Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 10-17.

The psalmist who wrote today’s psalms might have been writing about our society now.  The wicked hunt down the weak and devise plans to catch up those who cannot fight back.  They act as if no one will ever hold them to account, and it seems like perhaps they are correct.  Everywhere we look around us we see those who are not faithful or loyal; we see those whose deeds are vile and corrupt.   They declare that there is no God.  This leads some to declare that those who wish to obey the Lord need to flee to remote places in order to live because the wicked are destroying the foundations of law.  But the psalmist tells us that we should take refuge in the Lord, those who believe that there is no God are fools.  God will rise up and put the wicked to flight, then those who put their trust in Him will be able to march forth with Him.  God loves righteousness and justice, those who put their trust in Him do not need to flee from the assaults of the wicked.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 1-9.

When I read the Book of Job, I struggle because it makes many of the same points over and over again.  That is not a bad thing, sometimes we need the same point made over and over again(and the main point of the Book of Job is definitely one of those points which need to be made over and over again).  In the Psalms I run into the opposite problem: often the passage contains so many things that I don’t know what to leave out.

So, I love the way in which the Psalms begin.  If we desire God’s blessing we must not allow the wicked to shape our thoughts and actions.  Instead, we must delight in God’s commands and spend our time thinking about how we can follow them in our everyday lives.  This stands in contrast to those who band together thinking that the path to their best life is to cast off the constraints of God’s laws.  They regard our faith as a weakness which provides no benefit, and are convinced that God will not deliver us from the troubles which come upon us.  However, let us follow the psalmist’s example by beginning our day communing with God, laying before Him that which troubles us.  Strive to do that while both requesting that He deal with those issues and show us what we should do in order to serve Him.  Take time each day to consider the marvelous things which God has made, whether it be your cat, the plants growing around you, or the stars in the sky, and realize that the God who created all of these things has time to listen to you and to address your problems.  That should make you humble, cause you to thank Him for all that He has done for you, and inspire you to tell others about how wonderful He 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 143-150.

There are two lines from the first of today’s psalms that resonate with me: “Show me the way I should go,” and “Teach me to do Your will,”   Later the psalmist tells us how we can open ourselves up to God to receive that direction.  We do so by meditating on God’s works, think about what God has done, both in our lives and in the world around us.  As we do so we will see that those who make God their Lord will be blessed and that God watches over those who love Him.  The psalmist also tells us that those who truly see the works which God has performed will praise Him.  I commit myself to praising God every day for as long as I live.  I will not put my trust in any human being, and certainly not in any government, or any other human institution.  No, I will put my trust and faith in God.  I know that no human power will make the world a better place.  We will not make the world better because we are strong, or determined, or wise, or intelligent.  We will only make the world a better place by fearing God and relying on His love.

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 have an idea of what I want to write about today’s psalms which comes together as a cohesive whole.  Let’s see if it works out that way when I type it out.

We ought to give thanks to God for His goodness and love.  When we look at the world and what happens in it, time and again we see the great wonders which God has done, and the endurance of His love for those who fear Him.  I will praise God before the powers and authorities which set themselves up in His place, letting them know that they fall short of His greatness.  I read Psalm 139 and I think of the surveillance apparatus of the government, and of the ways in which “Big Tech” tracks our actions, behavior, and movement, but compared to God, they know nothing about us.

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.

Those I mentioned think that they can search me and know my heart, that they can know if there is any offensive way in me, as they define offensive.  They even think they can guide me to the right way to think.  But they are mistaken, because they did not form me in my mother’s womb.  They did not shape my innermost being.  In fact, unlike God, they cannot truly see my innermost being.  Each one of us is fearfully and wonderfully made by God, and only He can see into the depths of our hearts.  Those others misuse God’s name and attempt to appropriate for themselves that which only God can command.  When I first read the psalmist’s plea to the Lord to keep him safe from the wicked my thought was to rephrase that thought to keep from being wicked or violent because those things could trip my feet and bring me down.  However, as I wrote what I wrote above it occurred to me the ways in which those who think they are ‘gods’ attempt to trip us up, to separate us from God.  Which caused me to echo the psalmist’s plea.  I, too, beg God to protect me from them, to protect me from the ways in which they seek to manipulate me into worshiping them in place of God.  Finally, I ask God, as the psalmist does, to guard my mouth so that I say only those things which bring glory to 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 120-135.

