Tag: god’s love

Psalm 130

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
landscape photography of green mountains
Photo by Gareth Davies on Pexels.com

I cry out to you from the depths, Lord—

my Lord, listen to my voice!
    Let your ears pay close attention to my request for mercy!
If you kept track of sins, Lord—
    my Lord, who would stand a chance?
But forgiveness is with you—
    that’s why you are honored.

I hope, Lord.
My whole being hopes,
    and I wait for God’s promise.
My whole being waits for my Lord—
    more than the night watch waits for morning;
    yes, more than the night watch waits for morning!

Israel, wait for the Lord!
    Because faithful love is with the Lord;
    because great redemption is with our God!
He is the one who will redeem Israel
    from all its sin. (CEB)

Throughout church history, the book of Psalms has been used and understood as the Church’s prayer book.  Indeed, the psalms are much more than a collection of beautiful poems, words of assurance, and songs of praise – they are designed for regular and ongoing use as prayers.  And I’m not just talking about the psalms being somebody else’s prayers; they are my prayers and your prayers.

There are times when words fail us – where we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place and want to pray.  Yet, our stress and/or anxiety is so high that we can neither think straight nor form anything coherent with our mouths.  It is in such times that the psalms present themselves to us as the path forward.

What’s more, psalms are meant to be spoken out loud and more than once.  And I’m not talking about saying them with a quiet mumble or a flat monotone.  No! These precious prayers of Holy Scripture are meant to be declared with full voice and a large amount of flavor!  They are to repeatedly roll off our lips with all the emotional and spiritual gusto which resides within us!  Tears and yelling are both appropriate and encouraged.  For we do not possess merely a heady faith of thoughts and ideas; we possess a faith that is robustly heartfelt, and dwells down deep in the gut where our bowels of compassion have their abode.

Even with a cursory reading of today’s psalm, we easily observe that there’s more going on here than cognitive beliefs of faith, hope, and love.  The psalmist is expressive, clinging to faith with a patient longing for God to make good on his promises.  It is chocked full of emotion, a prayer coming from the depths of the gut.  The whole being is involved, and rightly so, because our faith affects the entirety of a person and everyone in the community of the redeemed.

If this psalm resonates with you in any way, let your proclamation of it be with the expanse of feeling inside you.  After all, as people created in the image of God, we share God’s own deep sense of love – and love is truly love when it is outwardly expressed with a sacred combination of words, actions, and feelings.

Click Psalm 130 and enjoy the psalm set to song by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

May the Lord be with you, my friends.

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 – The Steadfast Love of God

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

20160703_130850

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
for his steadfast love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
those he redeemed from trouble
and gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west,
from the north and from the south….

Some were sick through their sinful ways,
and because of their iniquities endured affliction;
they loathed any kind of food,
and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress;
he sent out his word and healed them,
and delivered them from destruction.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wonderful works to humankind.
And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
and tell of his deeds with songs of joy. (NRSV)

I’ve always found it a bit curious that there are people who continually equate the God of the Old Testament as nothing but a vengeful and wrathful God.  Certainly, there are passages dealing with God’s anger and his action out of that anger.  Yet, everything God does is from a place of love.  He has never been okay with sin because it damages and destroys people.

Which is why, when people are in need and they cry out to the Lord, he is there for them.  Far more prevalent is the reality that the Old Testament is populated with references to God’s “steadfast love.”  This is God’s covenant-keeping love.  It is the kind of love that holds on and doesn’t let go.  It’s the type of love that is gracious, merciful, and kind.  It is the love the has compassion on the needy and does something about their plight.

In our psalm for today, even when there were people sick and in distress because of their own doing, their own sin, God saved them from their plight.  That’s what God does – he is the expert on deliverance.  God doesn’t shake his finger at us when we screw up and realize our fault; instead, he shows steadfast love.  God doesn’t tell us “I told you so” or “that’s what you get for sinning.”  Nope.  God delivers, and he does it because of his steadfast love.

That’s why people all over the world have learned to sing the praises of the God of the Bible.  It’s why folks from every walk of life and every kind of society have found God as the great lover of humanity.  Their overflowing response to such a loving God is singing, praising, thanking, and offering their lives to him.

If you or someone you know struggles with seeing God as capricious, indifferent, or angry, then I strongly urge you to take in a steady and daily diet of the psalms over the course of the next month.  I think you need an intervention of the God of the Psalms.  Reading 5 psalms per day gets you through all 150 of them in a month.  More than that, pray the psalms.  Allow them to give you a new perspective on the world, your relationships, and yourself.

God of all that is good, your steadfast love has been shown to millions who find in you the desire of their hearts.  May I see your overflowing goodness, your steadfast love, and your infinite mercy operating in this broken world and in my needy heart; through your Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever.  Amen.

