In April 2017, The Spectator (UK) carried an article by Douglas Murray who asked, ‘Who Will Protect Nigeria’s Northern Christians?’ Murray pointed out that the Fulani (militia) are watching everything closely from the surrounding mountains. Every week, their progress across the northern states of Plateau and Kaduna continues. Every week, more massacres – another village burned, its church razed, its inhabitants slaughtered, raped or chased away…

‘For the outside world, what is happening to the Christians of northern Nigeria is both beyond our imagination and beneath our interest… Villages have been persuaded to keep records of the attacks to show anyone who cares. One of the very few from outside who does – Britain’s own Baroness Cox – came here recently. Her vehicle was spotted by the Fulani, who came out hunting for her and only just missed their target. Because of attacks like this, almost nobody comes. Just one more reason why these atrocities do not attract the West’s attentions…’

Murray was writing of the region where three years before (2014) the Boko Haran had abducted two hundred and seventy-six schoolgirls. A report in April this year (2024) indicted that ninety-one are still missing. Murray commented in 2017: ‘If the international community meant anything by its promises such as the UN’s ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine, then what is happening could not go on. But the international community is uninterested…’

Atrocities like this cause our hearts to cry out with the repeated words of Psalm 13, How long, O Lord…?

Indeed, over the years one of the questions that constantly arises is how to respond to the carping criticism against Christianity about suffering in the world. It’s an important question. Yet it is also one of the toughest to answer for anyone who believes that God not only exists but is also all-powerful and all-compassionate.

Our sense of right and wrong and our cry for justice suggests we live in a moral universe.

If we lived in a world that had come into existence simply through a process of spontaneous change, logically we would be nothing but particles, bumping around in some sort of meaningful connection. Our conscious state would be nothing more than electrical discharges in the human brain.

Indeed, when we think about it, it’s difficult to be morally indignant about behavior that results from quarks smashing together. The issues of evil and suffering and the cry for justice are irrelevant if our existence is simply the product of an evolutionary framework.

Is this a reason for the international and media silence about the plight of suffering in Northern Nigeria and elsewhere? Yet the reality is that most of us have a sense of justice, often ill-defined, but nevertheless it is there.

Difficult though the subject of suffering is for anyone who believes in God, the Bible assures us that our cry for justice is right. It is right to condemn all wicked violence, the taking of innocent life. The Bible condemns the perpetrators of such deeds. Indeed, the Bible helps us to know evil when we see it.

So will justice ever occur? If we agree that we live in a moral universe, the picture the Bible paints makes a lot of sense and is very satisfying. Winston Churchill once observed that there had to be a hell, to bring the likes of Lenin and Trotsky and Hitler to justice. The good news is that one day God will call everyone to account.

But there is a sting in the tail. If we want justice to be done to others, we must agree that we too need to be brought to account. Yes, we long for justice and vindication, but we too are guilty before a good God.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn observed: ‘If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?’

So, why doesn’t God step in now? The Bible’s answer is that God stays his hand for the present because he wants to give all men and women, like the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ parable, the opportunity to turn to him in repentance. The good news is that God will pardon and deliver us when we turn to Jesus Christ. His judgment may be slow as we count time, but it is very sure as we read in the Second Letter of Peter, chapter 3 (2 Peter 3:9-13).

In the concluding verses of Psalm 13, we see the energy of David’s faith as he presses on in the Lord: But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt wonderfully with me (13:5-6).

We now have a far greater understanding of God’s love than David, for we live of the other side of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus came between God’s good creation ruined by human sin with which the Bible begins, and the promise of a restored creation with which the Bible ends. In Revelation, chapter 21 we read: God will wipe away every tear from our eyes… there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Does this mean we do nothing about the atrocities perpetrated against God’s people now? We have this responsibility – to pray for our suffering brothers and sisters, to find ways of letting them know of our awareness and even to find ways of providing support. And, as we are able, to let others, including leaders, know of the plight of the persecuted peoples. As Edmund Burke, 17th century English philosopher and statesman remarked: The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (men and women) to do nothing.

