It's All His (Psalm 24:1)

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." (NIV)

The other day I read a blog from a mom who is raising a toddler. She had taken her young son to the park along with some of his toys. Some other boys wanted to play with the toys and the mom was teaching her son that it was okay not to share with others; the toys were his and he had the right to decide what was going to happen to them. I thought of that this morning as I read this psalm, not because I agree or disagree with this mom’s view, but because of what verse 1 says.

This world, this creation, is God’s. He created it, all of it. And because He is Creator, He owns it. He owns all of it. He owns the planet, the dirt, the sky, the oceans, the plants and animals and . . . us! He even created time, all the laws that govern how this creation works, and the accompanying universes that surround us. He made it; He owns it. It’s all His and by every law and right imaginable, He gets to decide what happens in it.

How did things get so terribly turned around? How did it come to be that we believe somehow that we can own anything (including ourselves)? To understand this dreadful turn of events, we have to go back to the beginning, to the time just after God created human beings. In Genesis 1, beginning with verse 28, God gave authority of this earth to human beings. He gave them rulership over all animals (v. 28) and rulership over all plants (v. 29).

It was at that point that Adam and Eve were given this world as theirs, to do with as they wanted. They had free and complete rulership of this part of creation. And unfortunately, because they were given complete rulership, they also had the right to give that rulership to anyone else. When they chose to disdain God’s one law ("Don’t eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil") and did what Satan told them to do, they voluntarily subjected themselves under Satan’s control and he became the ruler of this earth.

But rulership and ownership are two different things. If I buy a house and then rent it to someone, the renters are legally given certain rights under the contract. They can live in the house full time. They can live there with their family, entertain their friends, bring into the house their possessions. They are legally allowed to make my house their home. But the house still belongs to me. I have the ultimate right to decide what belongs to that house.

It’s even more so with creation. God not only owns this earth and everything in it by right of creation, He bought back rulership when the Lord Jesus was murdered at Calvary. When the Roman government, in collusion with Satan, sentenced an innocent Jesus to death, Satan legally became a murderer. And as a murderer, he forfeited any and all rights to rule here. God took back what was His all along and He took it back, not forcefully (as He could have), but legally. He bought back what humans had willingly given away. This is why the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price."

God owns everything. He delegated rulership to humans who gave it willingly to Satan. The Lord Jesus bought it all back with His precious blood. We belong to God twice over, once because of creation and again because of redemption.

His playground. His stuff. His rules.

Do we act like God owns us? Do we act like God owns that next minute, that next decision, that next situation? Do we trust Him to do what is best with what He already owns?

It’s kind of hilarious, how we act all big and stuff, like we can control anything! It reminds me of one of (the very few) jokes I know:

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened patiently and kindly to the man and, after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well! How about this? Let's have a man-making contest."

To which the man replied, "OK, great!"

But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
"The earth is the Lord, and everything in it!" It belongs to Him because He made it. It belongs to Him again because He redeemed it. It all belongs to Him. When will we start asking like it’s His and He gets to do what He wants with it?

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

I. Lack. Nothing. (Psalm 29:1)

"The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing." (NIV)

I. Lack. Nothing.

I’m sure, if I asked you, there would be 100 things you could list that you don’t have (that you’d like to have). Most of them are things you would insist you really need. Same with me. In order to make my life "perfect," if someone gave me the opportunity, I know I could come up with that kind of list.

Or could I?

As a Christian I need to remember that God’s Word is a Truth beyond the truth of this reality. I need to remember that if God has said it, then I need to embrace it. And so, if I truly believe that God is my shepherd, then perhaps I really don’t need anything He hasn’t already provided. So what can I learn from this sentence?

This sentence from Psalm 23 is both a promise and a statement of faith. The promise: If the Lord is my shepherd, then I will lack nothing. God has promised to make all things work together for my good. He has promised to take care of my daily needs. He has promised to take me home to Heaven. If the Lord is indeed my shepherd----if I have embraced Him as my Lord and Savior and submitted my life to His care----then He will indeed give me everything that I need and I will live a life that lacks nothing. Whatever I "think" I need, I can petition Him in prayer and He will take care of it perfectly and completely by either providing it or teaching me how I didn’t really need it in the first place.

The statement of faith: Because the Lord is my shepherd, I know that I lack nothing. I truly believe scripture and utterly trust the Lord in His provisions, His mercy, and His generosity. He knows me better than I know myself. Thus, if He doesn’t provide, I never needed it. I only "thought" I did. His provision is perfect and He provides whatever I need on a daily basis.

What does the Lord provide?

* Green pastures: He places me in situations and circumstances where I have the opportunity to grow spiritually and to mature as He directs.

* Quiet waters: Even the very basic needs of my soul and body He provides including the living water of life that satisfies every need.

