Tag Archives: Bible

Review: Be Exultant

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Be Exultant: Wiersbe commentary on Psalms

In my current trek through the Bible, I’ve just finished the book of Psalms. I had not planned to end the book right before Thanksgiving, but I was glad it worked out that way.

Once again, I used Warren Wiersbe’s short “Be” commentary as a companion, along with the ESV Study Bible notes.

Since Psalms is the longest book of the Bible at 150 chapters, Wiersbe divided his commentary on the book into two parts. I reviewed the first one here: Be Worshipful (Psalms 1-89): Glorifying God for Who He Is. The second is Be Exultant (Psalms 90-150): Praising God for His Mighty Works.

As I said in the earlier review, the book of Psalms is Israel’s songbook. The passages cover Israel’s history from creation to the latest happenings of the day, their return after being exiled in Babylon for seventy years.

Though David wrote a majority of the psalms, various other authors contributed as well.

The writers composed in caves, in hiding, in their rooms, under persecution, in celebration.

Many of the psalms are deeply personal, yet benefit the whole congregation.

The psalms are deeply doctrinal, some prophesying of the Messiah to come, many quoted in the New Testament.

But many people value the psalms most for their wide range of emotion, from the highest praise and exaltation to the lowest depths of misery. The psalms give us many examples of someone pouring out their heart to God in confusion, sorrow, pain, or guilt, then reminding themselves of what they know to be true about God.

Here are some of the quotes from Wiersbe’s book that most stood out to me:

Life is brief, so Moses prayed, “Teach us.” Life is difficult, and he prayed, “Satisfy us.” His work at times seemed futile, so he prayed, “Establish the work of our hands.” God answered those prayers for Moses, and He will answer them for us. The future is your friend when Jesus is your Savior and Lord (p. 25, Kindle version).

It is better to suffer in the will of God than to invite trouble by disobeying God’s will (1 Peter 2: 18–25) (p. 26).

This hidden life of worship and communion makes possible the public life of obedience and service (p. 26).

To rely on our faith is to put faith in faith, but to rely on God’s faithfulness is to put faith in the Lord. Our assurance is in the Word of God and the God of the Word (p. 102).

The Word of God performs many wonderful ministries in the life of the devoted believer. It keeps us clean (v. 9), gives us joy (vv. 14, 111, 162), guides us (vv. 24, 33–35, 105), and establishes our values (vv. 11, 37, 72, 103, 127, 148, 162). The Word helps us to pray effectively (v. 58) and gives us hope (v. 49) and peace (v. 165) and freedom (vv. 45, 133) (p. 110).

What a precious treasure is the Word of God (vv. 14, 72, 127, 162; 61: 5)! It is like a deep mine filled with gold, silver, and precious gems, and we must take time to “dig” for these treasures (Prov. 2: 1–9; 3: 13–15; 8: 10–11; 1 Cor. 3: 9–23). A mere surface reading of Scripture will not put spiritual treasure into our hearts. Mining treasure is hard work, but it is joyful work when we “mine” the Bible, as the Spirit guides us into truth. Then, the Spirit helps us to “mint” the treasure so we can invest it in our lives (obedience) and in the lives of others (witness) (p. 131).

Wrong ideas about God will ultimately lead to wrong ideas about who we are and what we should do, and this leads to a wrong life on the wrong path toward the wrong destiny
(p. 193).

I’m thankful once again for Dr. Wiersbe’s insights.

Is It More Important to Read the Bible Together or Alone?

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Is it more important to read the Bible together or alone?

What’s more important: having regular personal time alone with the Lord or hearing the Bible read and taught in community at church?

You might respond, “We need both. Why pit them against each other?”

That’s my question. Why, indeed?

Nevertheless, I’ve seen a couple of recent articles positing that the church service is to be our main spiritual meal.

One author’s reasons for her premise was that in Scripture, God spoke to groups through a prophet or preacher, and the New Testament epistles were written to churches.

But God spoke to individuals as well. And many NT letters and books were written to individuals (Luke, Acts, Titus, Philemon, 1 and 2 Timothy).

I suspect this idea that we need to hear the Word gathered together more than we need to read it on our own arose for a couple of reasons. One is the drifting away of many from church and the desire to stress to believers the importance of meeting together.

Another is the almost universal guilt people feel about their time in the Bible. Every time this topic comes up, I hear disappointment or frustration or disillusionment. People feel guilty if they miss a day (or several days), if they fall asleep or get distracted while praying or reading the Bible, if they didn’t particularly get anything out of it or felt bored.

