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

The psalmist declares that he will praise God before the whole world.  He will not allow fear of what others think to keep him quiet, because he knows that God’s love and faithfulness exceed the animosity of God’s enemies.  Praise God and depend on His aid against those who declare themselves our enemies as a result.  Do not make the mistake of pandering for human help.  For without God’s aid, human help is worthless.  God will not remain silent when people repay us with evil for good and hatred for our friendship.  The psalmist then calls on God to do something interesting: he asked God to appoint an evil person to oppose his enemy.  The psalmist did so because he wanted his enemy’s suffering to equal his wickedness.  A good person would not do, not even to the wicked, that which the truly wicked deserve.  Even the psalmist was unwilling to do that which he felt his enemy deserved.  Let us avoid the actions which led the psalmist to call on God to deliver such misfortune, and let us not be the ones to visit such misfortune on others, even those who deserve it.

The psalmist contrasts himself with his arrogant enemy by calling himself poor and needy.  The psalmist refers to himself that way multiple times throughout the psalms, not because he lacked material wealth.  Rather, he recognized that before God we are all broken, poor, and needy: we need God, God does not need us.  Let us come before God with this same attitude, recognizing that we need God to save us, that we cannot save ourselves.  We must come before God with fear because we have no power before Him.  Once we humbly recognize that we can do nothing against Him, we begin to learn wisdom.  We gain understanding as we learn to follow His directions and commands.  As we follow His commands out of fear of Him, we learn of His love because of the delight doing so brings us.

Finally, I want to touch specifically on Psalm 115.  Here the psalmist declares that whatever good we do should not reflect glory onto us.  Instead, others should praise and honor God for whatever good they see in us.  The credit for whatever good you see in me does not belong to me. It belongs to God, because without Him, and His grace, I would be a poor excuse for a human being.  The psalmist goes on to point out something about the meaning of Genesis 1:27, where we are told that God created mankind in His own image, which I never thought of before.  We become a reflection of that which we worship.  The psalmist tells us that idols have eyes, but cannot see, ears, but cannot hear, hands, but cannot feel, and feet, but cannot walk.  He then tells us that those who worship them become like them.  We have been made in God’s image, and if we worship Him we will be transformed into His likeness.  Let us worship God so deeply and sincerely that others see Him when they look at us.  Then, no one will ask, “Where is their God?”  

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

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

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

Put your confidence in God and sing His praises with all of your heart.  The psalmist writes about how he joyfully rises with the dawn to praise God to everyone.  He does this in the face of those who curse him despite his attempts to do good to them.  I was going in a different direction here, but it just struck me that the psalmist is writing about people who have started to believe the lies they tell about him, that is why they curse him.  We face the same thing today.  People convince themselves that their behavior is perfectly OK, then call you a hater when you point out how destructive their behavior actually is.  They convince themselves that those who attempt to point out how they hurt themselves with their behavior hate them for things beyond their control.  So, they curse such people with curses like those listed by the psalmist.  What they do not realize is that they are calling such curses down upon themselves.  Nevertheless, let us continue to show such people God’s love, not the false love they demand from us.  

Once again I am not sure how I am going sure how I am going to get the idea in my mind written down here, but I am going to try.   I always hesitate when I write something like the previous sentence because I am afraid that I am suggesting that, if I do a good job you should praise me.  However, the fact of the matter is that I write such things to make clear that if you find what comes after insightful or useful, the praise goes to God, not to me.  Which brings me into the point I want to make.  Those who fear the Lord will do good.  This contains a real paradox.  If we fear the Lord we will do His will out of fear of what He will do to us if we do not.  But as we do His will, we experience His love and love drives out fear by making us realize that He wants what is best for us.  Which leads us to do God’s will in order to return to Him His love.  But as we continue on this path we realize that there is nothing we can do for Him which He needs from us.  Which cycles us back to His love.  He gives us commands because He loves us and His commands instruct us to do what is in our own best interest.