Sunday Scripture

The earth belongs to the Lord, and everything in it-the world and all its people.

He built it on the waters

and set it on the rivers.

Who may go up on the mountain of the Lord?

Who may stand in his holy Temple?

Only those with clean hands and pure hearts,

who have not worshiped idols,

who have not made promises in the name of a false god.

They will receive a blessing from the Lord;

the God who saves them will declare them right.

They try to follow God;

they look to the God of Jacob for help.

Gates, open all the way.

Open wide, aged doors.

so the glorious King will come in.

Who is this glorious King?

The Lord, strong and mighty.

The Lord, the powerful warrior.

Gates, open all the way.

Open wide, aged doors

so the glorious King will come in.

Who is this Glorious King?

The Lord All Powerful

he is the glorious King.

Psalm 24

Relating to Saul and David

While I was reading about Saul and David the other day, it occurred to me that sometimes I act like Saul.


Now, I haven't tried to kill anyone, but I can see how Saul looked at God's favor on David and was a little jealous.


I feel sure he knew how blessed he was also, but the focus was shifting from him to David and he wasn't to sure he liked it.  


Now I am in no way the person Saul was, he was a chosen King.  If I am chosen it's usually last for something.  But I can relate to jealousy.


There is usually someone who looks like they succeed at everything.  Have everything they want, blah, blah, blah.  


Right?


But I also am wise enough to know that things are not always as they seem.  Look at David, he was doing great, always asked God before making any rash decisions, and he was loyal.  Loyal to a fault even.  I mean Saul did want to kill him, and even though he had the opportunity to kill Saul he chose not to, because he was appointed as the king by God, and he didn't want to displease the Lord.  


But as the story goes, Saul dies, David becomes king and then things start going downhill for David.  


I guess, as good as both kings were, they still were human.  They each had things about them that were displeasing to the Lord.


I'm thankful for that, makes me feel like if they can have such a good relationship with God, certainly I can.


There is hope, always!

Warfare

Last night at bible study we were discussing spiritual warfare.  I don't know about your church but our church doesn't really talk a lot about it.  We talk about the reality of Satan in the world today but we don't really talk about all the ways that Satan is trying to take us away from our faith.


While we were talking about it, the Pastor asked if anyone had read C.S. Lewis', Screwtape Letters.


I have.


He talked about what a hard read it is because the book is made up of letters written by the Devil, and his nephew Wormwood.  All the letters are correspondences of the Devil giving the nephew instructions on how to keep one man from living for God.


As we talked about some of the letters, I remembered the letter that stuck out the most to me at the time.  It was a letter about the relationship between the man and his mother.  The man lived with his mother and there was some tension between them, as I can totally identify with even though I don't live with my mom and I love her to death, I know that if I did live with her there would no doubt be some tension because we are both use to our own routines.


Anywho, the devil is essentially trying to place a wedge between the man and his mother.  I don't know about you but I see this happening every day.  Although I haven't ever really thought of it in terms of spiritual warfare.  But lets face it, that is exactly what it is.  The devil is real, he's very real and he wants nothing more than to steal our joy, and what better way to do that than to attack what we love the most.


The letter that stuck out the most to the pastor was the letter that told the devil to do whatever he could to keep that man a passive Christian.  WOW!


That speaks volumes to me, the devil doesn't want us doing anything to make us LOOK like Christians.  Hmmmm, he doesn't want us reading our bibles, or helping people or taking a stand for anything that might make it look like you love the Lord.


Does any of that sound familiar to you?  


This study on Revelation is so much more than just the coming of Jesus.  It ties into the Old testament with symbolism to the tabernacle and the Israelites, and Moses.  It is truly fascinating.


It's a good book, it really is.