It’s true there’s nothing in the Bible that tells us to read it every day or prescribes exactly how a quiet time or devotions should be practiced.

But Psalm 1 tells us that the stable, fruitful person meditates on God’s law day and night. God specifically told Joshua to meditate on the book of the law day and night. We’re told throughout Scripture to remember what God said. We can’t meditate on (think about, turn over in our minds) what we have not heard or read.

The psalms in the Bible are songs which were sung by the children of Israel. Some of them have plural pronouns, but many have personal pronouns. That means even though the congregation is singing about the truths of the passage together, the passage was written by someone’s experience with the Lord alone. Psalm 119:148, the writer actually anticipates “the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word.”

Our time alone with God should feed into our time together, and our time in the Word together should edify our inner souls and equip us in our daily walk.

Time with other believers learning God’s Word is vital and wonderful. But we only meet together once or twice a week. The Bible is our spiritual food, and we need to eat more than that.

We don’t relate to God only as “one of the kids.” In a family with multiple children, each child relates to the family as a whole. But each child also relates to the father and mother as individuals.

We’re to meet together frequently (Hebrews 10:25), “stir one another up to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24), learn from the incredible gifts God gave to the church in pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-13), sing worshipful, Scripture based songs together (Colossians 3:16).

But just as children are born into a family individually, no matter who else might be there, we’re born again by personal repentance and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. We get to know Him by spending time with Him, listening to Him, alone and with others. Though our brothers and sisters in Christ are great encouragements, sometimes we stand with God alone and encourage ourselves in God alone, like David did. We praise and meditate on Him alone in the middle of the night (Psalm 63:5-7). We’ll each give account of ourselves to God (Romans 14:11).

What about the disappointment we feel when our devotional time is less than stellar?

We need to remember the point of a devotional time is not to get through an assignment, to feel proud that we’ve completed our plan for the day, or to turn in a great performance. The point of a devotional time is to get to know God better.

When we get to know other people, we spend time with them, learn about them, listen to them, talk with them. Just like with others in our lives, those conversations will vary. Some interactions are long and deep, some are hurried and surface-level.

I like to think of it this way: every time in the Bible is not going to be like a Thanksgiving feast, where we’re filled to bursting with all our favorite things. But every meal nourishes us, even the tuna casseroles or peanut butter sandwiches and their spiritual equivalents.

God knows we’re only human. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14).

And feeling sleepy, bored, or not with it on a given day happens in church as well as home alone with our Bibles.

When the Bible was being written, no one had a completed copy of it. And most people did not have their own copy of any part of it. Listening to the Bible being taught was the main way, often the only way, they were exposed to it. Even when the Bible was completed, it was a long time before individuals had their own.

But we do have the completed Bible. And most of us have several copies, as well as apps to read or listen to. William Tyndale, John Wycliffe, and others gave their lives to provide people with copies of the Scripture they could read in their own language.

If every word in the Bible is God-breathed, shouldn’t we spend time taking it in as much as we can?

A couple of older saints inspire me to read God’s Word for myself:

Above all theologies, and creeds, and catechisms, and books, and hymns, must the Word be meditated on, that we may grow in the knowledge of all its parts and in assimilation to its models. Our souls must be steeped in it; not in certain favorite parts of it, but the whole. We must know it, not [only] from the report of others but from our own experience and vision. . . Another cannot breathe the air for us, nor eat for us, nor drink for us.—Horatius Bonar from They Walked With God

You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with having so much knowledge as is thrown in your way, and as you receive in some sense unavoidably by the frequent inculcation of divine truth in the preaching of the word, of which you are obliged to be hearers, or as you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold.—Jonathan Edwards

Granted, the articles I mentioned earlier did not say we should only read and hear the Bible in church and never read it on our own. They encouraged private devotions as well, but elevated church reading and teaching above them. However, I would say reading and studying the Bible alone is not second fiddle to hearing it taught at church. Both are good and needed ways to get to know our God and His will better.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly - Colossians 3:16a

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

I found a lot of good reading this week:

A Comforting Resource for People Who Have Lost Parents. My friend, Lois, lost both parents within five weeks of each other a few year ago. Some of her blog posts since then have been about processing their loss and working through grief. She found a lot of resources for losing a child or a spouse, but not much on losing parents. That seemed to be treated as just a normal part of life. Though the death of one’s parents is inevitable, grief still runs deep. Lois has just pulled these posts together in one resource page. She tells about it and links to the Help for Parent Loss page there.

