Reflections on the Holy Scripture

Psalm 11:2-3

Interestingly, these verses seem to say that the heart is a foundation. This seems intuitively true, but it is something you can only actually realize when you see the two words next to each other.

This is why the Scripture highlights guarding the heart so much. It is because there is no deeper place that the enemy can attack. If your heart is corrupted, then everything you do will be also.

Psalm 8:3-6

At face value, these verses indicate that God specifically chose us (not monkeys or elephants) to rule over His creation. However, in light of Hebrews 2, this passage is also Messianic, suggesting that God thought so highly of man that He made Jesus lower than the angels so that He might die for our sins. And what is interesting that both interpretations stand firm against the rest of the counsel of God. This passage is an excellent example of God's hand over the words of the Scripture!

Psalm 2:11

I like how it says to rejoice "with trembling" here. No, I do not think this is an instruction to shake and stuff when worshiping God. I think it means that we worship God with such sincerity that He engulfs us with His presence. We know from Scripture elsewhere that the presence of God have brought men to their faces. If He does the same to us, surely we will be trembling!

Isaiah 7:14-15

The Christmas Prophecy. It is amazing that the Lord God, Creator of the Universe, Timeless and Almighty, came to the Earth as an ordinary human infant. How can we come to understand the magnitude of humility it must have taken to do this? How can we come to truly appreciate the beauty of what He has done?

Few things leave me so awestruck that I completely stop thinking about the "how". This is one of them.

Revelation 19:11-16

There is really very little I can say that will enhance the meaning or impact of these verses. Just read them for yourself and you will understand (:

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Proverbs 25:2

At first I read the bible as a book, beginning in Genesis and ending in Revelation. I read this though many times. Each time I became aware of different meanings that brought me too and understanding of when the bible says to search out. I am truly blessed when I now am searching out a matter. And realize that I am a king or priest unto a holy nation. I do have the authority in my right hand as Jesus did, for I am also the image of God. I love this verse in Proverbs, it really speaks to me. Dig deep and you will find treasures or hidden nuggets only God who will show you with His understanding, with His wisdom and knowledge……………..thing is all I had to do was ask.

John 4:24

There is a difference between worshiping God in spirit and just plain worshiping God. I am sure many of us have partaken in the latter of these in a standard worship service, simply mouthing the words to the hymns or songs without truly feeling the meaning behind them or the Spirit of God hovering. I know I have.

What we want is the former, worshiping God in spirit. What is that, though? To me, it is essentially the same as saying you worship God, not just your brain. One reason people might worship is because they are obligated to. They know they have to spend time to admire God, so they do, generally on a Sunday morning. Is this, however, in truth?

Rather, God wants us to worship Him because we feel the need to worship Him. As in, we cannot stand but to worship Him at a given moment, even if that moment is itself very momentary.

I decided to write about this verse because I constantly struggle with doubt in my own convictions. I know God exists and know what He has done, but I occasionally doubt if my belief in that is genuine. This verse is encouraging to me, since at utterly random times I will indeed just admire the works of the Lord, in Creation, salvation, and my life. I feel that those are examples of worshiping in spirit, and so perhaps I am not as far removed from God as I tend to believe.

1 Corinthians 9:25

This verse essentially states that those who truly strive will be disciplined in all things. I have found lately that I have grown sluggish in both my primary skills and my secondary skills, and this is because of a lack of discipline in what is so far four areas in my life:

  • I do not enjoy rote.
  • I indulge in idle time.
  • I pray only when necessary.
  • I fear failure.

This verse very heavily encourages me to get back on my feet and begin running, especially on that third item. I want that crown, right? There is no time to give up; strive! I will hence seek to improve each of these four aspects in order to finish the race Paul speaks of.

1 Corinthians 3:11

Interestingly, after a brief prayer with the Lord, I felt that my foundation was not on Christ; it was actually on a belief in God and the truth of the Bible. From there, the message of the Messiah is but a branch of the foundation that the Bible is truth.

Rather, it works the other way around. Jesus is the foundation; the fact that we are redeemed is what drives us. And furthermore, after acknowledging that do we find the Bible to be true, for the Bible is littered with the redemption message, and if we accept the redemption forthright, we accept the whole package.