Psalm 147:1-11 – An Ode to Divine Love

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
The Lord treasures the people
who honor him,
the people who wait for his faithful love. (verse 11, CEB)
 
            Early each morning I rise, take the dog for a short walk, make a cup of coffee, then open the life-giving message from the God of the Bible.  I read out loud – slowly, mindfully, carefully allowing the words to seep and make their way down into my soul.  The Holy Spirit of God gently nudges, sometimes forcefully hurls, me toward a verse, phrase, or word from the text.  Contemplating, ruminating, thinking about the Holy Scripture begins to set the trajectory of my day.  God is throughout the hours, as I move from one to the next.  Sometimes very much at the forefront of my thinking, other times in the background shaping how I speak and act, and always on my heart enlarging it and filling it with his grace.
            Most of life is lived in the mundane.  The banality of life is the norm.  While others run from prayer to prayer looking for miracles and the next big spiritual hit, the one who is patient… waits… and honors God… has a treasure within which transcends language or outward fanfare.  The settled conviction of the person in continual communion with the God of the universe peacefully waits for faithful, steadfast, committed, divine love.
            There is no description for such a divine/human spiritual relation which exists, giving patience to the penitent and joy to the heart of God.  Such love exists beyond the plane of daily news crises and the continual hum of the crowd.  Indeed, the Lord God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, has stooped to cup his hands and treasure his creature.
            The great medieval mystic, Teresa of Avila, said: “Prayer is an act of love; words are not needed. Even if sickness distracts from thoughts, all that is needed is the will to love.”

 

            Patience is not a bore, and to wait is to be at peace because God is in it.  It is good to be full of him.

God Rejoices Over You

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
God is love, and he loves and rejoices over you.  There is a reason why so many people in this cruel and calloused world are unloving and unkind:  they lack knowing that God loves them.  If we do not believe or know that God infinitely loves us, then our words and our actions will reflect more of hate than love.  God really truly does love you and me.  This is crucial.  Do not forget this.  Believe it.  Live it.  Enjoy it.  Know it.  Tell it to yourselves until you are thoroughly bathed in it because it is more wonderful than any 70’s sappy love song could ever describe it.
 
            There is a verse tucked away in the small book of Solomon’s Song of Songs.  It is an ode to love.  The verse, Song of Solomon 7:10 says, “I am my Beloved’s, and his desire is for me.”  Far too often we think of God’s love in some abstract, distant, detached way.  But the truth is that we belong to God and his desire is for you and me.  God has an intense and overpowering longing for you.  I encourage you to pray that verse every day this week, multiple times in the day.  Let the deep desire of God for you shape and form your thoughts so that fear is replaced with faith; loneliness with enjoyment; the fickle nature of others with satisfaction; praying as duty with praying because I want to be with the God who loves me so much.
 
            Oh, how we need a vision of God singing over us with joy!  Yes, God loves you that much!  Grab a hold of this verse:  Zephaniah 3:17 – “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”  Even the most unlovely of people are made lovely through God’s persistent and pursuing love for them.  You are being seen every single day by the infinite gaze and eternal compassion of God, who watches our every step with delight.
 
            Christianity does not “happen” simply by knowing some belief statements about him; rather, Christianity “happens” when individuals experience the white hot burning love of God in Jesus Christ.  Jesus came not only for those who skip church and only occasionally read their Bibles, but also came for the hard-hearted prick, the immoral adulterer, the strung-out addict, the terrorist, the murderer, and for all those caught up in bad choices and failed relationships.  “I have not come to call the self-righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13).  “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19).  “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). “Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34-35).  All of Christ’s words and actions are because of God’s intense desire to love the world, and to love it through his church.
 
            God’s love is never based on our performance, or how good we look to others; it is never conditioned by our moods.  The love of God only looks longingly at you and me with the potential of what we can become in Christ and cares for us as we are.  It is a world-altering revolutionary thought that God loves me as I am and not as I should be.  “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
 
            Despite the inroads of atheism in our Western world, the vast majority of people still believe that God exists.  Conversely, however, the majority of people do not believe that God really loves them.  We are in a crisis of love.  People need to know the God who is Love.  Christianity never begins with what we do for God to make ourselves lovely for him.  No! Christianity always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wonderful love that exists for us in Christ Jesus.
 
            “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4).  All the wrong turns in the past, the mistakes and the moral lapses, everything that is ugly or painful all melts in the light of God’s acceptance and love for us.
 

 

            If the consuming passion of church ministry and followers of Christ is not showing God’s love, then we have lost both our mission and our first love of Jesus.  Perhaps we must let time evaporate as we bow at the foot of the cross and experientially know the great love of God in Christ for us and for the world.