How Can I Cultivate a Listening Life in a Noisy World? “Do we demonstrate through our choices that we truly believe that we NEED God’s Word? Are we still ‘the people of the Book?'”

Can a Christian Have Mental Illness? HT to Challies. “Some Christians believe that Christians cannot have mental illness. If a professing Christian is depressed, anxious, or bipolar, they think it’s because they are not a real Christian, or that there is some terrible sin they haven’t repented of, or that they need to repent of the depression or whatever the problem is. Nearly half (48 percent) of evangelicals believe that serious mental illness can be overcome with prayer and Bible study alone. The result of this condemnation of mental illness as sin is that many Christians do not admit they have a mental illness, they don’t talk about it, and they don’t reach out for help.”

We Need Every Word, HT to Challies. “I want to feast on the Bible passages I love, the ones that make me feel some note of pleasure or comfort. I want the reminders that I’m loved, the encouragements to hold fast, and the songs of praise that remind me of God’s faithfulness. I don’t always want the lists or the history or the stories that don’t seem to affect me.”

Why We Are Tempted not to Pray, HT to Challies. “Prayer should stupefy us. ‘You mean, this all-powerful God who keeps galaxies spinning is interested in you telling him about your day and might alter the course of the entire cosmos because you asked him if you could have a parking space?’”

Being Involved in Church as a Teen, HT to Challies. “But being born into a church as a baby, and then growing up through Sunday school and youth group, can often make it hard to be taken seriously. Even older Christians with the best intentions can miss the mark. It can feel a bit awkward when they ask you the same questions every time they see you in church. It takes time and effort from both sides to help and encourage one another, and ultimately, have more meaningful relationships.”

Is the Lord’s Day the Christian Sabbath? HT to Challies. “At the outset, I need to say that this issue is one that I think Christians should not divide over. The view I present below is not the one I grew up with, but I have no particular ambition to convert people to my view — except that, with regard to those who have the duty to teach God’s word, it is important to do so properly, ‘rightly handling the word of truth’, preaching the full counsel of God with all His authority, but never giving human ideas that same authority.”

The Ritual of Rearranging Books, HT to Linda. “Taking all the books down was a chance to organize and cull, but primarily, it was an experience in simply remembering what was there, how it got there, and why. You can look at shelved books until the cows come home, but it’s not the same as actually taking them off the shelves.”

Seeing the Light on Religious Fiction, HT to Linda. “As I complete my 40th year working with books, I’ve changed my mind about an entire publishing genre that I once held at arm’s length at best, and treated with something akin to critical dismissal at worst. I feel like the proverbial old dog who has suddenly learned a new trick. The genre? Religious fiction.” I especially loved this one!

Routine leads to devotion, especially in Bible study.

The quote here is from “Just Not Feeling It”: How Routine Awakens Devotion.

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

Some good reads found this week:

“Just Not Feeling It”: How Routine Awakens Devotion. “To some, the word routine carries the stiffness of stale bread and the rot of dead plants, the stuffiness of library books never opened and attics dusty with age. The very thought of routine spirituality — planned, scheduled, disciplined — seems to undermine the ministry of the life-giving, freedom-bestowing Spirit. ‘Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom’ (2 Corinthians 3:17) — and where the spirit of routine is (we may think), there is bondage. The dichotomy, however, is self-imposed, self-imagined. If routine smells stale to us, the problem lies in our own sniffer.”

Delays Are as Much a Part of God’s Plan as Answered Prayers. “At times, we may find ourselves in situations where we are eagerly waiting for answers to our prayers, hoping for our dreams, goals, and aspirations to come to fruition. However, it’s during these moments of uncertainty and delay that we may become overwhelmed with frustration, anxiety, and even a sense of disillusionment.”

2 Ways Anxiety Affects Parents, HT to Story Warren. “In my thirty-plus years of counseling, I’ve never seen parents feel as much pressure or as much like failures as they do today. I’ve never had as many parents in tears in my office. And I’ve certainly never seen as many parents who live in a perpetual state of worry.”

