Month: February 2018

263. Lift up

 Psalm 147:6

The Lord lifteth up the meek:

He casteth the wicked down to the ground.

The meek shall inherit the earth, and it is the meek that will be lifted up. The meek are contrasted with the wicked: up with the meek, down with the wicked. Meek does not mean wimpy and weak; meek means humble and admitting need. Those who need the Lord, believe Him, and ask Him for help are the ones He lifts up. We are already weak and helpless in our sinful humanity; the key is to recognize it and admit it: “I need help. I can’t do it myself.”

On the basis of the promise that the Lord lifts up the meek and casts down the wicked we are confident to pray and ask for help. Thus we daily repent and pray and believe and receive; the promise of lifting up and casting down comes true in our lives again and again.

The unconditional promise is for the meek; it is not that becoming meek causes the promise to come true; it is not that meekness is a condition for lifting. It is that the meek seek God; the meek seek help from God; the meek seek and they find. They recognize the vast difference between themselves and God: we are weak and He is strong. We are all weak; the meek know it and they know who fights and wins for them.

262. Heal and Bind

 Psalm 147:3

He healeth the broken in heart,

And bindeth up their wounds.

 Everyone gets their heart broken and their soul wounded from time to time. Again we remember that it is the enemies, Sin, Death and the Devil, that do the breaking and wounding. Disappointments and hurt feelings are a normal part of living in a world infested with sin.

God cares about our hearts and souls, and it matters to Him that we get broken and wounded. He loves us in this way: He sent His Son. He it is who heals the broken and binds up the wounds. That is why He was sent; He sent the Holy Spirit to apply the healing balm and binding bandages with the Gospel.

We live in a broken and wounded world with dysfunction rampant everywhere we turn. Repent and listen to the Gospel again and again to allow the Lord to heal and bind up. Jesus was anointed with the Spirit of the Lord to proclaim good news and liberty. Isaiah 61:1: “He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.”

Expect woundedness and brokenness and at the same time expect healing and binding. Sinner-saints live in two worlds; new man and old man live in the same body. Pray for and hope in the healing provided by the Gospel of forgiveness and eternal life.

261. Happy

 Psalm 146:5

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,

Whose hope is in the Lord his God.

Here is another conditional “blessed” promise. The condition is that one has God the Lord for his help and his hope. If and when you have God for you help and your hope is in Him you will be blessed, not just happy (happy has to do with luck and accident; blessed has to do with God’s doing). There is only one way to have the Lord God as our help and hope: believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

God is a blesser and He promises to bless His children abundantly in every way possible in this life and the next. It is His nature; it is what He does; it is what He promises to do; it is what He will do; God blesses. The Lord is your help, whenever and wherever you need it. Nothing else will really help for God is your source. He may send other instruments to give the help, so it doesn’t look like God. The Lord is your hope, which is the present reality of a future promise not yet seen.

The point of the promise is to encourage to fear, love and trust in God above all things. He can do what He promises and what you pray for, and He will do what He promises because He says so, and He is God. The Lord (Jesus) is God whether you believe it or not, that is, you don’t make Him God by believing Him or worshiping Him; but you do make him personally your God by faith: and this faith is created in us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. So today again: Hear the Gospel.

260. Fulfill Desire, Hear and Save

 Psalm 145:19

He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him:

He also will hear their cry, and will save them.

The condition for this promise is fear of God: those who fear the Lord can claim three promises. He will: fulfill their desire, hear their cry, and save them. “Fulfill the desire” is more pointed than the more general “satisfy desire” in verse 16. Those who fear God and walk His ways have a “desire” to keep His commandments, even though they fail daily and often. Believers remain sinners and still disobey, but their desire is still for God and His laws. God promises to fulfill that desire of followers to know Him, to love Him, to serve and obey Him better and better. The “new man” in the believer has a different desire than the “old man.” We must believe this promise that the desire of the regenerated spirit within us will be fulfilled: 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”

Second, He will hear their cry = He will answer their prayers: the Lord will answer the prayers and the cries of the faithful believer in all their ways, but He especially hears the cry to be forgiven and incrementally made into better people. God loves to hear that cry: “Change me, Help me to walk in your ways.” Jesus promises: [Matthew 7:11, “…How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” The Lord loves to hear this cry: “Forgive me, change me, make me better.”