* Right paths: Ever wonder what you’re supposed to do, particularly at those big junctions of life? I constantly second-guess myself, but I can trust that if I pray and am willing to follow any direction where He leads, He will lead me into the right path for He can see long ahead.

* No fear: I don’t even have to fear evil, for He is with me. This is huge for me because I’ve suffered from anxiety disorder my entire life. I often feel that the "monsters" are lurking under the bed or around the corner. But I can trust Him, in prayer and faith, to be with me and to disperse any evil that tries to beset me.

* Comfort: His very Holy Spirit that lives within me is a constant comfort, even during the times I feel so out of control, even during the nighttime when my dreams take over.

The psalm continues with this: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" (v. 5). You know how I see this? It’s like going to a business meeting and the president of the company sits down right next to me and says, "Hi. I’m your new BFF. Anything you want? I’ll do that for you." (Of course, in my case, it would be the school superintendent, but you get my drift.) Can you imagine what that would be like? But in reality that is our daily lives because the Lord of creation Himself prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. He does this to say that we belong to Him and everybody else needs to back off! He’s our defender, our advocate, our protector.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

The psalmist concludes with this: "Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life" (this life) and "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (there is a happily ever after). Yup! Pretty good stuff . . . if . . . we trust God and embrace Him as our Shepherd. We get to have His goodness and love for all the days of this life and we get to live in His house after this life! Really good stuff!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Theme of My Praise (Psalm 22:25a)

"From You comes the theme of my praise . . ." (NIV)

There is a very real war raging both within us and without. When we forget about this war, we are in danger of losing for victory only comes to those of us who keep our eyes on the Truth.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the difference between truth (little t) and Truth (big T).

There is a lot of talk these days about authenticity. (Back in the 60's and 70's, we talked about honesty. I think in many ways it’s the same thing.) People want to be true to who they are. They want those around them to be truly who they are. Somehow the idea of "truth" gives us a foothold upon which we think we can stand. The problem is, there is "truth" and then there is "Truth." There is the "truth" that appears to exist within this creation and then there is the Truth which is the Truth that exists because of God’s character.

The truth of this life is actually many truths because what seems true to one person may not seem true to another. It is the idea of existentialism, the idea that each of us has a perception of life that is true to us but may not be true to others. My perceptions are colored by my experiences, my beliefs, my emotions. Even the colors I see with my eyes may be slightly different than the colors you see because the number of rods and cones in our eyes may be different. Our brains may process the information differently. But all of this individuality, all of this unique perception becomes what society is now calling authenticity or being our authentic selves. Being one’s authentic self means becoming what we perceive or feel we should be.
The idea of "authentic self" has been around a while. You may have heard it in relationship with the transgender community, but it’s a psychological term that has much broader ramifications. Typically, it’s described as a contrast to the "fictional" self, "your ‘authentic’ self (who you were created to be) or your ‘fictional’ self (who the world has told you to be) (From https://www.drphil.com/advice/defining-your-authentic-self/).

The problem is we were all created to be worshipers of God. Period. That is the Truth (big T). The truth (little t) may be about how we perceive ourselves, but the Truth is what God has written in His word. And within Psalm 22 we see this battle, back and forth, between the authentic self and the True self, between the person we feel we are and the person God has created us to be.

The battle is almost always between our feelings and God’s Truth.

Feelings which feel very real are also very unreliable. They are malleable. They often change with circumstances, on a note, with a whim. They can linger when they shouldn’t and appear when least expected. Have you ever had a bad night, filled with uncomfortable dreams or perhaps even nightmares, only to wake up and feel miserable and not know why? There’s a lingering sense of impending doom simply because our hormones, which control emotions, were overreacting during the night. Rather than shake it off, put a smile on our face and go take a brisk walk to clear out the cobwebs, we often sink into a morose and coddle those feelings. We work ourselves into a depression that has no cause or focus except . . . . simply . . . our hormones. And in such a place we often stay for long periods of time. We are, in a word, defeated by drops of chemicals which live in our brains.

To which, I want to say, really?

I lived with out of control hormones for years and still, at times, struggle with them. So did, I believe, King David. When you read his psalms, you can see the war within him, the struggle that he had with feeling one way and knowing that God’s truth was actually another way. Such is Psalm 22.

David begins with this:

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I find no rest." (v. 1-2 NIV).

For those of us who have struggled with depression, anxiety and other forms of emotional distress, those words feel so true. God feels so far off. It feels like He has totally abandoned us and that the darkness has settled in around us, never to leave. The anguish of depression, of anxiety, of fear seems overwhelming, seems eternal.

But for David (and thankfully for us), the psalm doesn’t end there. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And as David goes back and forth between describing his seemingly unconquerable emotional pain and the Truth of God, we can see that clinging to God’s Truth rather than the "authentic-ness" of how we feel brings, in the end, victory.

