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“Please, God, rescue me! Come quickly, LORD, and help me.” Psalms 70:1
Beware of hidden truths! My great-grandfather spent an entire day sitting on a fallen tree while deer hunting. He sat all day and didn’t see a thing. As the sun was setting he climbed down from his stand and began to head home. As he stepped away he caught a reflection from the sun. Closer inspection revealed the antlers of a huge buck that had been hiding quietly underneath him all day long! Great-grandpa got his deer that day! But more than that, he learned an important lesson. Sometimes the things we are looking for are ‘hidden in plain sight’!
I find the Bible to be like that. We can read on the surface but the real truths ‘hide from us’ unless we dig deeper. Psalm 79 holds just such a truth, a hidden gem so to speak. David was struggling. People were slandering him. People were mocking him. People were threatening him. As he often did during these times, David wrote a song.
If you read the first verse you’ll notice that the word ‘God’ and ‘Lord’ appear. Repetition? Not so fast, there’s a hidden gem there. In the original languages ‘God’ is ‘YAHWEH’. YAHWEH denotes that God, the one true God, is God over everything. He sees the big picture. Nothing escapes his notice.
The word ‘Lord’ on the other hand is the word Elohim. Elohim gives the idea of being lord over all aspects of life. One give the idea of seeing the big picture, the other reminds us that he sees the intimate details of our lives. David was struggling. He was losing hope. He was growing impatient. But one truth remained. He worshiped a God who saw the big picture but didn’t overlook the small things. No matter what you are going through, God, YAHWEH, Elohim has this! In his time he will come through for you. Rest in his promise!
GRACE NUGGET: God’s free gift of grace covers us in the big problems and the hidden struggles we face. Every. Single. Day.
The one thing I ask of the Lord— the thing I seek most— is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord’s perfections and meditating in his Temple. Psalms 27:4
Growing up, my uncle had a ‘cabin’ on a lake a couple hours north of where we lived. I use the word ‘cabin’ in quotes because what my uncle referred to as the cabin was not what I would think of a cabin.
It wasn’t some rustic building with few amenities on a small, obscure lake. His cabin had five bedrooms, a game room, a deck overlooking a huge, popular lake and a boathouse for the two boats he had. His ‘cabin’ was a mansion! We loved going there to visit because it was so beautiful and fun!
David writes of his love to visit the Lord’s house, In David’s day, the ‘Lord’s House’ was a building made of stone with altars and gold columns. It was big. I was impressive. It was the place where He could go and have communion with God.
Today, when we talk about going to ‘the Lord’s house’ we are referring to a church. A building where we go to worship God corporately, in community.
While this was true in Old Testament times, Paul teaches something different, something exciting, something new and profound. Paul teaches us that God no longer lives in a building of brick and wood. Because of Jesus, God has taken up residence in a building of flesh and blood!
When you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior God takes up residence in you through His Holy Spirit. You are His house. You are His Temple. You are His dwelling place. You carry him with you, or should I say, He carries you?
When I listen to negative talk about me, whether that comes from others or myself, I receive negative talk about God. I’m His house! Don’t knock my dad’s house.
Meeting together for worship as a body of believers is crucial to for each member of the body to grow and encourage each other, but don’t forget true worship comes from within, through God’s Holy Spirit living in you.
