The Joy of Glory

Discovering endless joy in the boundless glory of God…

Month: March, 2015

March 7, 2015

Lent Devotional: Psalm 139

Psalm 139 (click here)
O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. (Psalm 139:1-6)

Reflection
Often, as I read through Scripture, I find myself asking if I really believe what I’m reading. If I did…it should change me more than it seems to. I mean…do I really believe the Lord sees all I do? That he searches me and knows me better than I know myself?

Do I really believe he knows my thoughts and words before they are formed. How does such knowledge not reduce me to a shaking leaf, exposed before the holy one in all my un-holiness?

I think the Psalmist answers my question in verse 6, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

It’s not that I don’t believe these things are true, they are just such lofty truths my brain cannot possibly hold on to every aspect at once. I can’t wrap my mind around something so fathomless…something so far outside my own experience.

I cannot fully grasp the vastness of God. No one can, but God himself.

So what should be the effect of such unattainable truth in my life? Why does the Psalmist spend so much time pondering things he can never fully grasp? One word…worship.

The Psalmist stands before the vastness of God much in the way you stand before the ocean, the grand canyon, or the night sky…simply in awe of the vastness you cannot even grasp no matter how long you gaze.

The Psalmist wants a glimpse of God…and even a glimpse is beyond anything he can handle. Is God this big to us? Is he this beyond us? Is he this worthy of our worship? If he’s not…then are we even attempting to look at him?…or have we satisfied our spiritual curiosity with a vision of something much smaller than the real thing…an idol?

True worship of the true God should always leave our hearts beating with the same awe-filled words… “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.”

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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March 6, 2015

Lent Devotional: Psalm 94

Psalm 94 (click here)
O LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. They crush your people, O LORD, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the sojourner, and murder the fatherless; and they say, “The LORD does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive.”

Understand, O dullest of the people! Fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?

But the LORD has become my stronghold, and my God the rock of my refuge. He will bring back on them their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness; the LORD our God will wipe them out. (Psalm 94:3-9 and 22-23)

Reflection
Do we have a faith that can sustain us through the “How long”?

The simplistic, Western view of God will not sustain a faith the gets slammed with the question “how long?” When our world is rocked and we suffer… when tragedy strikes… when there are global catastrophes… when we begin to lose our lives for faith in Christ like so many of our brothers and sisters around this world are already experiencing… when all this happens, will our vision of God sustain us?

Most in Western Christianity view the Lord as simply serving the purpose of their-own happiness. God exists to help life go the way I want and increase my private luxuries and pleasures. When these expectations are shattered…so is our view of God.

I’ve watched this happen over and over again. Idols always crumble under the erosive pressure of reality. Faith will always crumble when it is placed in a crumbling idol.

We need a view of our God who is the rock that will not crumble! Our God who is the everlasting… he is the only one that can make us last through the pain, suffering, and hurt of this world!

When the Psalmist is confronted with the violent atrocities of his world in Psalm 94, he recalls to mind a vision of God foreign to so many of us. He remembers that God is the sovereign creator over all. He formed all ears and all eyes…and is himself all hearing and all seeing.

In the face of extreme suffering, the Psalmist claims that God is not missing a single sound or sight of it! This is the very thing that makes God his stronghold, his rock, his refuge! For God’s sovereignty acts as a guarantee that none of this iniquity wins! God wins!

We are actually promised by God that we will experience persecution, suffering, hurt, pain… and we are told he is sovereign over it all, and he is good, and he can be trusted! Irony of or ironies…it is THROUGH these very things that God is working our greatest good and his greatest glory!

God really is working for the purpose of our greatest happiness, but that greatest happiness is found in him and in him alone! He is increasing our pleasure in him! He gives us more and more of himself through our suffering! There is so much of him and who he is that we cannot come to know in any other way than through suffering!

And when we suffer… we not only come to know him more, but we make him known to the world! We show the world that we are willing to suffer the loss of all things IN ORDER that we might gain more of Christ because there is nothing more valuable than Christ!

God works for our good and for his glory! He does this through all things! Even the darkest things! None of them win! He uses those very things to accomplish his purposes! This is why the Psalmist speaks to people he considers the “dullest” of all! They cannot see that the very things they believe are defeating the purposes of God are actually being used by God to accomplish his purposes! Ha!

This is seen nowhere more clearly than the cross! If ever there was a place that looked like evil triumphed it was the cross… yet, at the cross God took the most evil act, the murder of his own son, and sovereignly scripted it as the most glorious act!

In trying to defeat God’s purposes, evil was made to serve God’s purposes. No matter how long we have to wait to see it… we will one day know that this has been the case with every single evil thing we have ever experienced. None of it has won. God has made us more than conquerors over all of it by making it all serve the purposes of his glory and our good.

That is a vision of God that doesn’t crumble, but becomes a rock of refuge as we wait, as we cry, as we hope and ask “how long…”

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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March 5, 2015

Lent Devotional: Psalm 86

Psalm 86 (click here)
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me.

All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. (Psalm 86:5-7, 9)

Reflection
How is the Lord abounding in steadfast love?

If you’ve read Scripture at all, you’ve discovered very quickly that the Lord does not simply let sin slip by unnoticed. He executes righteous judgment against sin. Many perish in the pages of Scripture…and we all know many people who currently are perishing amidst their sin.

In view of so much sin and impending judgment… how is it that the Lord is ABOUNDING in steadfast love?

One word… ALL.

ALL who call upon the Lord may experience his goodness, his forgiveness, his abounding love, his steadfast love…his grace! The Lord does not discriminate! He doesn’t reserve his goodness for the wise, the beautiful, the rich…no! He gives himself to ALL who call!

There will be people from every nation he has made who will call upon him and experience his goodness! That is a guarantee! It’s a promise! His grace will be experienced by ALL nations!

In view of so much sin that deserves so much judgment…what other adjective could we apply to such steadfast love as this other than ABOUNDING!

Even God’s judgment is an expression of is abounding steadfast love! Love deals with sin! It deals with wrong! To let sin simply slip by would be unloving! God will not let any sin slip by! He will deal with it ALL…and for ALL who call upon him he has dealt with their sin through the cross!

What wondrous-abounding-steadfast love!

*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

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