Prayer. God of the nations, whose kingdom rules over all, have mercy on our broken and divided world. Shed abroad your peace in the hearts of all men and women and banish from them the spirit that makes for war; so that all races and people may learn to live as members of one family and in obedience to your laws; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Raise up your great power, Lord, and come among us to save us; so that, although through our sins we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us, your plentiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the sufficiency of your Son our Lord, to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

You may like to listen to He Will Hold Me Fast from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

‘Who Am I?’ That is the question so many are asking today.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet observed: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god!  (Hamlet, II.ii)

Psalm 8 ponders the wonder of humanity when it asks in verse 4: What is humanity that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Significantly this question, found at the very center of the psalm, is enfolded by the opening and closing lines which read: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

In other words, the structure of the psalm indicates that humanity is the centerpiece of God’s majestic work. And yet there is an irony, for the centerpiece is in the form of a question, not a statement. It suggests the poet is pondering, ‘How can this be?’

The meditative nature of the question is reinforced by the interesting movement from verse 1 into verse 2: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens – verse 1.

And verse 2: Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a stronghold because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

The contrast between the majesty of the creator God and the mouths of babes could not be greater. It suggests that God uses the weak things of his creation to accomplish his purposes – to silence the enemy and the avenger.

The reflection on the majestic and creative power of God returns in verse 3: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

David, most likely the writer of the psalm, is possibly meditating on his experience as a shepherd. We can imagine him looking up at the night sky and seeing the myriad of stars. And we can almost hear him voicing his thoughts as he realized that such vastness and complexity must be the work of the fingers of God. And, as he considered the greatness of that night sky, we can feel his question exploding in his mind: What is humanity that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

It’s ironic that with the immense knowledge of the cosmos we have accumulated through the study of astrophysics and space exploration, most people never think of asking this question today. Our knowledge has brought us cynicism, not wonder.

Indeed, Dr. Stephen Hawking commented in A Brief History of Time that “we are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburb of one of a hundred billion galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that could care about us or even notice our existence”.

To which Dr. HF (Fritz) Schaefer, one of the world’s leading quantum chemists responds, “Where Hawking surveys the cosmos and concludes that man’s defining characteristic is obscurity, I consider the same data and conclude that humankind is very special”.

As Psalm 8 reveals, those who oppose the idea of God and his majesty are ultimately blinded by the reasoning and wisdom of their own minds. God’s supremacy is seen in the way he uses the weak of the world – the voices of babes and infants – to confound the wise.

Indeed, it is striking that Jesus quoted these words when the children lauded him in the Temple courts with their songs of praise while the chief priests and the scribes angrily objected (Matt 21:15f): When the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became  angry and said to him (Jesus), “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise…?”

God is glorified in the simple faith of children and in the childlike humility of his people.

The psalm moves from the consideration of the majesty of God and the vastness of his creation to the greatness that God intends to place upon men and women. In verses 5 and 6 we read: Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever swims along the paths of the seas.

The words echo the creation account of Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 through 28. God having made humanity in his image has placed us only just under the position of the heavenly beings, giving us royal status, crowning us with glory and honor.

Furthermore, there is a twinning in God’s plan whereby he gave us authority over the works of his hands, for he put everything under our feet. But the extraordinary privilege was dependent on our relationship with him, for our rule is under his.

There is an important link here to Psalm 2 and God’s voice concerning his messiah: Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession (Psalm 2:8). As we touched on last Wednesday, Matthew records the powerful words of the risen Jesus: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…” (28:18).

To draw these themes together. The highpoint of Genesis chapter 1 is that humanity, Adam, is the glory of God’s handiwork. Psalm 8 sets out God’s intention. However, Genesis chapter 3 reveals that in disobeying God, we became the shame of God’s creation. We are totally unworthy of any royal privilege or rule.