5 Lies Teenagers Believe & Biblical Truth to Set Them Free. “I sometimes fear this generation of young people is stuck in a giant game of Where’s Waldo? They only see the things they are looking for. When you fear rejection, you see it on every face in the crowd. When you want to escape your responsibilities, you spot exits everywhere. When you crave affirmation, you will find it in all the wrong places. 1 Peter 5:8 HCSB says, ‘Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.’ Sadly, teens are primary targets in the enemy’s strategy to dismantle the kingdom of God.”

Purposes of Predicative Prophecy. “Why has God given revelation in the form of prophecy? And why so much? What is the goal of prophecy? Or are there multiple intended effects? A number of passages answer these questions. The answers are surprisingly diverse.”

Lists are Menus, HT to Linda. I don’t have the negative feelings this writer has about working through a list. But there is something appealing about looking at a list like a menu. “These menus also help clarify a critical way a menu differs from a to-do list: picking just one or two items from a menu is something you get to do, not something you have to do. The myriad things you could order – so far in excess of your capacity to consume them – don’t constitute a problem.”

The Bible has to go through our head to affect our heart and life.

Review: Be Worshipful

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Be Worshipful by Wiersbe on Psalms

Psalms is the longest book of the Bible at 150 chapters, so Warren Wiersbe divided his commentaries on the Psalms into two books. The first is Be Worshipful (Psalms 1-89): Glorifying God for Who He Is.

“The book of Psalms has been and still is the irreplaceable devotional guide, prayer book, and hymnal of the people of God,” (p. 15). About one-third of the psalms don’t list an author, but King David wrote the majority of the others. The sons of Korah, Asaph, Solomon, Ethan, and Moses wrote others. All, however, wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Except for Moses’ psalm, the rest span the time of King David through the divided kingdom and Israel’s exile into Babylon.

“Some of the psalms are laments to the Lord, written by people in dire circumstances. There are also messianic psalms that point forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. There are also psalms of praise and thanksgiving, royal psalms, wisdom psalms, psalms of affirmation and trust, penitential psalms, and even imprecatory psalms calling down God’s wrath on the enemy” (p. 16).

The psalms’ poetry is not rhyming and rhythmic like English poetry. Hebrew poetry expresses itself in parallel lines. The second line of a pair might say the same as the first differently, or contrast with the first, or expand on the first. But the psalms uses similar literary devices as our poetry: simile, metaphor, imagery, symbolism, synecdoche (referring to one part to represent the whole, like keeping hands clean representing keeping one’s life clean), hyperbole, apostrophe (addressing a thing as if it were a person, like Wisdom), anthropomorphism, and others.

“There are over four hundred quotations or allusions to the psalms in the New Testament” (p. 16).

The psalms cover a lot of different subjects. “But primarily, the Psalms are about God and His relationship to His creation, the nations of the world, Israel, and His believing people” (p. 16).

“The psalms teach us to seek God with a whole heart, to tell Him the truth and tell Him everything, and to worship Him because of who He is, not just because of what He gives. They show us how to accept trials and turn them into triumphs, and when we’ve failed, they show us how to repent and receive God’s gracious forgiveness. The God described in the book of Psalms is both transcendent and immanent, far above us and yet personally with us in our pilgrim journey. He is ‘God Most High’ and ‘Immanuel—God with us'” (p. 18).

Wiersbe writes a few pages of comments on each psalm, explaining, drawing out truth, sharing insights. He includes discussion questions at the end of the book.

Many of the comments I have highlighted refer to specific contexts of psalms that would be impossible to explain without sharing all of Wiersbe’s comments on that particular section. But here are a few general comments I found helpful:

Those who have problems with the military aspects of some of David’s psalms should remember that David went to war only when the enemy attacked Israel. He did not invade other nations just to gain territory, and he was fighting the Lord’s battles (1 Sam. 17:47; 25: 28; 2 Chron. 20:15). The covenant God made with David (2 Sam. 7:11) assured him of victory over his enemies (p. 85).

Though David occasionally fell, as we all do, the habitual bent of his life was toward the Lord and His Word (p. 106).

The secret of David’s public confidence was his private obedience: He took time to fellowship with the Lord and get directions from Him. David knew that the most important part of his life was the part that only God could see, and this was one priority he would not negotiate” (p. 108).

David tried to “cover” his sins, but his schemes didn’t work. They never do (Prov. 28: 13), but when God covers the sins we confess to Him, they are hidden from sight and never seen again. (See Isa. 38:17; 43:25; 44:22; Jer. 31:34; 1 John 1:7–9.) (p. 121).

