“Make…serve…come…know…enter…praise…bless…” (Ps 100:1-4). Sounds like we’ll be busy! With our arrival at the lovely little Psalm 100, we’re now two-thirds of the way through the Psalter. It’s the only psalm titled “A Psalm of Thanksgiving.” And it certainly is! The pattern could belong in a children’s nursery. Twice over, the psalmist simply tells us what we should do […]
CHRIST the ESCAPE MASTER: “How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation…?” (Heb 2:3). I recall reading the account of seven prisoners of a Soviet camp near the Arctic Circle. After escaping the camp, they walked to India—through Mongolia, the Gobi Desert, and over the Himalayas to safety. Walked a whole year, […]
“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10:4-5). One of our mighty weapons in the battle for the rescue […]
“God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Lk 18:13). Only a person’s sins rightly introduces himself to God. This was graphically illustrated at the funeral of Empress Zita, the last of the Hapsburgs. The procession stopped at the closed church doors. A member of the funeral party knocked, and was asked from within, “Who goes […]
Though “high above all the peoples,” He came down to dwell “between the cherubim” (Ps 99:1-2). As we look for patterns in nature and art, so the Bible is full of exquisite design. Psalm 99 shows first the pattern of a repeated conclusion, a one-line chorus. Section 1 (vv 1-3) ends with “Let them praise Your great and awesome name—He […]
JESUS RAISED UP: “Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high” (Isa 52:13). The word for “exalted” means to be raised up; the word for “extolled” means to be borne up; but to be “very high” has no movement in it. God’s Servant has reached the pinnacle; […]
“Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are” (Jn 17:11). After telling the story of the martyrdom of Perpetua the Roman matron, and the slaves Revocatus and Felicitas, in the beginning of the third century, Professor Henry M. Gwatkin says: “There is something […]
“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Cor 10:4). The believer has a fearsome enemy but remarkable weaponry. The word panoplia is used twice in the NT. In Luke 11:22, the Lord described His ability to defeat the strong man, taking away his panoply in […]
The Lord blessed my wife and I with seven children. It’s easy enough to talk theoretically about how many children we’d like to have, as if selecting what size caffè latte I need to jump-start my morning. But once we have them, know them, love them, which ones would we send back? I suppose we’re part […]