Psalm 8 is prophetic. It points to a second Adam who is the messianic voice and figure of Psalm 2. For God has not turned his back on humanity but unexpectedly, having made us in his image, has come amongst us in person. As we look back through the lens of the New Testament we see that the Son of God set aside his divine glory and took on human form, as we find in John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 1 through 4 and 14.

Jesus was and is, man as man is meant to be. And through him God has provided a way for us to be restored to our proper place. For through his death Jesus not only conquered the power of sin and death but also overcame the power of evil. Jesus himself has been crowned with glory and honor. The time will come when all his people will share with him the same crowning and glory. On that awesome day the great plan of psalm 8 will be seen throughout the universe.

CS Lewis observed, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors”.

Prayer. God our Father, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as pass our understanding: pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you above all things, may obtain your promises which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: do not leave us desolate, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to where our Savior Christ has gone before, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for evermore. Amen.

You may like to listen to the Keith and Kristyn Getty and Matt Papa song, What is Our Hope in Life and Death.

© John G. Mason

So, the opening of the Paris Olympics has included a scene that seems to parody Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction of the Last Supper.  While the organizers deny this intention, the context of the scene implies the ridiculing of Christianity. It’s rather ironic, given that the Games are said to unify the nations.

Not that we should be surprised by the mocking of Christianity. The Roman and Jewish elite mocked Jesus when he was arrested and as he died on a cross on a hill outside Jerusalem.

Scenes like this echo the Second Psalm in The Book of Psalms – a psalm often quoted in the New Testament. Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? the psalm begins.

The question why introduces the first of four voices and the underlying theme. The plot is a  war between humanity and their creator. Interestingly, plot in verse 1 is the same word used in the original language as the word translated meditate in Psalm 1, verse 2. Whereas all who are truly blessed and are happy delight to meditate on God’s Word, the nations and peoples mutter and murmur in a negative voice.

The psalm continues by identifying the leaders of this muttering and murmuring: The kings of the earth set themselves, and their rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his anointed saying, “Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us” (Ps 2:2-3).

In identifying who the kings and rulers oppose, two further voices are identified – the Lord God (Ps 2:4-6) and his anointed one, Messiah (Ps 2:7-9).

Significantly, the prophet Hosea, chapter 11, verse 4 reveals God’s words about his relationship with his people and his care of them: I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

And the Acts of the Apostles records the prayer of God’s people when Peter and John were released by the Jewish Council for preaching that Jesus, raised from the dead, is the Messiah. The believers referenced Psalm 2 as a psalm of David (even though the Psalm is not titled as such), and understood it as a prediction of Jesus’ crucifixion: Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah (Acts 4:25f).

Specifically, the Jerusalem believers understood that Psalm 2 pointed to the actions of Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Gentile and Israelite peoples who had called for the crucifixion of God’s anointed one (Messiah). They viewed it as an essential part of God’s hidden, sovereign plan (Acts 4:28f). As Derek Kidner rightly observes, ‘Every grand alliance against heaven will show, in time, this double pattern’ (D. Kidner, Psalms, IVP).

Verses 4 through 6 reveal God’s response: He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord has them in derision.

God’s laughter is not so much mocking, as laughter at the human arrogance that denies the existence of the Lord, sovereign over his creation. As Psalm 19 reveals, The heavens declare the glory of God; and the earth proclaims his handiwork …

Paul the Apostle echoes Psalm 2:5 and Psalm 19 when he writes: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him… (Romans 1:21a-23).

And in First Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 20 we read: Where is the one who is wise? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

To return to Psalm 2, God speaks to us all when he says: “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill” (Ps 2:6). The perpendicular pronoun “I” is emphatic. Despite the view of many, especially in the western world today, God is not mocked. As he promised King David, a descendant of his (David’s) will one day be enthroned and be seen by all. God and his king will have the final word – and the last laugh.

Which introduces the third voice of the psalm – the voice of the king: I will tell the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you (Ps 2:7).

In Second Samuel 7, verses 12 following, Nathan the prophet reveals God’s promise to David as he speaks about a descendant of David: … I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.