Then, in that context, He will save us. God promises to save us from the desires of the old man, that is, the flesh that listens to the temptations of Sin, Death and Devil. Salvation involves saving from and saving for, from sinful desires for holy desires, from selfish desires to godly desires. By saving the godly man, the God-fearer, the person who believes in Jesus, He fulfills their godly desire and hears their prayer. When you turn your life over to the Lord (by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel) you receive a wonderful promise like this: He will fulfill your desire to live a better life and become a better person.

259. Satisfy Desire

 Psalm 145:16

Thou openest thine hand,

And satisfiest the desire of every living thing.

 Is it really true that the Lord will satisfy the desire of every living thing, humans and animals alike? Yes, of course it is true, but the key to understanding centers on the word “desire.” Desire means the basic instincts and essential needs of every created organism; desire means the drive for survival.

Desire in this context does not mean luxuries, those nice-to-have but not-necessary-to-survival kinds of things, those things that go along with greed not need. Desire in this promise, of course, does not mean any evil desire of any kind. Desire means the implanted, created, instinctual desire that is congruent with the nature and character of that being. These basic desires for life will differ from one person to another and from one dog to another and from one ant to another. God’s unlimited creativity makes each living thing unique, each with peculiar desires according to its created character and purpose.

The Creator who created the living things promises to nurture and care for and provide for each one. God did not just create and then let it all go; He continues to be involved in sustaining every life. The Creator who created each one uniquely promises to satisfy the unique desires of each one. In some ways God’s purpose for all humans is the same, but in other ways His purpose for each living thing is not alike. We remember that our inner desires are created by God according to His perfect, moral principles, but, secondly, each person’s desire is built in according to God designed personality and DNA fingerprint.

The Good News is that the Lord will satisfy each person’s and each animal’s desire. Sin, Death and the Devil constantly try to thwart God’s implanted desires from being fulfilled. Thus life does not run smoothly, but in the end God will give satisfaction of desire.

258. Uphold and Raise Up

 Psalm 145:14

The Lord upholdeth all that fall,

And raiseth up all those that be bowed down.

 The Lord will lift the spirits of those who are fallen and bowed down. We all by ourselves will stumble and fall several times. It is comforting to know that the Lord will be there to hold us up when we fall. It is encouraging for us to know that the Lord will be there to raise us up when we are bowed down, depressed, feeling blue, sick at heart. He cannot fail to lift us up, so we continue to look to Him to lift us up no matter how long it seems to take.

Everyone will go through the valley and get down in the dumps, but the Lord promises to be with us through those times; and those times will pass; and we will be lifted up when the season is through. God does not always work according to our schedule, but He does promise to work; but it will be done on His timetable. He is always working and doing things, even when He seems distant and aloof; He works behind the scenes. While he works things out for our good and for our eternal salvation He will come to be with us and uphold us and raise us up at the right time.

Jesus says (Matthew 11:28-30]: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” This is the kind of sustaining and upholding that Jesus says He is doing for us; this is not an empty promise, but He will do it.

257. Tender Mercies

 Psalm 145:9b

And his tender mercies are over all his works.

 God promises tender mercies on everything He has created, including especially human beings. Since mercy is at the heart of who God is (God is Love) everything He does is from a heart of mercy. Mercy is the why and how of everything God does.

