Monday, November 26th Read Psalm 135: 13-21 13 Your name, LORD, endures forever, your renown, LORD, through all generations. 14 For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. 15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by human hands. 16 They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. 17 They have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. 18 Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. 19 All you Israelites, praise the LORD; house of Aaron, praise the LORD; 20 house of Levi, praise the LORD; you who fear him, praise the LORD. 21 Praise be to the LORD from Zion, to him who dwells in Jerusalem. Praise the LORD. God does not change he endures forever. The psalmist praised His never changing name and His never-ending fame. To use the proper theological word for his unchangeability we would say He is immutable. What He pronounces as sin will always be sin. What He pronounces as good will always be good. He is always the same in his eternal attributes. The good and great God will bring justice, righteousness, and compassion to His people. His goodness and greatness are for us, not against us. Because God does not change, we can rely on the unchanging truth of Scripture. The gospel itself is bound up in the idea of God s immutability. Our great hope of salvation is in His remaining exactly as who He says He is, and doing exactly what He has said He will do. As long as His infinite sameness endures, He will not change His mind about setting His love on us. We cannot commit a future sin that will change His verdict. Whom God pronounces as righteous will always be righteous. Nothing can remove from us the seal of His promised redemption. Nothing can separate us from the unfailing, unchanging love of the great God. Just as our assurance of salvation rests in the fact that God cannot change, our hope of sanctification rests in the fact that we can. When the miracle of grace has been applied to our hearts, change becomes gloriously possible. The Unchanging One changes the myth of
human immutability, changing a heart of stone into a heart of flesh; changing desires that once sought only to glorify self to those that seek to glorify Him. Another way of saying we glorify ourselves is to say we make idols of ourselves or others. Idolatry can also take hold of us when we depend on other people, relationships or circumstances to never leave or forsake us; to always remain the same. When we believe that a difficult relationship or circumstance will never change it is a form of idolatry. Similarly, if we believe our fellow humans will never disappoint us, that is denying the truth as well. The truth is, only God can say His love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. Only God can say His love never fails. Always and never words are only true of God. Our God of infinite sameness is our rock. When all around us is shifting sand, we can rely on Him: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you have been my refuge. Psalm 61:2 Guzik, David. Enduring Word Bible Commentary Psalm. Enduring Word, David Guzik https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-1/ Tuesday, November 27th Read Psalm 138 Of David. 1 I will praise you, LORD, with all my heart; before the gods I will sing your praise. 2 I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your unfailing love and your faithfulness, for you have so exalted your solemn decree that it surpasses your fame. 3 When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me. 4 May all the kings of the earth praise you, LORD, when they hear what you have decreed. 5 May they sing of the ways of the LORD, for the glory of the LORD is great. 6 Though the LORD is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly; though lofty, he sees them from afar. 7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes; with your right hand you save me. 8 The LORD will vindicate me;
your love, LORD, endures forever do not abandon the works of your hands. David began this song with a bold declaration that he would hold nothing back in his praise to God. It would be done with all his being, with his whole heart. He goes on to thank the Lord for his "unfailing love and faithfulness" and mentions God answered his prayers, even on the very day it was spoken. There are two ideas as to what David meant by his singing praise before the gods; either pagan kings such as human rulers or judges as he mentions in verse four or the gods they claimed to represent, i.e. false gods of the neighboring nations. Our Lord s nature is high above the comprehension of His creatures, and His glory even exceeds the loftiest of imaginations. Yet he loves the lowly. He views them with pleasure and thinks of them with care. He listens to their prayers and protects them from evil. Because they think little of themselves, He thinks much of them. But the proud he knows from afar. He does not need to come near them in order to discover their vanity, emptiness and offensiveness. As David writes, he was "surrounded by troubles". In faith, David said, "The Lord will work out His plans for my life for your faithful love endures forever". David had confidence in God's ultimate purpose for him, which God would fulfill. David did not have to be afraid or discouraged. God would take care of him. Psalm 138 exemplifies the reality of our life in God. It is true that God will work out his plans for us. As Paul writes to the Philippians 1:6, "And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns". In this truth, we stake our lives. Yet there are times when we aren't so sure, we worry, and we doubt. No matter what things may look like God will never abandon the work that he has lovingly and painstakingly invested in us and he will ultimately bring that work to perfect completion. Guzik, David. Enduring Word Bible Commentary Psalm. Enduring Word, David Guzik https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/psalm-1 Noah, Ray. Psalm 138: God Will Perfect That Which Concerns Me. Ray Noah, 2018, raynoah.com/2009/06/21/psalm-138-god-will-perfect-that-which-concerns-me/. Psalm 138 Bible Commentary. Psalm 138 Bible Commentary - Charles H. Spurgeon's Treasury of David, 2018, www.christianity.com/bible/commentary.php?com=spur&b=19&c=138. Wednesday, November 28th Read Psalm 139:1-9 For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. 1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. 