Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 143-150.

The psalmist cries out to the Lord.  He writes of how “the enemy” pursues him and crushes him.  A synonym for “enemy” is “adversary”, and the Hebrew word for “adversary” gives us the English word Satan.  So, we could read this passage as reading:
“Satan pursues me,
    he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in the darkness
    like those long dead.”
When depression hits us, when we feel overwhelmed by the troubles which life brings us, let us recognize that it is the Adversary pushing us into darkness.  The psalmist gives us the answer to dealing with such a situation.  Remember what God has done in the past and spread out our hands before God.  Thirst for His presence like the parched ground thirsts for rain.  Praise God for being dependable and training our hands how to serve Him.  Each generation tells the next of God’s mighty acts so that we can meditate on the glorious things that He has done.  We learn not to trust in governments, in humans who hold power over others.  Instead, let us turn to God and place our hope in Him.  After all, He is the maker of all that is, heaven and earth, and all that is in them.   God does not take pleasure in our strength, nor in our wealth.  Instead, He takes pleasure in those who fear Him and who put their trust in His love.  He is faithful to defend the oppressed and to give food to the hungry.  Let everything that has breath praise the Lord for He created them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 136-142.

I echo the sentiments the psalmist expresses in today’s first psalm: give thanks to the Lord because He is good!  He has done wonderful things and His love endures forever.  When we call to Him, He answers.  He rescues us from our troubles.  More importantly, He has searched our hearts and knows us thoroughly.  He knows what we are going to do before we have the thought.  He knows us completely.  The way the psalmist expresses God’s knowledge of us is so powerful.  He writes that hiding from God is not possible.  There is no place we could go, or even a place we cannot go to, where God could not see us.  There is no place where God is not already there.  On the one hand, that means that we cannot hide from God and that it is pointless to try.  However, it also means that there is no place where God cannot reach us to save us from trouble.  The psalmist goes from there to explain that God not only knows our thoughts and our actions, but He knows how we are “put together”.  He knows the intricacies of our bodies and of our minds because He built them.  He understands how we have allowed sin to distort us from what He made us to be, and because He made us He knows how to put us right again after we have been damaged.  So, let us call on God to search our thoughts and desires in order to settle our anxious thoughts and lead us away from offensive thoughts so that we may serve Him faithfully.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 120-135.

Today’s passage starts off with the psalmist asking God to save him from lying lips and deceitful tongues.  Now I realize the psalmist was talking about those around him who were dishonest, but when I first read:
“What will he do to you,
    and what more besides,
    you deceitful tongue?”
my thought was that I should pray to God that He keep me from having a deceitful tongue.  That thought did not come because I think of myself as dishonest, but because I want to never become someone whom others wonder if I am telling the truth.  As we read on, we read the psalmist telling us that our help comes from the Lord, the one who made all that is.  He will not let our foot slip.  If we seek His help, He will keep us from being deceitful, or from committing other sins.  He does not sleep, or even momentarily drift off.  Whatever plans we make, whatever effort we put into a project, if those plans do not further God’s plans, if that project is not part of what God is doing, all of our effort will come to nothing.  So, let us watch God closely to see what He wants us to do next.  Let us rejoice when we hear people say that they want to worship God.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 117-118.

I am struggling with a lot of stress in my life right now.  So, today’s two psalms really lifted my spirits.  I am not quite sure how to express why that is the case, but part of it comes from reading them as if the break between the psalms came after Psalm 118:1, rather than before:
Praise the Lord, all you nations;
    extol him, all you peoples.
 For great is his love toward us,
    and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord.
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.
Let everyone praise the Lord. let everyone from every nation praise Him because of His great love for us, and let us thank Him because He is good.  The psalmist then goes on in 118 to tell us that when he cried to the Lord, the Lord brought him into a good space.  He reminds us that when the Lord is with us we should not fear, because who, or what, can threaten us when the Lord defends us?  It is better to put our trust in the Lord than in any human being, even if they are a powerful government official.  We may be surrounded on all sides by trouble, but if we trust in the Lord we will cut through those troubles with ease.  Even though I see no way through the troubles around me, I know that I will soon be able to proclaim what the Lord has done to take those troubles from me.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 108-116.

Today’s psalms do not really fit together with a theme, but they strike me nonetheless.  In the first psalm, Psalm 108, the psalmist sings praise to God and acknowledges that he will only succeed with God’s help.  Psalm 109 was interpreted by Peter as applying to Jesus (and referring to Judas as the enemy here described).  The psalmist refers to enemies who returned evil for good and hatred for offers of friendship.  Which reflects accurately on Christ’s life and what the Jewish leaders, and Judas, did to Him.  I am not going to continue to lay out specifics from each psalm in today’s reading, but the psalmist goes on praise the Lord and to call on us to praise Him.  As we live this life, the psalmist instructs us not to seek glory for ourselves, but rather to direct all glory towards God.  Do not credit me for any good thing I may have done, or that I may do in the future.  If I do, or have done, any good thing, give credit, and glory, to God for it.  Credit, and praise, is due to God for any good you think I have done.  Just as the psalmist says, I love the Lord because He has heard my cries and rescued me from distress.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 105-107.

