This Psalm 131 sermon I preached on 7/10/16 may help dial down the volume of the internal noise of your own mind. Amid the Coronavirus, many are awake in the night with noisy thoughts of one sort or another. Psalm…
What is a legitimate basis for asking for God’s blessing?
Psalm 67 describes the right sort of motivation for praying for God’s blessing.* Nearly every week, I close our services at The Red Brick Church in Stillman Valley with a biblical benediction that is thousands of years old: “The LORD…
Sing Psalm 118 In Anticipation of Palm Sunday and Holy Week
Psalm 118, with its repeated hopeful refrain that the LORD’s steadfast love endures forever, is important during Holy Week because: The crowds quoted Psalm 118 during the Triumphal Entry when they cried “hosanna” (Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9-10). Jesus infuriated the…
The Danger of Cherry-Picking Only Praises from the Psalms
Suffering with incurable cancer, J. Todd Billings points out that contemporary hymnals tend to have a far smaller proportion of laments than the book of Psalms does (Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ, 40). While psalms…
Where have you seen the beauty of Christ?
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire…
Two-Faced People and Psalm 28
Gerald H. Wilson on Psalm 28 and two-faced people: In our psalm, it is interesting to note the kinds of “works” for which the psalmist’s enemies are condemned. It is not that these are murderers or thieves – – there…
In the wrong place emotionally? Memorize a Psalm in order to be moved.
If you need to be moved from one place emotionally to another: (1) Identify a Psalm that relates to your experience. (2) Systematically memorize it over a period of time. (3) As you do so, experience the movement of the…
Suppose at the Thanksgiving table . . .
Praise is due to you O God in Zion (Psalm 65:1a). Use this Norman Rockwell image to picture several generations sitting around a Thanksgiving table. Imagine that as the turkey is set in place, a mother says to her daughter,…
The right sort of Sunshine on our shoulders makes us happy
If you are looking for a verse for this week, think about this one. Psalm 84:11 says, 11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from…
In the wrong place emotionally? Memorize a Psalm in order to be moved.
If you need to be moved from one place emotionally to another: (1) Identify a Psalm that relates to your experience. (2) Systematically memorize it over a period of time. (3) As you do so, experience the movement of the…