The Couch of Tears - Psalm 6

Here's the link to this weeks Psalm ... Psalm 6

This Psalm has my favorite line out of all that we have read so far. Depending on your translation, verse 6 says that David, this mighty man, constantly fills his bed with tears. When i read it, i thought about this picture above - Is David a couch potato? Or, is there something important going on here?

Verses 1-3: Here's a pretty cool fact about godly men - they are extremely critical about the way they live their lives. David opens begging for God's mercy ... is it because he thinks that we have an extremely angry God? Absolutely not. He's one of the many characters we see in the Bible that understand that no one truly deserves the grace of God. David asks, not because our God is reluctant to love and show kindness, but because we as sinners can never earn the grace that God so readily gives us. Here's why - David continues on to explain how he is troubled ... he is upset that he cannot live a worthy life. He wants to love God, but his worldly desires tell him otherwise. Even so, in this struggle, he chooses to chase after God, no matter the trouble and frustration it brings him. The question is ... are you a David? When you sin in life, does it trouble you to know that this is what put Jesus on the cross? We could talk for hours about taking advantage of grace ... but David makes it very simple ... true men and women of God do just the opposite.

Verses 4-10: The couch of tears .... quite a beautiful picture if you ask me. David was not a couch potato, but a man that lived to pursue righteousness and a relationship with his creator. He cries out ... "enemies, turn from me" ... because his God has heard his prayers, his God will answer, his God will never neglect him - just a little secret ... that's our God too. No matter the enemies you face or the temptations you may have to deal with, God is a God that freely gives grace. We struggle, and that's simply a part of the Christian life, but we are to rejoice that our God is one of forgiveness ... or we would all be in a world of trouble.

I know it's a short one this week, but I encourage you to take this to heart. Take some time to think about what God has done for you ... what grace truly means. Try to adopt an attitude as seen in David. This prime example of a strong Christian man calls himself weak ... just think about why that is.

God Bless!!!

OH ... Go to the WEEKEND!!!!

-Chris

A Psalm a Week - Psalm 5

This week, we're going through Psalm 5. Here we go!

So, looking at my Bible, the title for the passage is "A Prayer for Guidance." Immediately after reading this, I thought about bowling! As a child, you realize how difficult it really is to bowl - the precision, the skill ... it's unbelievable. One day long long ago, a man thought, "Hey, I should invent bumpers for bowling so kids can actually have fun playing." Thinking back, the thrill of knocking over my first pins (with bumpers of course) is fantastic ... all thanks to two metal rails blocking off the gutters. The point I'm trying to make is that life as a Christian is kinda like bowling. It takes skill, precision, dedication, perseverance (maybe not so much for bowling), and a strong heart - most of which we don't have on our own. This is where God steps in. Where you can't get a strike in this life, our heavenly father can. If it's easier to see it this way, God is our bumpers (but don't forget he's so much more). This is the prayer for guidance ... let's do it!

Verses 1-3: David prays to God. He says, "God, you will hear my voice in the morning." It's a beautiful picture that I forget to paint in my own life sometimes. How often are we willing to sacrifice our days to God - to wake up in the morning and ask him for direction, to give him control of our days. This is what we see here. Verse 3 ends with David looking to God, waiting for his command in his life. Before a kid goes bowling, he always gets his parents to put up the bumpers - if not, the chances for him to hit any pins are severely lessened. This should be the same in our Christian walk - asking the heavenly Father to be our guidance. As we looked in Luke, the model prayer is accented by the Christian asking Fathers will and not their will be done. This is exactly what David does. The first step to getting the guidance and the protection in your life is asking the Father for it. BOOM!

Verses 4-10: Here's where we see that God is good at his job, and that he truly knows how to be the guidance in our lives. Why do we go to God to stray from sin? Simple! God and sin just don't mix. It just doesn't work that way. On the contrary, God and evil are opposites. David makes this cry for justice, that God will punish those who live unrighteously. This is really cool and we can talk about it for hours, but it's not the point i want to make. David makes it clear that God is to be our guidance in these tough times. As young Christians, we have no choice - our drive and direction should be found in Christ.

Verses 11-12: Okay, we've rolled the ball, it's made its way down the lane, and then .... we get a STRIKE!! What does David say to do? He says to rejoice. He says to know that if you place your trust in God, he will never fail you. If you have God guiding your life, He will never let you go. You will struggle, you will fail sometimes, but God never lets go of those who eagerly pursue him. I know the example is kind of lame, and that's okay, but if i had to give you a challenge for this week, it would be to live like David. Wake up in the morning and ask for God to guide your day. Sit back and see what he does ... and then rejoice!