Why are tender mercies over all His works? Because that is who He is: God is mercy; He shows mercy; He gives mercy; mercy is in His core nature. God is also merciful because if He did not choose to be merciful Death and the end of the world would rule and reign: God showers tender mercies just so that the earth and our lives would continue and thrive. In other words, without mercy we would be dead. Sin causes death and it can’t be stopped, but death can be delayed and eventually lived through. And death will be defeated forever. Tender mercies do that.

How are tender mercies over all His works? Mercies bring love, forgiveness and acceptance to the objects of mercy; and this grows and strengthens life. The more mercy we receive the more alive we feel. Mercy is necessary to living; mercy makes all the difference in the world; mercy daily turns sin to grace, evil to good, and death to life. Tender mercies have awesome power.

256. Good

 Psalm 145:9a

The Lord is good to all:

“God is good!” This prayer or praise verse or proclamation is basic and essential to our life and faith while living on the earth. God is good in every way imaginable, and God is good to us in every way that we need Him. Not only is God good, He does good things and gives good things.

We can take this promise personally that God will be good to us, but we also take this promise generally that God will be good to all. God will be good to every created person whether good or bad, believer or unbeliever, just or unjust just because God is good and He loves everyone. “He makes his sun rise on (blesses) the evil and the good; He sends rain on (blesses) the just and the unjust.” [Matthew 5:45] Therefore, Jesus says, love your enemies, love all people; your Father does, so do you also.

Because the Lord promises to be good to all people we can pray for all people that they will live in peace and enjoy the blessings of the Lord. We can pray for our enemies and those who do not like us. When we do so we can then greet them pleasantly and treat them as we would like to be treated. When we are able to think and remember that if God loves this or that person no matter what he does or says, then I can, too. This promise that God loves all people gives us the desire and the ability to love all people, even the unlovable. This is a promise we can all live with.

255. Happy

 Psalm 144:15

Happy is that people, that is in such a case:

Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.

 The word for happy is “blessed” in this verse, a common promise in the Bible. Happy in English suggests luck, happenstance and accident. Blessed suggests God gives by grace undeserved kindness and blessings.

The Psalmist in this Psalm prays for victory, rescue and deliverance; he prays for sons and daughters to be strong pillars; he prays for granaries to be full; he prays for sheep and cattle to bear abundantly; he prays that there be no cry of distress in the streets. When these prayers are answered those people in such a case are happy and blessed. The prayer is for our nation, our government, our communities, our families they we may all enjoy prosperity and abundance. It is legitimate for Christians to pray for such blessings, as we pray regularly: “Give us this day our daily bread.” (For a useful prayer list look up in Luther’s Small Catechism under the Fourth Petition, “What is meant by daily bread?”)

This is a conditional promise: If the Lord is your God, then your people will be blessed. Everyone who makes Jesus the Lord and confesses Him as his God will be happy and blessed with answered prayers. We who believe in Jesus Christ should then be incentivized to pray daily, to repent and believe the Gospel daily. Not only do we have God’s command to pray, but we also have abundant promises that the Lord will hear our prayers and bless us in response to our needs and requests.

254. Deal Bountifully

 Psalm 142:7c

For thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

 God promises to deal bountifully with me. Bountiful = plentiful, abundant, fruitful, full and overflowing. The magnanimity and generosity of God is lavish and extravagant. He always gives what He knows we need, and the promise here is that He will provide even more than we need, for it will be a bountiful provision.

The generosity that we see and experience in life comes from God, who is generous by nature. In addition, the generosity and kindness of God is undeserved. We mortals, by our sin, have deserved poverty, shame, contempt, sickness, depression, devastation, loss and death. Instead, we are given the opposite. My cup (my soul) runneth over with all kinds of goodness and mercy all the days of my life, and on top of that I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

When we see the truth it would be impossible for us to doubt or diminish the love of God for each of us: He gives His own Son; He gives His own life; He gives love unconditionally; He give abundant provision; He gives security; He gives kindnesses; and on and on. The Lord just keeps giving and dealing bountifully with me.