The relationship between the second and third speakers of the psalm permeate the New Testament. God says to Jesus at his baptism: “You are my Son, the Beloved” (Luke 3:22) and to Peter, James and John at Jesus’ transfiguration: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35) Furthermore, Paul the Apostle in his address at Antioch in Pisidia, linked the title of Jesus as God’s Son with his resurrection from the dead (Acts 13:32-34).

The theme of the rule of God’s king develops: Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron,  and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps 2:8-9).

Matthew records Jesus’ mandate to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, … (28:18f). And although the rule of Christ Jesus is hidden for the present, his mandate to make disciples of the nations, continues through the ages for all his people. Furthermore, in the context of Psalm 2 we can paraphrase break them as shepherd them, and a rod of iron as scepter, indicating his rule is as a shepherd king, guiding and disciplining with his royal scepter.

Which leads to the warning of God’s enemies in Psalm 2, verses 10 through 12: Now therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, live in trembling, paying true homage or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

God’s anger is not fickle but just and true. It is balanced by the reality that he is also merciful and slow to anger – as we read, for example, in Isaiah chapter 63, verse 9: In his love and in his pity he redeemed them (his people)…

The fourth voice is in the last line of the psalm: Happy are all who take refuge in him (2:12c). Happy or blessed brings Psalms 1 and 2 together.

Dr. Andrew Shead (Moore College, Sydney) comments, ‘… this refuge-seeker is none other than the wise reader who delights in God’s instruction. Most of the psalms that follow are told from the perspective of this character as he addresses God in trust and thanksgiving, and comes to God for refuge’.

So, we shouldn’t be surprised when our faith in Christ Jesus is mocked. Rather, as Jesus said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44).

Furthermore, it’s worth recalling the words of Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French mathematician, physicist and philosopher: “Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show them that it is”.

Prayer. Almighty God, the protector of all who put their trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply your mercy upon us, so that with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal: grant this, heavenly Father, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Eternal God, from whom all holy desires, all good purposes, and all just works proceed: give to your servants that peace which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments, and that free from the fear of our enemies we may pass our time in trust and quietness; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen.

You might like to listen to The Perfect Wisdom of Our God from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

Have you ever been resentful of people whose lives seem successful? They’ve achieved recognition, they have beautiful children, and take exotic vacations. The very thought of them strips any sense of happiness from you.

Now there’s nothing wrong with being successful, having a great family or taking vacations. The question is how do we value them? Do they represent what life is all about for us or is there more to life?

Today we come to a second Reflection on Psalm 1. The Psalm is important for it lays the foundation for the whole Book of Psalms. As it progresses it identifies our two life-choices – the road to nowhere or the path to life.

Consider verse 3. The imagery is vivid as it speaks of the truly blessed or happy people. They are like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all it does it prospers.

Like a tree, truly happy people draw upon life-giving water, growing slowly, steadily, surely, putting roots deeper and deeper into the source of life. Their source of water is God’s word. And just as a well-rooted tree develops its own particular fruit in the appropriate season, so they develop their own distinctive personality and quality of life.

And significantly, because this tree is well-rooted, its leaf doesn’t wither in the crippling conditions of drought. Unlike reeds in dried-up river beds or grass in parched earth, trees because of their deep-rooting system are more able to reach what little moisture there is. Similarly in the tough times of life, the faith of God’s people is not likely to shrivel up.

Yes, our faith will be tested, but in the same way a deeply rooted tree in drought conditions is stimulated to push down even deeper in search of moisture, so too are we are stirred to dig deeper into God’s word; to rely more and more upon him; to be more focussed on putting our life in his hands. This results in bearing the fruit of love – love for God and love for others. We yearn for this. We long for the water of life, but in our natural state we look in the wrong places.

Two thousand years ago a woman at a well in Samaria longed for happiness but it had eluded her. Thinking that love and marriage was the answer, she had been married five times. And as Jesus observed in his conversation with her in John chapter 4, she was now living with a sixth man. But each time she made the same mistake. Her life was a mess. She felt insecure, lonely, and dissatisfied.