Most of the Psalms praise God, or call on us to praise God.  Today’s psalms certainly do so.  Today, the reading begins with
“Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;
    make known among the nations what he has done.
Sing to him, sing praise to him;
    tell of all his wonderful acts.“
That is a theme which is continued through all three of the psalms in today’s reading.  The psalmist tells us to remember the wonders which God has done: the miracles He has performed and the judgements He has pronounced.  He goes on to tell us to give thanks to God for His goodness and remind us that God’s love endures, no matter what we do.  The psalmist describes how the Israelites rebelled against God despite what He had already done for them, yet God still delivered them from the Egyptians pursuing them.  When He did that, they believed His promises and sang His praise.  Yet, they soon forgot and sinned against Him once more.   The psalmist points out that this led God to say that He would destroy them, and that He only refrained from doing so because His chosen one stood in the breach before Him.  In this case, God’s chosen one was Moses, but it foreshadows the way in which God’s Chosen One, Jesus, stands in the breach for us today.  God chose Jesus to save us so that we might give thanks to Him.  Once God has saved us, the psalmist tells us that we should tell others what God has done for us.  I cried to the Lord in my trouble and He saved me from my distress.  I will give thanks to God for His unfailing love and tell of His wonderful deeds to all who will listen.  If you have been similarly experienced God’s redemption, tell those you meet so that they might come to know Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 98-104.

In most of today’s psalms, the psalmist tells us to sing praises to God.  He starts by reminding us that God has revealed His righteousness to all of the peoples on earth, and to all people.  God has shown them how He will save them.  Further, we should sing to God, we should praise God with all of our talents, or even with our lack of talents, because He has established equity (fairness) and done what is just and done what is right.  God establishes the very idea of equity, the idea of just, and the idea of right, without Him those words have no meaning.  God made us and called us as His.  We should joyfully sings to Him and about Him because of this.  The psalmist goes on to proclaim that he will try to lead a blameless life.  He will not show approval for the vile and perverse.  He will try to avoid those who do evil and are faithless.  He will call on God to strengthen him to achieve these goals, and praise God for keeping him from sin.    Then in the one psalm today where he does not call on us to sing and praise God(Psalm 102), he cries out to God and requests delivery from his troubles.  After which he praises God for the way in which God answers the prayers the destitute.  The psalmist returns to telling us to praise God by singing joyfully because He has compassion on those who fear Him, just as a father has compassion for his children.  Finally, the psalmist praises God for creating all that is with wisdom.  Let us join the psalmist in praising God for making all that lives, and all that is.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 90-97.

There are a couple of different themes in today’s psalms, but I want to focus on the call to sing and make music in order to praise God.  In Psalm 92, the psalmist writes:
“It is good to praise the Lord
    and make music to your name, O Most High,…”
He goes on to say that God makes us glad by His deeds: God punishes the wicked, but the righteous flourish in His presence.  The wicked think that the One who made the eye and the ear cannot see their wicked acts and cannot hear as they plot evil, but God will give them just recompense for the evil they have done.  He will undermine their plots.  The psalmist goes on to write in Psalm 95:
“Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;
    let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.”
He made the sea and formed the dry land.  Let us listen to His voice and sing His praises.  So,
“Sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth.”
For the Lord is great and worthy to be praised.  His splendor and majesty, His strength and glory put all other gods to shame.  The Lord reigns and He judges all people with equity.  Everyone should rejoice in the Lord:
“Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous,
    and praise his holy name.”

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 82-89.

The psalmist challenges rulers by comparing them to gods who defend the unjust and favor the wicked.  He points out that God demands the opposite from rulers who wish His blessing.  A good government defends the weak and upholds the cause of the oppressed.  It rescues the weak and needy from the hand of the wicked.  As I read further, I felt like the psalmist was talking to the people of today, to those who today are seeking to destroy Israel as a nation and eliminate those whose ancestry might lead them to attempt to rebuild it.  The psalmist begs God to cover with shame those who seek the destruction of Israel and her people.  But here is where we see that our God is different.  The psalmist, as we should as well, seeks them to be covered in shame, not so that they will suffer, but so that they will seek the Lord.  Oh that God’s enemies would realize that being a servant in God’s house is more desirable than having access to all of the pleasures obtainable living among the wicked.  Let us join the psalmist in begging God to give us an undivided heart, a heart which seeks only the good which comes from obeying the Lord for those who persecute us, not vengeance for the suffering we, or others, have suffered at their hands.  The psalmist tells us that God will record people of all nations as acknowledging, as serving, Him.  Let us strive to seek to show them why they should do so by making His faithfulness known to all generations.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.