Chastening isn’t a judge punishing a criminal; it’s a loving Father dealing with His disobedient children to bring them willingly to the place of surrender. According to Hebrews 12:1–13, God’s chastening is proof that He loves us and that we are genuinely His children (p. 122).

[Re David praying against enemies} This was not a personal vendetta on David’s part, but a concern for the future of the nation of Israel and the dynasty of David. As ruler of the land, David wielded the sword of justice (Rom. 13:1–4), and nations today punish treason with death (p. 152).

The greatest danger a nation faces is not the invading enemy on the outside but the eroding enemy on the inside—a people gradually turning away from the faith of their fathers. Each generation must pass along to the next generation who the Lord is, what He has done, and what they must do in response to His goodness and faithfulness (71:18; 78:4, 6; 79:13; 109:13; 145:4; 2 Tim. 2:2) (p. 178).

It is our regular worship that prepares us for the crisis experiences of life (p. 207).

The psalms are not just emotional: they are full of truth and doctrine. Yet I love that the psalms show the writers’ hearts as they wrestle with problems, unanswered prayer, confusion, God’s seeming distance. Most of the psalms of lament end with the psalmist reminding himself the truth he knows about God and restoring his hope and confidence. And who can beat the praise psalms for lifting one’s heart in thanksgiving and worship.

The Bible tells us to study God’s Word, not just read it casually. Yet it’s possible to go too far the other way and examine a passage’s pieces, losing the main message or emphasis. I had to wrestle with this since I was using both the ESV Study Bible notes as well as Wiersbe’s commentary. Both were beneficial, but sometimes I left a passage with my head swimming. It helped to go back and read the passage again as a unit and as poetry after reading the comments and notes.

I appreciated the help Wiersbe’s commentary was to understanding and gaining more from the psalms.

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

There is so much good reading online. Here are a few that stood out to me. It’s probably a good time for my occasional reminder that linking to any source does not imply 100% endorsement of everything on that site.

Why’d the Pigs Have to Die? HT to Challies. I’ve often wondered about this, from when Jesus cast a legion of demons out of one man, and the demons went into a herd of pigs and destroyed them. I appreciate the answer.

The Secret Meaning of YHWH, HT to Knowable Word. “I think God is not pleased by the herculean efforts some people go to look so hard for hidden meanings—whether linguistic or allegorical or what have you—that they miss the simple point of what he said.”

What Does It Look Like to Serve as Others as Jesus Served? “What does it look like to be a servant to my family, to say ‘My life for yours’? As a person of faith, I look to Jesus as my example of a servant’s heart.”

One of the Weirdest Articles I’ve Ever Written. Mike Leake uses and absurd example to illustrate the point that “Just because a word means something somewhere doesn’t mean it carries that same meaning elsewhere.” We can end up with this kind of extreme interpretation in Bible word studies when we “find all the uses of that word and then you shove each of those passages and all of their meaning into the Scripture you’re studying.”

Ambassadors for Marriage, HT to Challies. “It’s one thing for me, a 50-something, Christian mother of four, grandmother of two, to say, ‘Yes, get married! Don’t wait for the ‘perfect’ person or perfect timing! Don’t wait to get the whole rest of your life in order first! Marriage is great—it’s totally worth it!’ But it’s another thing entirely coming from someone who is under the age of 30.”

What It Feels Like, HT to Challies. A pastor’s experience with depression.

Shepherding Children Through Exposure to Pornography, HT to Challies. It’s sad that such an article is necessary, but these days, it’s too easy to come across pornography unexpectedly and then be drawn in.

God is Near: Certain Comforts for Moms, HT to Challies. “In my role as the Director of Children’s Ministries at my church, I’m privy to the thoughts of many mothers. As moms think about ‘back to school,’ one emotion keeps bubbling to the surface over and over. I hear it in their voices, in the questions they ask, and the conversations they have. It’s not a pretty emotion. It’s one that can sometimes paralyze us.  Fear.”

Your Rights as a Christian in a Public School in 2023, HT to Challies.