Unexpectedly and yet significantly, Jesus offered her living waters that spring into eternal life. He further pointed out that “…the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him (John 4:23f). In John, chapter 14, verse 6, we read Jesus’ further words: “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me”.

Through the lens of the New Testament we see that it is through Christ Jesus we can become beneficiaries of God’s living water and so enjoy the true spiritual life God offers us. It involves a heart response to Jesus.

Consider what Psalm 1 tells us happens to a world that fails to turn to God and put its trust in him. In verse 4 we read: The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Chaff is the epitome of what is rootless and weightless. It has no substance: it’s useless. We can feel the force of the imagery – the action of winnowing, tossing the harvested grain into the air so that the light, useless chaff will be carried off by the wind, while the heavy grain falls to the ground.

Other psalms, such as Psalm 73, point out that all too often it is the godless rather than the godly who seem to succeed in life. But such psalms come to the same conclusion as this psalm, Psalm 1. There will come a Day when men and women of straw together with their works of straw will be shown up.

Verse 6 looks ahead to this: Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

If this world is to make any sense at all, there must be a final judgement. If there is any morality, there must come a time when everyone is called to account. The day of final accounting for us all is a consistent theme throughout the Bible – as we read in Paul’s address to the intelligentsia in Athens (Acts 17:30f). Psalm 1 wants us to know that on that day, those who have ignored God, who turned their backs on the perfect pattern of life he has shown us, or who have simply rejected him, will not have a leg to stand on.

Are you looking for meaning and lasting joy in life? Psalm 1 tells us how we can find it. We won’t find it by following our own inclinations nor by following our passions. And, with the incarnation of the Son of God (John 1:14), we certainly won’t find the hope of life in all its fullness and joy if we dismiss Messiah Jesus.

We don’t know what life holds. But one thing we do know is this: our world is not getting any better. The western world is more and more wrecking itself on the rocks of unadulterated selfishness. People want happiness and hope but insist upon looking in all the wrong places.

God tells us where we can find it: in responding to him, in learning from him and leaning on him, in living lives shaped by his perfect pattern. Then, and only then, will we begin to find true happiness.

In his Christmas message in 1939, as Britain was about to enter the year of its darkest hour, King George VI quoted these compelling words: “I said to the man at the gate of the year ‘Give me a light’ that I may tread safely into the unknown’. And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.  That will be better to you than light; safer than a known way.”

So, if we want to find true happiness, it’s worth planning a lifestyle that includes the daily reading of the Bible – developing a pattern of prayer, so we can plunge into the springs of God’s living water. The best way to begin is to not procrastinate. If you are not regularly reading the Bible, start today!

A prayer. Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, so that, encouraged and supported by your holy Word, we may embrace and always hold fast the joyful hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Almighty and merciful God, out of your bountiful goodness keep us from everything that may hurt us, so that we may be ready in body and soul cheerfully to accomplish whatever you want us to do: through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

You may like to listen to the Keith and Kristyn Getty and Matt Papa song, What is Our Hope in Life and Death.

© John G. Mason

Happiness is something we long for. But how can we achieve it? It’s elusive: one moment we can be feeling happy, but the next we’re not. Like moonlight it has slipped through our fingers.

In fact ‘happiness’ can’t be a goal in the strict sense of the word. For a goal is something that is within our power to achieve. Happiness isn’t like that. There are too many variables outside our control.

We can think that being successful, having a good family and friends, material assets and comfort, will make us happy. But they don’t. There will always be others more successful. And behind the best of families there is often unresolved pain or hurt; those with wealth often find they’re not satisfied – they want more, or they worry about the security of all they have. Despite experiencing much that is good in life we don’t always feel that overwhelming sense of real happiness and joy.

