Category: Year C

Psalm 119:49-56

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Insomnia happens to all of us, some more than others.  We all know the experience of not being able to get to sleep at night.  Then, there are those persons who actually choose to arise in the middle of the night just to pray.  Yes, there are monks who do this, but there are common people who do, as well.  I think about such persons when I read a verse like this:  “Even in the night I think about you, LORD, and I obey your Law.”
 
            At various times in my life I have actually chosen to set my alarm for two o’clock in the morning in order to pray.  I know it may sound crazy to some, but this discipline has taught me something very valuable:  God is Lord over all time, and I am his servant.  The exercise of me wrapping my life around set times of prayer has caused me to learn that I have spent far too much of my life making time bend to my wishes.  But it is all really an illusion – that I can somehow control the clock.  Time marches forward, seasons come and go, and we are but a vapor that lasts only a moment.
 
            Whether we find ourselves awake in the night because we cannot sleep, or intentionally choose to use the night for connecting with God, the wee hours of the night afford us a unique opportunity to think about God and his Word.  The next time you find yourself awake at night, don’t just turn on the TV and wait to fall asleep.  Use the night-time for thinking about the Lord in ways you might not have considered during the day.  In doing so, you will find a blessing in the dark.
 

 

            God of all time, no matter where I am, your teachings fill me with songs.  You have given me blessings in the day and in the night because you are the one I choose to obey.  In Jesus’ name I pray.  Amen.

Revelation 3:14-22

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            God is trying to get our attention.  He does it through all kinds of ways – adverse circumstances, other people (particularly prophetic voices) – knocking on our door, crying out to let him in.  Yes, God is the one knocking on our door – not us.  “Listen!  I am standing and knocking at your door.  If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will eat together.”  This is anything but an aloof God who is unconcerned for what is going on in our lives.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  We seem a bit unconcerned, even “lukewarm” about God and don’t pay much attention to him.  It is God who is longing to be with us and is on the outside pounding on the door and calling out so that he can come into our homes and have fellowship with him around the table.  Will we invite him in?  Will we accept his offer?
 
            Jesus stands.  Jesus knocks.  Jesus calls.  Will we respond?  That is the watershed issue of our day.  Maybe we can’t hear him because we are busy vacuuming.  Maybe we don’t hear because of the headphones we have on.  Maybe we are just too deaf and dull to notice the racket going on at our front porch while we watch TV.  Whatever it is, the only cure for being lukewarm is inviting Jesus into the house. 
 
            If Jesus is on the outside, he wants to be on the inside.  He could break your door down if he wanted to, but he chooses to respond to the invitation for hospitality.  Jesus wants to meet with us.  When and where will you meet with him today?
 

 

            Gracious Lord Jesus, you are standing at the door.  My door is open for you.  Come in and let us fellowship together and enjoy one another.  I have ears to hear what you are saying to me, through the Spirit.  Amen.

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Reading and praying the psalms over and over again is a major way of fortifying faith for a lifetime of handling adversity.  Psalms are meant to be constantly used, like a wearing a favorite t-shirt whenever possible, or watching a good movie several times.  Lines from the film become etched in our thinking and vocabulary, not because we sought to memorize them but because of the many viewings.  Psalm 91 is a good psalm – one we can read and pray so many times that its theology and message are internalized.  It thus serves as a rock in times of trouble.  Security, safety, and confidence eventually replace fear, worry, and insecurity.  Let these words become part of a routine regimen of facing down the troubles of life:
 
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
2 I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”
3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his pinions,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
5 You will not fear the terror of the night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.
 
14 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
I will protect him, because he knows my name.
15 When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” (ESV)
 

 

Amen and amen.

Jeremiah 23:9-22

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Martin Luther King, Jr. was much like a modern-day prophet.  In all he said and did he kept asking people to close the distance between the values they espoused and their actual behavior.  The terrible treatment King and his allies received during the civil rights movement in marches and demonstrations brought-out the awful gap between our American values of freedom, fairness, and tolerance and the reality that African-Americans really did not possess these in any manner close to the white population.  King’s prophetic ministry forced many people to come face-to-face with the disparity between beliefs and behaviors.
 
            The prophet Jeremiah knew all about such a gulf between expressed values and actual conduct.  And it was a very large chasm.  Like King, Jeremiah was imprisoned, had rocks thrown at him, and was jeered for his message of calling people to live up to God’s agenda for humanity.  White supremacy, or at least white privilege, was taken for granted in much of America before King.  In the same way, Israelite privilege was taken for granted in Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day.  False prophets kept proclaiming Jewish supremacy and insisted that the Lord would be on their side of things.  “But, I, the LORD, tell you that these prophets have never attended a meeting of my council in heaven or heard me speak.”
 
            The spirit of the age simply accepted power, privilege, and pedigree as the norm that ought to always endure.  But God thinks different.  And he sends his prophets to call us back to true justice, righteousness, and peace for all persons – not just for some privileged people who take their freedom for granted.  An exercise in healthy introspection would be to consider what our most cherished values are, and ask whether they are God’s values.  If so, then are those values truly being expressed in our everyday actions and behaviors?
 

 

            All-Seeing God, you know the true state of every heart and every people group.  Do your work of making me holy in all I do and say so that the treasure of Christ’s salvation might be expressed through me in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.