When the psalmist wrote:

Save me, Lord,
from lying lips
and from deceitful tongues.

he was talking about his enemies, but I think we can gain some wisdom by applying his prayer here to ourselves.  Because all too often the trouble we face comes from the lies we tell and the deceit we practice.  And I know that only God can keep me from telling more of those lies, or practicing more of that deceit.  Fortunately, God does watch over us, and He will not allow our foot to slip (although He gives us the freedom to slide our foot along a slippery surface if we make that choice).  Our help comes from the Lord, so let us look to Him.  Also in today’s passage the psalmist writes that we should watch the Lord the way a slave watches the hand of his master.  We should keep our eyes steadfastly fixed on God, watching for the merest hint of displeasure, or the most insignificant flick of the fingers indicating something He wants done.  If we keep ourselves so focused, we will not have time to take any action of which He disapproves.  I know that I fail in following this advice all too often.

There was a lot more in these psalms which spoke to me as I read them, but I am going to stop here.

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.

God’s love endures forever.  Which means that we need not fear anyone, or anything, except for God Himself.  Our enemies may surround us, our problems may seem insurmountable, but, if God is with us, our enemies will fall and our problems will be resolved.  Put your faith in God and you will see Him do mighty things.  I read these psalms and they remind me to put my trust in God, to do the things which He has told me to do.

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, like the great majority of psalms, tell us to praise God with music and to present his greatness publicly to all who will listen.  The psalmist writes that God’s works are faithful and just, but  I think he means for us to understand that faithfulness and justice are God’s works.  He reminds us that, even in the middle of darkness and evil, God will provide light for those who righteously and graciously follow Him.  The world may be falling apart around us, but good will come to those who are generous and act with justice.  And yet the glory for our actions belongs to God.  I agree with the psalmist that the glory for any good I might do belongs to God.  If you have witnessed me do something which you think is good, give the honor to God because it is only by His grace that I did so.  Any good I may have done in this life is but a pale recompense for the good which God has done for me, and only happened because God’s Spirit caused me to do it.

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.

Often when we think of the ways in which the Israelites were saved by God, and then turned away from following His commands only to cry out to Him again and be saved, we think of the first being one generation, the turning away to be another, and often the crying out to be a third generation.  However, the psalmist points out here that during Exodus, God saved the Israelites from Egypt only for the same generation to turn to idolatry, suffer for it, turn back to Him and be rescued.  Repeating this pattern multiple times.  We must strive not to repeat this pattern, but we probably will.  Let us praise God because He will forgive us our sins when we genuinely turn to Him.  The psalmist further writes that God will bless us in order that we might observe His laws.  (I actually like that phrasing because it hints at the idea that we can actually see God’s laws by looking at the world around us.)  But perhaps my favorite part of today’s psalms is in Psalm 107, where the psalmist tells those whom God has rescued from adversity to tell their story.  Or, as the King James Version translates it, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”  Let us tell the story of how God has rescued us from difficult situations.  I have been in terrible situations where I cried out to God and He rescued me from them.  Yet, I am well aware that those situations were, as the saying goes, “first world problems” compared to what others have faced.  In fact, even many others have had “first world problems” which made my greatest struggles seem incidental and those in less fortunate parts of the world have suffered in ways I find hard to imagine.  I have been blessed all of my life and I still fail to be as faithful to God as I ought.  As I write this I pray to God that He transform me into someone more faithful to 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.

Well today is relatively easy, the psalms in today’s passage have pretty much all the same theme: sing praises to God.  Our joy in the Lord should be such that we cannot help but sing a new song about the marvelous things He has done.  I am not much of a singer, but I can make a joyful noise.  God judges the world in righteousness and people with equity.  God has made the world so that rulers who love justice and establish equity will be mighty.  Let those who have called on the Lord sing His praises because He has answered them.

God made us, so we belong to Him, let us live accordingly.  I will strive to live a blameless life, but I know that I will fail. Which make me glad that God does not treat us as our sin deserves.  His love for us is from everlasting to everlasting so that He will forgive all of our sins and cure our diseases if we truly fear Him.   Because of all of this, I will have no part in what faithless people do, and will have nothing to do with what is evil.

I feel bad about paraphrasing the psalmist this way.  So, I will end with this.

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