Psalm 1 helps us. Blessed is the one … we read. Blessed means ‘happy’. The idea is echoed twenty-six times in the Psalms. It is also the word Jesus used in what are known as the Beatitudes in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12).

In Psalm 1 verses 1 through 3 we read: Happy is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

We all have a real thirst, a longing for something that will satisfy us deeply. The thirst is not wrong. It is part of our complex make-up that makes us human. Our problem is that we look in the wrong places to satisfy it. The prophet Jeremiah records God’s words: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water,…” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Verse 1 of the Psalm challenges us to consider our world-view. Our natural inclination is to adopt a world-view that appeals to our sense of self-sufficiency. We like the music emanating from the temples of materialism or humanism that puts us in control of our lives and our destiny.

As we continue down this path, we indulge in behaviour that appeals to our feelings, even though it means flouting God’s directions and good purposes. And so we find ourselves marching in step with the crowds who live as though there is no God and no objective moral order. In turn we join the cynics who mock Christianity. We become part of a silent majority, failing to speak up for what we believe because we’re afraid. We sit in the seat of scoffers.

What then is the path to real happiness? Verse 2 tells us: their delight is in the law of the Lord; and on his law they meditate day and night.

The negatives of verse 1 are now contrasted in verse 2. As others have observed, they show us we have a choice. Like Adam and Eve in the original garden, God respects the gift of choice he has given us. It’s one of the features that makes us human. We are not puppets on a string in a mechanistic universe. We can choose.

Verse 2 provides the key that unlocks our true humanity: Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. We need something to transform us from deep within. The law of the Lord which stands against the counsel of the wicked is a reference to God’s instruction.

Interestingly the word meditate here is the same word plot Psalm 2:1. What goes on within our hearts and minds becomes evident in our words and actions. In Psalm 2:1 the plotting is the intention of darkness that leads to evil. In Psalm 1 meditating on God’s Word, his self-disclosure, leads to Godly growth and behaviour.

People who are blessed meditate on God’s Word – God’s special self-disclosure. Here is the key to real and lasting happiness. It foreshadows Jesus’ reference to living waters that he promised to the woman at the well in Samaria. These ‘waters’ are bound up in knowing him.

Sometimes we think that mediation is something carried out by the super-spiritual – people who are etched into stained-glass windows, people who have their heads in heaven but who are no earthly use. This is not so. The words here echo God’s command to Joshua – God’s man of action who needed just as much as anyone else to think hard about the will of God if he wanted to achieve anything worthwhile.

Real happiness is found in our determination to be instructed and counselled by God himself. This isn’t easy. It means being prepared to look inside ourselves and consider why we say the things we sometimes do, why we think and behave the way we do, and then be willing to change. This can be tough. It means being honest with ourselves before God. It can take time.

For to meditate on God’s teaching involves letting the weight of God’s Word press upon our hearts and minds, and our life-style.

Where then do we find true happiness? Not swimming in the shallows of faith, but plunging into the mind of God found in the living waters of his Word.

Prayer. Almighty God, you show to those who are in error the light of your truth so that they may return into the way of righteousness: grant to all who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s service so that we may renounce those things that are contrary to our profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to it; through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Almighty and eternal God, grant that we may grow in faith, hope, and love; especially make us love what you command so that we may obtain what you have promised; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

You may like to listen to He Will Hold Me Fast from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason

How can we weather the challenges of our messy and conflicted world?

Come with me to Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 21 where we find one of the great prayers of the Bible. The curtain over Paul the Apostle is drawn aside and we are given a glimpse of him at prayer.

I kneel before the Father, he begins, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. Genesis chapter 1 tells us that God created us in his image and it is therefore true to say that all humanity has its fatherhood or parentage in God. However, as the Bible unfolds, we see that there is a very special relationship between God and those who are personally drawn to him. Paul is echoing what Jesus taught his disciples: we can call God, ‘our Father’.