The most recent newsletter from the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation shared that the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C is hosting an exhibit called Through Gates of Splendor: The Elisabeth Elliot Story through the end of 2023. I’d love to see it, but I doubt I’ll get to D.C. before the end of this year. Thankfully, this article says they’re working on a traveling exhibit. The newsletter shared this video of opening day:

John Newton quote about fear

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some of the latest good reads discovered this week:

God Is Eager to Forgive You. “God promises to show favor at the faintest whisper of a cry. He promises to answer ‘as soon as He hears.’ No probation. Just the ear of God, listening to the cry of a penitent sinner’s heart. He doesn’t see you as ‘damaged goods,’ a ‘second-class citizen,’ or a blight on His church. The sinner who has turned to Christ in forgiveness has the righteousness of the Savior credited to his account. It’s this righteousness, not the black mark of sin, that the forgiving Father sees.”

Emphasizing What The Bible Emphasizes. “When our issue of the moment begins to dominate our thoughts and conversations—to the exclusion of other healthy, worthy topics—what is missing is balance and proportion.”

Are You Casual with the Holiness of God? HT to Challies. “Imagine that, after suffering a loss on the battlefield, an American army general decided to galvanize his troops by taking the Declaration of Independence into battle. Sounds a little farfetched, I know. What kind of general would play so fast and loose with one of the most precious artifacts in the nation’s history? Though it may not seem likely to happen with American soldiers, this scenario actually did play out in Israel as the era of judges came to a close.”

To Rejoice with Those Who Rejoice, HT to the Story Warren. “As we pondered what we’d both seen, we concluded that often the people of God are better at mourning than rejoicing. Leaning into support, lifting up in prayer, and bringing a meal are actually easier than being a champion for, celebrating, and truly finding joy in someone else’s experience of blessing.”

The Ministry of the Pew: Sunday Morning for Normal Christians. “May I introduce you to what others have called the ministry of the pew? Ministry that you — normal Christian — perform every Lord’s day. Such is the ministry of the Not-Up-Fronts, the army sitting facing the pulpit.”

Anything Worth Doing, Is Worth Doing Badly, HT to Challies. “As Christians we should be those who work most excellently, because we are serving a better, more worthy, Master. And yet, I’m afraid this ideal of excellence often causes well meaning Christians to stop ‘doing’ altogether. They turn the adage into, ‘If it can’t be done well, don’t do it at all.’ And that is unbiblical.”

Willing Spirit, Weak Flesh: The Real Meaning of Matthew 26:41, HT to Knowable Word. “If willingness alone can’t overcome the weakness of our flesh, what will?”

Tagless, HT to Challies. A modern day parable with a good lesson.

Thankful God Is Not a Stranger

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Thankful God Is not a Stranger

“I was so thankful, when this happened, that God was not a stranger to me.”

I don’t remember when or where or from whom I heard this. I don’t recall the context or what the “this” was that happened. But this statement has stayed with me for decades.

In my early Christian life, when something negative happened, I’d be shaken. I wonder if this was happening because I’d done something wrong. I’d feel that God was far away. I knew He loved me, but I didn’t feel so loved. I’d ponder all the “what ifs,” which would shake me up even more.

After a few decades of walking with the Lord, I can’t say I’m not still shaken in a crisis. But I’ve wrestled through reasons God allows suffering. I’ve experienced His grace through trials. I know He has reasons for what He allows and He’ll be with me through it all. I may not like certain circumstances, and I may pray to get out of them as soon as possible. But my confidence in God isn’t shaken.

So I can echo and “amen” the unknown author of my beginning statement. God sometimes uses crises to bring people to Himself, or bring them back to Himself if their hearts are wandering. But it’s so much easier to go through a crisis with the God you know and can place your full confidence in. We can be like the psalmist, “not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD” (Psalm 112:7).

However, we don’t just need God in crises, do we? We need Him for everything. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We need His wisdom to know how to handle situations that come up. We need His love to show to others. We need His strength in our weakness, His grace when we fail, His encouragement when we’re low.

He conveys these things to us through a couple of means: His Word and His Holy Spirit. But have you ever noticed that the passage about letting God’s Word dwell in you richly in Colossians 3 and being filled with the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5 are parallel? The same “results” are listed for each one. The Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God, so of course that’s what He would use to equip us. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Scripture meets our need for the day as well as fortifying us for the future.

Sometimes that “equipping” comes through other people as they share God’s Word with us. But we need to dig into God’s Word for ourselves as well. Someone has said that God gives birds their food, but He doesn’t throw it into their nests (I’ve heard that attributed to Luther, Spurgeon, and Josiah Gilbert Holland). Though the saying was probably meant to show the need to work for a living, I think it has an application to learning God’s Word as well. God has given us such treasure in Scripture, but we need to read it and mine for it.