God Bless

-Chris

Time to Focus - Psalm 4

Here's the link to this week's Psalm - Psalm 4

If you read it, you'll realize that it's very very short. If I had to choose a word that described the entire psalm, i would have to say "focus." Studying in school, I recently looked over the properties of telescopes and all that nonsense. Basically, with any telescope you take one far away object and focus on it ... nothing else. If King David were here, I'm sure he would agree that we could all learn to focus on God just a little bit better.

Verses 1-2: David cries out to God to answer his prayers because he's eager for that communication - how many of us are that excited about prayer? Hmmm ... Even though God doesn't answer immediately, we'll learn that David also has the patience and faith to understand that God will answer his prayers in perfect time. Quickly though, we see he gets distracted. Basically, the people David is surrounded by are not supportive of his faith. His love for God is nothing but a joke to his peers. As he pursues holiness, they pursue lies. As he pursues God, they pursue sin. Sound familiar? The world hasn't changed much. Even going to a Christian school, I found that loving Jesus and pursuing a life that would glorify God was never the popular thing to do; however, it's no excuse to stop. With reading Daniel and even studying the gospel message, we'll see time and time again that regardless of where the world would have us cast our attention, our FOCUS should always be on God (sometimes much easier said than done).

Verses 3-4: Here's what I'm talking about. We don't live in a perfect world. We live on a planet filled with people who have various views on 'god' ... whether or not they call it that is a different story. People will sin against you. People will make you angry, but David says to chill out and FOCUS. Basically, don't let emotions pull you into sin (once again, easier said than done). We should be offended when the world mocks our God, we should be upset, but this is no excuse to take our eyes off of God. Even Jesus' ministry in the gospel message clearly tells us to love our neighbors, no matter who they might be (Luke 10). We are to pursue a righteous lifestyle, for which God will bless us abundantly. When the world stands up against us to challenge our God, it's not our battle to fight - we won't win, but He will. God hears the prayers of the righteous and he calls them his own!

Verses 5-8: We finish out the chapter hearing offering "the right sacrifices" ... well what does that mean? If you've looked at the white board in the Amped room recently, you've seen an awesome verse (Luke 9:24). If I were to explain this sacrifice, it would be similar to the sacrifice Jesus talks about. We're to die to ourselves and take up the cross. We're to take all our worries and frustrations and give them to God. We're to FOCUS on Him. In return, God gives us peace, shelter, love, and joy ... unmatched by anything of this world.

We can only give our attention to one thing in this world ...

my advice: FOCUS ON GOD

-Chris

A Psalm a Week - Psalm 3

So, this weeks Psalm is really simple, but it gives us each alot to think about. If you don't have a Bible handy, here's a link to PSALM 3 - NIV

Anyway, as you see in the picture above, this week we're talking about shields. Looking back through the course of history, we see that the shield is of the most popular military devices ... why? It protects its bearer from attack! Think about it. If some dude came running at me, flailing his sword all over the place, I would want to be able to defend myself. That's the sole purpose of the shield - defense. Now looking at the Pslam, we see that we as Christians have a shield of our own. As we saw last week, we have a God who chooses to protect us, or in this weeks Psalm, a God who is our SHIELD. He protects us from harms way, he defends us from attack, he protects us from evil. Our God is the mightiest shield in the entire world - there doesn't exist a shield that comes even close to matching His power ... and He is on our side.

Getting a little more into the text, we see a funny word used a few times. "Selah" is a horribly difficult concept to translate, but it basically means "STOP AND THINK."

STOP AND THINK 1 - There are so many times in each and every one of our lives that we feel outnumbered. The world stares us straight in the eyes and says "your God will not save you." Stop and think about it. Is our God one who will leave us out to dry, or is he one who will protect us? Is he really outnumbered? Is there anything in this world that can stand up to God? Hmmm ....

STOP AND THINK 2 - So the psalmist does his thinking and comes up with the idea that God is his shield (which we already talked about) ... When i think of that statement, I think of a few examples from the Bible. If you remember the story of Gideon, God took an army of 300 and annihilated an army of tens of thousands. How about Sampson? God took one man with whom he destroyed the entirety of the Philistines. And lastly, David himself. A young man matched against a giant named Goliath ... oh yeah ... God won that one too. So what does it mean that God is our shield? Does it mean he'll fight our battles while we sit back and watch? Or like these men, does God want to see us take a little jump in faith so that he can fight side by side with us? ... Hmmm ... think about it.

STOP AND THINK 3 - The psalmist takes a full turn in the chapter. At the beginning it was "Uh oh, there's too many people against me." He closes the chapter with "From the Lord comes deliverance." No matter what it is that's going in your life, God is bigger than it. No matter what sin you might be struggling with, God is bigger than it. No matter what group of people you might face in this world, God is bigger than it. What does it mean that God will deliver us? It means he will take our frustrations, our fears, and our battles and help us claim victory. It's not "hmm" this time ... it's Wow.

Have a great week!

-Chris