What does this change? That was what I asked God. And essentially He indicated to me that if my foundation were the Messiah, I would have no choice but to tell others and reflect that. I am redeemed, but there are so many who are not. The fact that they need redemption is so much stronger than the fact that they need to acknowledge the Bible as true, and the strength of that conviction is what ought to lead to action.

Obadiah 1:4

Although the verse is addressed to Edom, it touched me because of its root issue: pride. This form of pride is the one that seeks to rise up above everyone else, much like Satan at the fall. The reason I took notice of it was twofold. Firstly, God literally told me to go to Obadiah 4. Turns out Obadiah has but one chapter, so I went to verse 4. The second reason was because I have recently made some changes in my life in order to rise up above my peers.

Yet, why do I want to rise "above" them? Here God clearly shows that He does not like that attitude. Does that mean I ought to relent? I don't think so; rather, I believe this is a warning against intentions. Is my intention to be known by man? Or is it to use the talents God gave me to serve Him in the best way I can? The motivation matters, because motivation comes from the heart.

Zechariah 5:4

The important bit is, "And the house of the one who swears falsely by My name". This house, the Scripture indicates, will be cursed. The truth of the matter is that it seems possible for someone to be deceived into loving God even though he really doesn't. It obviously isn't enough to go to church or give offerings. However, here it also shows that it isn't enough to simply proclaim God's name.

In other words, I can go out there and say, "Yes, I believe in the Lord God," but that doesn't say anything about my faith. I use to cling to the desperation that perhaps if I were simply a public Christian rather than a private one that it would mean something to God, but here, being a public Christian is by itself worthless! James indicates the same thing, along with verses in John.

Such people are considered "cursed" by God and will be "expelled". This is how important it is to make God a heart issue. Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.

Zechariah 1:3-4

God presents a conditional. Lately, I have been praying for God to keep me loving Him, that He return to me, yet here in Zechariah we see that the process clearly begins with me. God warns that this is no trivial thing either, for fathers did not heed what was said.

You see, I feel this is one of those, "Just do it" solutions. That is, there is no step-by-step process to "returning" to God; it is just something you do. What does that look like? Praying earnestly, reading the Bible, loving others, and so forth. These are just things we do to show God that we are devoted to Him; we give our precious, limited time to God, and in return He will transform us.

The process starts with us, but ultimately this would not be possible if it weren't for Jesus's sacrifice.

Amos 5:21-27

This chapter in Amos, and these verses in particular had a profound impact on me, as they helped me to realize a critical flaw in my thoughts whenever I am going to church or praising God and am mindlessly muttering the words of some hymn, or find myself being disgusted rather than uplifted when those around me are in a spirit of praise.

These verses are a beautiful reminder that if we are to gather together in the name of the Lord, we should do so wholeheartedly, we should not give him part of ourselves, but give him all. In the future I know that I will be making a much greater effort to always praise God for the mighty things he has done, instead of focusing on the negative feelings I may have towards what I perceive as empty songs or methodical repetition.

Psalm 66:18

Often I have been told, "Pray and the Lord will listen." However, this verse, along with a slew of others (like Isaiah 59:2, Jeremiah 14:10-12) seem to suggest that His attention is conditional. This happens to be extremely relevant to me in particular since I've been praying on a particular issue for several years without a hint of an answer. And yet, here in Psalms it says that sin could be the barrier between myself and Him.

These verses lend themselves to the importance of having sincerity in prayer.

Ephesians 6:14-18

Many may recognize this as the Armor of God passage. However, I also wanted to add in verse 18; though this verse mentions no particular armor piece, I think it to be perhaps the most important verse in the passage. It tops off the entire armor with prayer and supplication. Why? Because we are nothing without God. We can have the whole armor upon us, but without perseverance in the Spirit, we can still fall. We need His guidance, His wisdom, His instruction, and His love.

Secondly, it calls me to interpret the armor of God as a prayer. Consider its elements:

  • Truth
  • Righteousness
  • Peace
  • Faith
  • Salvation
  • Spirit

These are things we must be daily reminded of, and things we daily need. We need truth to hold us up, righteousness to guard our hearts and souls, peace to keep us going, faith to keep us strong in the Enemy's attacks, salvation to protect our minds, and the Spirit to fight back. We know we need these, but do we pray for them? I believe Paul intends that we explicitly pray for these things to be made manifest in our lives, for if we lose any one of them, our spirit is placed in grave danger, and if our spirit falls, then so does our relationship with God. I would know.

