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Pastor Scott Frady
In: Uncategorized |
I used to see this slogan in commercials from the United Negro College Fund and I always liked it. Now, as a Christian, I think it has particular application to our lives as followers of Jesus. I was reading this morning in the Psalms and read this verse . . .
Psalm 145:5 “On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.”
This verse seems so simple. David is meditating on the glorious splendor of God’s majesty and on God’s wondrous works. David has made the content of his meditation who God is and what God has done. This is indeed where we need to throw out our anchor in our lives as Christians. We need, like David, to make the meditation of our lives the person and work of God. The starting point for this meditation is the Word of God, the Bible. The starting point within the Word of God is the cross, where we see who God is and what He has done most clearly.
Sadly, there have been many times when I have come to the Bible not looking for God but for self-help tips. Viewing the Bible as a handbook for life, I have missed the great and good forest of God’s glory for the trees of individual works of righteousness which are ultimately useless outside of the bigger picture of God’s majesty and mercy.
There have been other times when I have only seen within the pages of Scripture my own sinfulness, coming away with a nagging guilt over what I should be and am not.
My guess is that I am not alone in this. Instead of meditating on the greatness and goodness of God we make our meditation a pursuit of self-understanding and often come away frustrated, overwhelmed and confused.
I think self-understanding does come through reading and meditating on the Scriptures, but it is a by-product of meditating on who God is and what He is doing. The goal of meditating on the Scriptures is so that we may know God. When we have a biblically-faithful view of God shaped by meditating on his character, our lives will be shaped by our view of God, rather than our view of God being shaped by our lives.
So today, don’t waste your mind. Give yourself to meditating on and delighting in the character of God.
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Thank you for this great reminder. The character and glory of God are perfect and unchanging as compared to the constant changes in our lives. Whenever I am losing my footing in life, which happens almost daily to some extent, if I stop and think about God’s character, it changes my thinking – gives me grounding. This is not something I do with enough regularity, unfortunately, but when I do, God’s unchanging grace, truth, love, mercy, patience become clearer and my trials become more dim. Praise God for His steadfastness.
How strange that I would seek God’s own Word for self-help tips (and I do), when it is filled with the indisputable fact that I cannot help myself at all, but that God will! I want to know God better so that I can love and trust Him more! Thank you for re-focusing and deepening my desire to read and study scripture!