprinkling of the water, but not yet fully immersed into the Lord.

It reminded me of how I came to be baptized. One of their stories coincided with mine.  She was seeking for God in several churches only to find that in such religion it felt very superficial and exclusive only to the members of that particular church. That if you were not one of them, and do not follow through with their practices,  then you are not deemed worthy to be a part of that church. There was no feeling of acceptance in the places we have went to.

Until someone preached what true baptism is; The one thing that struck me was

Living Daily in the Glory of God

When I started this blog, I wanted to write in it every day. I wanted it to be my way of continuously coming to the Word. I started it off well, sharing my enjoyment of this Christian life I have. However, it started to slow down. I didn't know why so much, until 2 weeks after. Until now.

When I started this blog, I was merely sharing what I have learned through the day. Something that I have read and learned about the Bible and of God. It was full of life, seeking the Lord. A few posts down the line, I looked into the Word not to gain the Lord but share knowledge. At that point, I slowed down in writing. I stopped writing.

I would open the window and have a blank slate in front of me to write whatever comes to mind, but nothing. Why? I can tell you, it's because I was seeking mere words in a book rather than the life of God in His Word.

I wrote in my earlier post and quoted that "Every Scripture is God-breathed". Somewhere down the line, I stopped taking that in and looked to teach rather than feed. It was good that I had a moment to step back and look at it that way.

This week, some students reminded me of what it means to continuously seek the Lord. To continuously live in Him. Amen!

The church is seeking to expand and to grow. The Lord is looking for His expansion through us, the church. To do so, we must not just come to the Lord during the Sabbath and during bible study, and meetings, and at the church building. But rather, we should come to the Lord whenever we can. Day by day, moment by moment. We must remember to praise and thank the Lord.

The students emphasized on creating vital groups and prayer groups. Every morning, I have a prayer group call me on the phone and we pray to God and call onto him for 15-30 minutes of our day. It's a great way to start the day by waking up and turning to God. Telling Him "Lord, I Love You! Lord, I praise you! Thank You, Lord!" However, it must not stop there. As Christians, we must continue to live a Christian life. To do so, we must continue to see God in everything we do. When we meet people, when we speak to each other, are we speaking God? Or are we speaking something of the world? Most likely the latter. In doing so, we distract ourselves from a goal of coming to God. In becoming one with the Lord. So how do we stop ourselves from doing so? By reminding ourselves that God wants to gain us more every day. When we do so, we will spontaneously speak as God speaks through us to our family, friends, acquaintances and maybe even random strangers.

By doing so, we breathe out God and feed the Word of God to others. We supply life into others, and in doing so we fill ourselves with God through them too. The feeling of knowing that you are with God, and you somehow (even for a brief moment) were able to feed and turn your conversation with a friend towards God, is a good feeling.

I didn't have that the past few weeks while looking to write. I was looking merely to just teach, rather than to converse and feed my readers and speak with God through my writing. So from this point on, I want to open myself to God first before I start typing. If what I am about to write has nothing of God in my words but rather more of my own thoughts, I do not want to write it anymore. I want to type as if God was typing for me.

Rather than trying to write something every day, like I was before, I want to write when I have a real feeling of being touched by the Word. Mainly, because at that moment, I am writing and dispensing God, rather than just my own thoughts. Lord Jesus! Help me in my weakness! Speak through me so that others may hear you! I want nothing of me, but everything of you in my words that others are reading. Lord, feed them with your Word through me.  Lord work on me daily and work through me. Let me serve you, as you have served us.

The Will of God

(From an e-mail received from a friend in church: Ariel Yang)
 
People always want to know what God’s will for them is. They’ll pray and pray, “God, what do you want me to do?” Many people ask people to pray for them and with them, but they don’t realize that their problem is in their heart.

How do we know the will of God? It’s not a matter of the procedure, but a matter of what kind of person you are. In the Bible, many people prayed, but look at the kind of person God reveals His will to - not the people who prayed for God’s will in order to compare it to their own goals and choose what they want, but to people who had already resolved to do God’s will, whatever it may be. Examples: David and building the temple of God (God’s answer was that David couldn’t build the temple, contrary to David’s original intention); Samuel and establishing the kingship of Israel (Samuel hated the idea of establishing the kingship); Peter and spreading the gospel to Gentiles (Peter considered them unclean).

The real problem isn’t that we don’t know God’s will, but that we pray while still holding our own interests as the top priority in our heart. We ask, “Lord, what kind of career do You want me to have? (but I really want a successful career that allows me to live a comfortable life Lord, is that what You want? That’s what I want)”.

We don’t know how to reconcile ourselves to the Lord’s will because we still have our own will. Once the Lord and His will becomes our only goal and aim, His will becomes very clear. You might not like the answer, but by then it’s too late, you’re locked in. And even the future you would never have originally considered will be sweeter and bring you closer to Him than any path you originally wanted.