Anyone who has been married for several years can tell you that they thought they knew and loved their spouse on their wedding day, but that was nothing compared to ten or twenty or thirty years later. That’s true of long-term friendships as well. Shared conversations, experiences, good times and trials, have deepened the relationship as they got to know each other more thoroughly over the years.

The same is true in our relationship with God. Eternal life starts with coming to know God in repentance and faith: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). But we get to know Him better as we read the Bible, pray, exercise faith, and depend on Him through various circumstances.

The better we know Him, the less likely we are to fall apart in a crisis, to be deceived or led astray, to walk away from our faith. We’ll never be perfect til we get to heaven, but we grow in grace and knowledge of him.

If you don’t know God, I invite you to learn more here. And if you do, keep getting to know Him better and better.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

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It’s been a super-busy week, so I have just a few links for you. But I think they’re good ones.

Why We Follow Some Old Testament Laws But Not Others, HT to Challies. “Critics accuse Christians of conveniently picking and choosing from Old Testament laws. We’re quick to ‘clobber’ gay people with verses from Leviticus, they say, yet we don’t keep kosher ourselves. The complaint, though, is based on a misunderstanding about the Mosaic Covenant that even Christians fall prey to.”

“Where Is Your Faith?” HT to Challies. “How do you cling to belief amidst such turmoil of the heart? How do you survive the death of a child? I can tell you, it is not what happens in that moment of complete darkness or even in the months and years that follow. Survival is forged in the pew every Sunday. It is built on the truths of Scripture that you fill your mind with day by day. It comes through knowing Who God is.”

We’re Missing It. “He wants time to love us that way and it can’t happen if He is a ‘to do’ list item, or in sound bites only throughout our day, or only while we grab coffee on our way out the door.”

Well-Worn Boots. Lessons from a pair of faithful old work boots.

We Need Time Alone with God

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In a recent magazine article, a Christian college professor expressed concern that his students weren’t Biblically literate even though they read their Bibles every day and even had parts of it memorized. His solution was that people should shift away from private, personal time in the Bible to communal times.

I don’t want to dissect and discuss the article here. However, I wanted to focus on the concept of communal vs. private times in God’s Word.

Do we need time together in the Bible? Yes. Reading and studying the Bible with others helps us get more out of the passage, encourages us, and (hopefully) keeps us from going off on tangents due to misinterpretation.

But I’m concerned that, in the battle against individualism and people pulling away from church attendance, we might go too far the other way and de-emphasize our personal walk with God.

God is the heavenly Father of all those who believe in Him. But we don’t relate to Him only as a group. Wise human fathers spend time with the family all together but also with individual members one-on-one. Our Father in heaven is even wiser. Though He created us to interact with and encourage each other, He also has a personal relationship with each of His children. And relationships thrive on communication.

When I was in college, we were sometimes reminded a Christian university was one of the easiest places to grow cold in our walk with God. Even though we heard the Word of God regularly in classes, in chapel, and in prayer groups, we couldn’t just coast on the spiritual atmosphere. We shouldn’t let Bible classes take the place of our personal time in Scripture.

Our time with others informs our personal time with God. And our time alone in His Word informs our time all together.

The psalms were sung in the congregation. Yet they are full of personal singular pronouns.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. (Psalm 40:2).

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1).

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me (Psalm 63:5-8).

As much as we need each other, sometimes we have to stand alone with God.

David “encouraged himself in the Lord” (1 Samuel 30:6) when the men of Israel were ready to stone him.

Joseph spent years as the only apparent believer in the one true God that he knew when he was a slave in Egypt. His witness did seem to spread to others. But he had to remind himself of God’s truth on his own.

Two turning-point meetings with God in Jacob’s life happened when he was alone.

Daniel had friends of the same faith, but he faced the lion’s den alone, received visions alone, and prayed alone.

Paul ministered with companions but sometimes was alone.

Jesus dealt with crowds of people yet sought His Father alone.

We’ll each give account of ourselves personally to God. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

If we’re reading the Bible regularly and still don’t know much about it, there are ways to improve. Jen Wilkin’s book, Women of the Word, was written for just that reason. I’m trying to write a book on the same topic. There are aids all over the Internet to improve our devotional time, or quiet time, or time in God’s Word. I’ve written about several aspects here.

But let’s keep things in balance. Meet with other believers to read and study God’s Word. But meet with Him alone as well.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)