5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. We all struggle with feelings of insignificance from time to time. In this psalm, David searches for answers regarding himself, his world and his God. As we read these lyrics, we are provided with a calm that there is a definite link between ourselves and the Lord. We recognize that we have not been flung haphazardly or accidentally into time and space. This psalm makes God seem real, personal and involved because He is! We are not unimportant specks in space or insignificant nobodies on Earth, but rather the objects of His care and close, personal attention. The psalm begins with all formalities and religious protocol removed. Our sitting down and our rising up, which are our most casual and common moments, are completely familiar to our Lord. Even our thoughts, no matter how fleeting, are an open book. He witnesses our invisible thoughts before they turn to actions and our words before they are fully formed on our tongues. He also understands the hidden, unspoken motives behind our actions. It is not that God concerns Himself with mental and verbal trivia; it is simply that He is omniscient. He is fully and accurately aware of everything at all times; past, present and future. He knows the visible as well as the invisible, the public as well as the private. This should cause us to think and speak with care. He not only knows all things of all time, but he knows all things existing outside of time. He never forgets, because He is everywhere and fully present. God knows all things perfectly and never discovers anything. He is never surprised, amazed or wonders about anything. While learning is wholly foreign to God, it is wholly foundation to being human, we never stop learning from cradle to grave, it is essential to being human. As humans, there is also a link between addiction to knowledge and the anxiety of not knowing. Whatever tomorrow holds, we can trust God to manage the future without our help. Rather than obsessing over the future, we need to learn contentment in our Godordained innocence of what is to come. We need to let God be the One who manages all knowledge and time. Our comfort lies not in holding all the knowledge, but in trusting the One who does. We can also take comfort in the fact that God knows everything about us and loves us completely. We are the object of God s attention every moment of every day of our lives. Thank Him for the assurance that He knows all things about us and loves us unwaveringly. Swindoll, Charles R. Living the Psalms: Encouragement for the Daily Grind. Worthy Publishing, 2012.
Thursday, November 29th Read Psalm 139:7-12 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me, 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. God is no distant, preoccupied Deity. He is omnipresent. He is not merely big, He is uncontainable. And since He is spirit, He is able to be fully present everywhere. Not only is God fully present in all places, He is fully present in all places past, present and future. Simply put, there is no place or time where God is not. He is where you are right at this moment and fully present in worlds far beyond what the Hubble Space Telescope can see and in worlds smaller that the strongest electron microscope can disclose. God sees. God is present. We cannot even hide in the darkness, as the darkness is not dark to Him. There are no secrets from God and not one creature is hidden from Him. This is cause not just for vigilance but for assurance, the most blessed assurance the human heart can know. A comforting way to think of this closeness God has to us is we never need to feel lonely. God is with us and it does not depend on our worthiness but on His will. He wills that His chosen children will never be left alone. Our Heavenly Father understands our complexities and quirks. He appreciates the unique difficulties we face, and He gets us better than our closest companions. Whether we sense His presence or not, He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:27). God is near whether we feel him or not and He views His children through the lens of grace. With the awareness that He is witness to all we think, speak and do, we should learn to choose frank confession over futile concealment. Aware that we cannot outrun His presence, we should cease running from Him and run to Him and abide in Him. Take comfort in knowing that God knows you, understands you and loves you with and everlasting love. Despite any doubts you may have in your own heart, you are greatly loved. Meditate on the exceeding greatness and faithfulness of His divine love.
Swindoll, Charles R. Living the Psalms: Encouragement for the Daily Grind. Worthy Publishing, 2012. Friday, November 30th Read Psalm 139:13-18 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand when I awake, I am still with you. Built into each of us is a curiosity that longs to be satisfied, especially regarding the One who created this world. One of the best proofs that God exists is the intricacies of the human body. In today s verses, David writes about God s desire to pay close attention to His design of the human body and the individual care He gives to each conception. No individual life escapes His care, and He endows each person with a purpose. A way of paraphrasing today s verses from the ancient Hebrew text would be: For You, God, and none other, originated my vital organs. You knitted me together in the womb of my mother. My skeleton and bones were not hidden from You when I was made in that concealed place of protection, when my veins and arteries were skillfully embroidered together in variegated colors like fine needlepoint. Your eyes watched over me when I was just an embryo; and in Your book the days I should experience were all described and recorded the kind of days that would shape me into the person You want me to be even before I had been born. How priceless, mighty, vast and numerous are Your thoughts of me, O God! Should I attempt to count them, they would outnumber the sand on the seashore. And Your plan isn t limited just to this life. Should I die, I would awaken securely in Your arms I would be with You more than ever before. As humans we must confess, I am because He is. I am because He made me. Our worth is determined by who made us. We need not find our value in people, possessions or labor of things we have created, our value rests in our origin.
If God gave such detailed forethought into our births, and having designed our bodies with a purpose, then we know the Lord has also give attention to our futures. God forms our days so that they are exactly the kind of days we need to become the kind of person He wants us to be. We become new creations, created in Christ Jesus, to do the good work, applying the gifts He gives to us to reshape and reorder the sin-broken world He has charged us to steward. Remember, The Lord will not abandon the work of His hands Psalm 138:8 Swindoll, Charles R. Living the Psalms: Encouragement for the Daily Grind. Worthy Publishing, 2012.