John 4:42

The Samaritans say something rather interesting here. It seems that it would have been enough for them to have said, "Now we believe." Rather, they interject a small but rather significant appositive, stating simply, "…not because of what you said…".

If you remove that appositive entirely, the sentence still makes complete sense. Why then is it there? Jesus claims that every word and letter in the Bible is deliberate, and so I happen to believe that this small clause has a purpose. Specifically, it reminds me of 1 Corinthians 3:7, where it says that while we may minister and plant seeds, God is the one that gives the increase. So here, although the woman originally informed the other Samaritans of Jesus, it was Jesus Himself that caused them to believe.

Applying this, we need to keep in mind that we are powerless except for our ability to inform others about the message of salvation. I note that it was Jesus Himself that convicted the Samaritans, and so it seems to me that, when evangelizing, we must ensure that those we speak to are aware of the power of prayer. Prayer is how we speak to God and one way how He speaks to us. If new believers are to truly take root in the faith, then they need prayer in order to begin establishing a relationship with the Father.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

This has been a long-time favorite verse of mine, mainly because of verse 25. The passage itself speaks of the message of the cross being "foolishness", not because it is a foolish thing in general, but because in light of our human understanding, it is indeed foolishness. Humans being ensnared within a bottomless well of sin are to be saved by a Man on a cross, born to a virgin? God dies? Why on Earth would God do things this way?

See, verse 25 answers it all: the foolishness of God is wiser than men. In other words, where man would solve a problem one way, God would use another. Where man reasons another thing, God reasons another. This, to me, is one way to word just how transcendent God is over our own understanding. We might ask, "God, why? Why not <some alternative>? Why couldn't you just <easy method>?" But by this verse I have the faith that such questions are petty; I instead accept and have faith in the fact that God's ways are higher than mine no matter how things may be turning out. And, while I still seek to understand, I know that to have faith in this is sufficient for the peace He promises.

Job 2:10

This is one of my favorite verses because it confronts us with the reality that hardship and adversity are just as much from god as blessing. It also provokes us to realize that we should be thankful and praise God for everything he does in our lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly. In the end, adversity that we experience is always according to his perfect plan for us, is that not something to be thankful for?

"Naked I came from my mother's womb," says Job a chapter earlier in verse 21, "and naked I will depart, the Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."

Again, Job demonstrates to us the way we should react to adversity.

"Great is the lord and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable." -Psalm 145:3. The lord IS worthy of all of our praise, his ways our higher than ours and when strife comes into our life, the best thing we can do is also the simplest. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

James 4:13-17

Today, our pastor gave a sermon based around the message in James 4:13-17 about not boasting about the future. The general message of the verse is that long-term planning can be futile, for the future cannot be so simply predicted. Jesus of course advocates that we plan, but to proclaim our plans as set in stone would be foolish.

Pastor brought up an interesting point, though, regarding the passage. It isn't that planning can be futile, but that planning without God is certainly futile. If we observe the first verse, we find that the individuals speaking do not take into account God's will, and that is their actual mistake. When we plan, it ought to be in prayer, asking God regarding the future He has planned for us.

This intrigues me since I've recently been planning many things regarding my future five years from now, but I have not been praying enough for God's permission and His vision. Perhaps it's time I take some of these plans in fasting and prayer to see where God truly wants me. I do not expect full clarity, but I do expect a sense of peace.

Psalm 45:10-11

This verse is interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it opens up with a commandment to listen, and the sense of hearing is generally the sense that God seems to favor. Second, though, it introduces the following phrase:

Forget your own people also, and your father’s house

This reminds me of someone else in the Old Testament: Ruth. She was a Moabitess, yet she left both her people and her family for the sake of Naomi. Classically, Ruth is considered to be a type of the Church, and Boaz of Jesus. If we apply this verse to the Church, it seems to have an interesting implication.

It seems to me that a part of following Jesus is surrendering our nationality and our culture. When we choose to follow Him, those things cease to ultimately matter. The Scripture still says to obey the law of the land of course, but it would be as a testimony to others, not because we are American or Asian or African.

When we choose to follow God, we become Christians. We become the Way, as Acts puts it.

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