This really is an extraordinary privilege – to be able to call God ‘Father’. In fact, when we think about it, there is no higher honor that God could give us, for it means we stand in a very special relationship with him as his adopted sons and daughters. This awesome truth stands at the heart of Paul’s prayer. And he prays that we might experience this awareness in our lives, so we can relax and enjoy the amazing privilege of being God’s special people at every twist and turn in life. Three themes stand out.

Inner strength. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit…

The work of the Spirit goes to the heart of our being. Despite what cosmetologists and exercise gurus want us to think, the truth is that our physical bodies are wasting away. The time will come, when as far as our physical body is concerned, there is little hope for the future. But Paul wants us to understand that it’s not all downhill.

If God is at work in our lives, changes for the better to our inner being can occur. It’s here we see the counter-cultural way God works as opposed to the way that the world expects him to work. The world expects God to work with great displays of power. Tempted to think this way too, we might say that God’s power is to be expressed in self-confidence, self-assertion, success. And when it comes to churches, it is thought that God’s power will be seen in high-powered church growth and in dramatic answers to prayer.

But God has a different plan. For the present he chooses to work in secret, changing us from the inside out, not the outside in. It’s an important distinction most of us miss. Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit will strengthen us at the very root of our character and our lives. He prays that God’s Spirit will so work in our lives and so teach us that we will be strengthened in our appetite for God and our love and loyalty to Jesus. He wants us to focus our hope on Christ, to drop sinful habits and develop a new framework for living.

Paul says that he wants to see the whole of our inner life affected by the Spirit — our hearts and affections, our will, our minds and decisions. It’s radical and it’s painful. Once the Holy Spirit starts to work in our lives, begins to probe, to question, to challenge, to discipline and to develop us, it hurts. For when he takes the Word of God and reaches to the very depth of our being, the Word becomes like a scalpel in his hands.

Transformation. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love (3:17).

This is the only place in the whole of the Bible that speaks about Christ dwelling in our hearts. Dwell means ‘settle down’, or ‘putting down roots’. Mixing his metaphors Paul prays that we will be well-rooted trees withstanding droughts, and well-built houses that can withstand hurricanes.

There will be many things in us with which Jesus Christ will not be comfortable. Repairs and renovation are needed in our lives. And anyone who has done house renovation and repairs knows it takes longer and costs more than we anticipate.

Knowing that this kind of life-changing transformation is what God wants and knowing that it requires God’s power in our lives, Paul prays that God will do what is necessary to make our lives a fit home for his Son.

Christ’s Love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (3:18-19).

With imagery that awakens us to the complexity and profundity of God’s love – the breadth and length, and height and depth – Paul prays that we will know the love of Christ. He wants us not only to know but also to experience God’s love so that we may be able to say, and really know and feel it in our hearts, ‘the Son of God gave himself for me.’

This genuine experience of Christ rarely comes to anyone who is not spending time in the Scriptures – for example, meditating on Ephesians chapter 1 through chapter 2, verse 10. The kind of mind-shift we need to prompt us to do this usually requires large explosive power. Sometimes God gives us a wake-up call through hardship, bereavement or tragedy. Sometimes it’s not until we see material possessions for what they are, baubles and trinkets, that we begin to comprehend the reality of God’s love.

Indeed, it’s only when God’s power is at work in our lives that we will begin to see what it meant for God to get into our skin and enter our world, what it cost for him to suffer and die in our place. I pray, says Paul, that with all of God’s people you experience the power of God’s love in your hearts, and knowing that, experience the fullness of joy with the transcendent Lord.

Beyond Imagination. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (3:20-21).

Paul’s words here startle and encourage us. Our thoughts and imaginations are lifted beyond time and space to the Lord himself. Significantly, the focus of God’s powerful work is amongst and through his people.

Too often we forget God’s awesome cosmic purposes; we focus too much on ourselves. Maybe we are content to swim in the shallows of faith rather than in the deep, clear waters of God’s love. For in his love God has far greater expectations for us than we can even begin to imagine.

A prayer. Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

You may like to listen to The Lord is My Salvation from Keith and Kristyn Getty.

© John G. Mason