My father insisted his boys memorize Psalm 2 word for word from the King James Bible. The first line reads, “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” The text is filled with strange words in unfamiliar order, and the concepts are tough to assimilate.
But I learned it anyway and can recite it word for word to this day.
The picture from Psalm 2 of God laughing has visited me at many opportune moments. When tempted to defy God’s word, these words scroll before me: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.”
This memorized word kept me from defiant actions against God more than once. I did not want God to “vex” me “in his sore displeasure.”
My text for this Sunday (June 27, 2010), Psalm 119:9-16, I also memorized as part of Dad’s creative club activity for boys in the church, “Hawley Loyal Legionnaires.” I was loyal, and I received a lot of patches on my jacket for memorizing those verses as a seven-year-old.
“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word.” That is how Psalm 119:9 goes in my mind. I learned early that if I heeded the word of God, not just memorized it, I would live a cleaner life.
Memorizing Bible verses at that tender age embedded God’s truth in my mental, moral and spiritual development. It is not a cure-all or a certain guarantee of faithfulness to God. But hiding the word deep in your heart surely will change both your ROM (read only memory) and your RAM (random access memory).
The word of God “is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12). Hide this in your heart, and you are ready for battle.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Guarding the city
Contemplate the fate of cities in our world through the centuries. They rise and fall like tides on the sea. The great cities of today are often built upon the rubble of great cities of the past. Historically, losing a city completely, whether to sudden catastrophe or long decay, is nothing new to the human race.
Cities are living social systems, and they are mortal. They are vulnerable to war, economics, weather, disease, and changing demographics both natural and sociological. They respond to positive and negative input from natural resources, commerce, education, medicine, and public morality.
Cities dominate the landscape for humans. They are the centers of learning, business, transportation, and healthcare. They are also centers of moral and ecological pollution.
Only 4 percent of the human population of the world lived in cities in 1800. Today 45 percent of all humans reside in urban areas. But 2025 that number will grow to 60 percent.
We are on target as followers of Jesus to pray for and focus our work in the City of New Orleans. We are the church of Jesus Christ in our city, and we have an enormous opportunity and challenge before us. Through the preaching and teaching of the good news of Jesus Christ, through practical deeds of kindness and love, and through addressing systemic evils and injustices in our city, we promote the welfare of all citizens and bless our city.
God is the only one who can protect our city. “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (Psalm 127:1b). God is already and always at work in New Orleans. Therefore, we find out what God is doing in our city and join him in his work. We do not ask God to join us. We seek to join him.
How do we identify the activity of God in our city? We know that God cares for those in need. This truth is explicit throughout scripture. “ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). If we reach out to those in need, we are following the hand of God. If we speak words of comfort to the bereaved, we are following the voice of God. God is ahead of us with the hurting, and he does not leave their sides. God does not simply make weekly or monthly forays into needy places—he lives there. His heart is with the wounded.
We are surrounded by need — overwhelmed by need. When we realize that God is with the hurting, the next step is to find the people along our own path who need us. We follow Christ when we reach out to them. The way of the cross is the way of suffering. The suffering that persons around us endure is tragic and inexplicable. But it is the one reality which most often opens us to divine intervention and insight. God wants us to feed the hungry because he wants them to eat. But he also wants to speak his love to them.
Our city is so in need of God’s hope and healing. Let’s engage the persons and structures as we have opportunity, and let’s do so knowing that God is the one who must give deliver on the hope and healing.
Cities are living social systems, and they are mortal. They are vulnerable to war, economics, weather, disease, and changing demographics both natural and sociological. They respond to positive and negative input from natural resources, commerce, education, medicine, and public morality.
Cities dominate the landscape for humans. They are the centers of learning, business, transportation, and healthcare. They are also centers of moral and ecological pollution.
Only 4 percent of the human population of the world lived in cities in 1800. Today 45 percent of all humans reside in urban areas. But 2025 that number will grow to 60 percent.
We are on target as followers of Jesus to pray for and focus our work in the City of New Orleans. We are the church of Jesus Christ in our city, and we have an enormous opportunity and challenge before us. Through the preaching and teaching of the good news of Jesus Christ, through practical deeds of kindness and love, and through addressing systemic evils and injustices in our city, we promote the welfare of all citizens and bless our city.
God is the only one who can protect our city. “Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain” (Psalm 127:1b). God is already and always at work in New Orleans. Therefore, we find out what God is doing in our city and join him in his work. We do not ask God to join us. We seek to join him.
How do we identify the activity of God in our city? We know that God cares for those in need. This truth is explicit throughout scripture. “ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). If we reach out to those in need, we are following the hand of God. If we speak words of comfort to the bereaved, we are following the voice of God. God is ahead of us with the hurting, and he does not leave their sides. God does not simply make weekly or monthly forays into needy places—he lives there. His heart is with the wounded.
We are surrounded by need — overwhelmed by need. When we realize that God is with the hurting, the next step is to find the people along our own path who need us. We follow Christ when we reach out to them. The way of the cross is the way of suffering. The suffering that persons around us endure is tragic and inexplicable. But it is the one reality which most often opens us to divine intervention and insight. God wants us to feed the hungry because he wants them to eat. But he also wants to speak his love to them.
Our city is so in need of God’s hope and healing. Let’s engage the persons and structures as we have opportunity, and let’s do so knowing that God is the one who must give deliver on the hope and healing.
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