Saint Lucas Lutheran

Moments in the PSALMS
July 26 – August 1, 2010

MONDAY July 26 Psalm 20:4  “May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.”

SUCCESS

What are your plans?  What is your heart’s desire?  Do you expect success?  How do you hope to attain that success? 

There is a secret to success.  A secret that the LORD wants you and I to find.

Success comes only from the LORD.  His heart is filled with gracious love for us in Jesus.  His heart’s desire is for us to be blessed.  Success! Eternally!

The secret is to have our heart’s desires and plans be the same as God’s desires and plans for us.  To want what God wants.  That of course will necessitate talking it over with God – listening to the guidance He supplies through His Word and praying for Him to shape our plans and create our desires.  Then those plans will be pleasing to Him.  Then those plans will succeed.

PRAYER:   LORD, I know You love me and desire what is best for me every day and forever.  Create Your desires within me and make Your plans my plans so that I may honor You and find true and lasting success.  Thank you!  AMEN

TUESDAY, July 27 Psalm 21: 1  “O LORD,  the king  rejoices  in Your strength. How great is his joy in the victories You give.”

JOY

Yesterday we spoke about success.  Today we focus on joy.  The two are connected. 

Success results in joy.  Since, as we were reminded, success comes from the LORD, He is also the Source of true joy.  The success – “victories” -  we experience - are given to us us by His grace.  They come to us as He uses His strength on our behalf. 

From the simplest joy to the most profound – it all comes to us from God.  Of course the greatest and most lasting is the joy of our salvation.  The victory, which came through the resurrection of the One who died in our place, gives us eternal joy.  That joy gives meaning to our daily lives and hope for the life to come.

Savor the success the LORD has given You through Jesus!  Enjoy His strength!  Celebrate His victories!

PRAYER:  LORD, You are my Joy.  Everything good that I experience or possess has its Source in You alone.  Help me to continually savor and enjoy my relationship with  You.  AMEN

WEDNESDAY, July 28  Psalm 22:1  “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?  Why are You so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?”

FORSAKEN!

We’ve all been there.  Perhaps you personally have been there many times and for a long time.  Maybe you are there now.  There = that place in life where we feel forsaken by God.  Our feelings convince us that we are indeed forsaken.

The word feel is underlined.  We may have felt or are feeling forsaken; but, it’s a lie.  Our feelings are wrong.  We have never been and we never will be forsaken.  The ultimate proof of that is found in the One who was forsaken so that God would not forsake us.

Psalm 22 is another of the “Messianic Psalms”, Psalms in which the primary voice is the coming Messiah and not the Psalmist who wrote the Psalm.  In other words, Jesus is speaking.  He laments: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”   

That’s not just His feeling.  It’s a fact.  He was forsaken.  In a moment in time on the cross our Substitute endured the eternal forsakenness that we deserved.  He endured hell. 

Neither in life nor in death will you or I ever be forsaken by God!  “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  (Hebrews 13:5)  All this because Jesus was forsaken in our place.

PRAYER:  O LORD speak to my heart through Your Word whenever I may feel forsaken.  Tell me the truth that, for Jesus’ sake, You will never forsake me.  Let that fact trump my feelings and give me strength and hope to carry on.  AMEN

THURSDAY, July 29  Psalm 23:3a  “He restores my soul…”

RESTORATION

Compared to the homelands from which the ancestors of many of us have come, our country and its buildings is very young.  You won’t find a building in Milwaukee much older than 160 years. 

Although our city and its structures is comparatively very young – we continually have people working on authentic restoration of special buildings from our past.  They seek to save historic structures from destruction and to restore them to their original style and condition.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, you and I are objects of Jesus’ restoration activity every day.  He restored our rundown relationship with God by obediently and perfectly living for us.  He paid for the mess of our soul’s condition with His own blood.  He has revived us by the Spirit He and His Father have sent to us from heaven.  Day by day through His Word He renews, revives, refreshes - restores us with His forgiving providing love.  Recreating in us the lost image of God

Thanks to His work in us and for us, the Father sees us as a perfect restoration project already.  Our response to that perfection is in itself imperfect; but, that perfection too will come in glory with Him.  Until then, day by day moment by moment “He restores my soul”.

PRAYER:  Dear Jesus, without Your love to maintain my soul I would crumble and die and be destroyed forever.  You have rescued me from destruction.  Continue to restore my soul by Your Spirit through Your Word and Sacraments.  AMEN

FRIDAY, July 30  Psalm 24:6  “Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, O God of Jacob.”

SEEKING GOD’S FACE

God would have every right to turn His face away from you and me in disgust.  He would be justified in turning His face toward us in anger and condemnation.

We in turn, understandably, might want to never see His face because of “the look” we deserve from that holy face. 

God has not turned away from us nor given us “the look”.  Instead, He has “…looked upon us with favor…” (Literally – turned His face toward us).  He has provided us with what we needed instead of giving us what we deserved.  His face beams upon us with forgiveness and love in Jesus.

Believing this, we seek His face.  We come honestly admitting our complete unworthiness.  We throw ourselves at His feet.  We seek AND FIND mercy in Jesus.  A face that forgives, heals, restores.

Refreshed by that sight we go out to let our lives reflect that light to His glory and the good of all others.

PRAYER:  Father thank You for letting Your face shine on me through Your Holy Spirit for the sake of Your Son!  AMEN

SATURDAY, JULY 31  Psalm 25:6,7  “Remember, O LORD, Your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.  Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to Your love remember me, for You are good, O LORD.”

REMEMBER

Memory can be a great thing.  It can also be painful.  It depends upon what you are remembering. 

Memories of the past, stirred up by a threatening conscience are not only painful, they can be terrifying - even fatal.   What if God would choose to remember our past?  What if He would choose to hold us accountable for all the we have thought, spoken, and done?!
Whoa! That would be hell.

The Psalmist  calls upon God to remember what He is and to forget about we were.  Forget about it LORD.  Forget about our sin and rebellion.  Instead, “remember Your great mercy and love”.  Forgive us.

Fact is – we are completely forgiven in Christ and for His sake.  God has remembered His mercy and love and therefore has forgotten our sin and rebellion.  Sisters and brothers – rejoice in that and respond to it.  Once you have confessed your  sins to God, tell your conscience to forget about it too.  Go forward remembering how good God is instead of dwelling on how bad you’ve been

PRAYER:  -LORD, ever since time witnessed the first sin, You have been there with mercy and love providing needed pardon and peace.  Continue to remember to treat us according to what You are instead of according to what we deserve.  AMEN

SUNDAY, August  1  Psalm 26:8  “I  love the house where You live, O LORD,  the place where Your glory dwells.”

I LOVE  THIS HOUSE!

Members of St. Lucas happen to have a gorgeous church.  Some people have a mud hut with a tin roof or a tent in which to gather.  Both groups love their church.  Not because of its physical beauty or in spite of its commonness. 

Wherever God lives and displays the glory of His grace in Jesus – forgiving sins, giving eternal life, providing strength for the journey home – that’s a beautiful place.  A grace place.  Everything about God is glorious.  But nothing about God is more glorious than what He has done to rescue us. 

Thank the LORD He establishes places where His grace is proclaimed and shared.  Thank the LORD that the grace which He has shared may be enjoyed any place. 

PRAYER:  I love the places where You display Your glorious grace on earth Dear LORD!  Thanks to Your Son, I look forward to living at Your place forever.  AMEN