Here is a short pattern of this psalm:

v. 1-2: Emotional outpouring
v. 3 Yet . . .
v. 3-5: The truth about God and His ability to rescue and care for us
v. 6-8: Emotional outpouring
v. 9 Yet . . .
v. 9-10 The truth about God and His love for us
v. 11-18: Emotional outpouring
v. 19 But . . .
v. 19-31: The truth about God and His absolute victory in everything

David legitimizes his feelings. He acknowledges that he hurts, that he feels alone, that he feels totally conquered and overwhelmed by his circumstances.

Yet. But.
It is the "yet’s" and the "but" that make the difference. The emotions are there. The feelings are there. They feel real, authentic, true. But they are true with a little t! They are not true with a big T. The Truth (big T) is that God is victorious, that He loves us, that He will always care for us. Here are some of the Truths in this psalm:

v. 4: He has delivered before; He will deliver again.
v. 5: Others trusted and were not put to shame for their trust.
v. 10: He has always been God to us.
v. 19: He is our strength
v. 24: He has listened to our cry for help.
v. 27: Eventually everyone and everything will bow down before Him.
v. 28: He rules over everything.

At the end of the psalm, David proclaims: "He has done it!" What has He done? Everything that we need . . . and more. God isn’t stingy with his love. He is generous, waiting for us to trust Him, waiting for us to cast off our "authentic self" in order to become our "True self," the person who trusts Him and worships Him completely. From Him comes the them of our praise and that is that God is Truth. God is the only Authentic and it is from Him that we receive who we are and what we should become.

I want to be authentic, but I only want to be the "authentic" that God wants. I want the theme of my praise to come from Him and Him alone. In order to do that, there are going to be many times when I need to ignore my emotions. I already know that my emotions aren’t reliable and often lie to me. I need to cling to the Truth of God’s Word and of His character. I need to learn that "authentic" comes from the Creator and not from drops of hormones. I need to trust God in the darkness knowing that He is the True Light and that only from Him comes true authenticity. And whether or not my emotions confirm what I know to be true, I don’t have to listen to them. I can listen to God’s Word, trust God’s Word, live God’s word and find the theme for my praise from Him.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Joy of the Lord (Psalm 21:6)

"Surely you have granted him unending blessings

and made him glad with the joy of Your presence." (NIV)

We were having a discussion at Bible study the other night about having joy in our lives. I kept wondering: "Are we looking for joy in our circumstances or are we looking for joy in God’s presence?" For most of us we look for joy in our circumstances.

America---perhaps the entire Western world---is consumed with the idea of happiness. While our history hints at this idea ("the pursuit of happiness"), I’m not sure that our founders wanted us to be absorbed with being happy as much as they wanted the right to pursue happiness where it might be found, including pursuing it worship of the Lord. I’ve become convinced that the Lord cares much less about our happiness in the moment and is much more concerned about our character which will result in happiness in eternity.

This world is a failing place. The Lord Jesus described it like this:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Matthew 6:19-20 NIV).

You know, imagine someone asking you to come visit a resort for your vacation and describing it like this:

Wonderful place for a vacation. There is mold and corroding rust everywhere. Bugs flit around, not only biting you, but eating your clothes and possessions. There are also thieves and all sorts of crime, so anything you bring . . . you won’t be going home with it.



You wouldn’t want to go there. Certainly this wouldn’t be a place that you would want to put down permanent roots. You’d want to do whatever it was you had to do and then leave as soon as possible.

Think about that.

That’s exactly how this world is. It’s exactly how the Lord Jesus describes this life, this earth. And yet we do our level best not only to stay here, but to grab onto the things of this world and try to convince ourselves that in this kind of environment, we can find happiness.

The psalmist was so much wiser than us, for he wrote: "You have . . . made him glad with the joy of Your presence." (v. 6b). The joy of His presence. Not the joy of our circumstances here in this corrupted creation that will soon be destroyed. Not the joy of the stuff around us that is, even now, deteriorating and which, at any moment, thieves might steal. But rather the joy of His presence. Read that slowly and let it sink into your heart: The. Joy. Of. His. Presence.

Do we even know what that is? Do we even know what it’s like to be in God’s wonderful and magnificent presence? And yet, we can experience that, even here, in this life. We can know the presence of the Almighty God.

The psalmist gives us three ways to learn how to be in God’s presence:

(1) We need to rejoice in God’s strength and in His victories (v. 1).

That seems so simple, but it’s not. Not really. You see, to rejoice in God’s strength and in His victories means that we admit that we can’t do anything and that we must rely on Him to do everything. It also means that we rely on Him to provide and . . . (here’s the crux of the matter) if He doesn’t provide it, we don’t need it.

Did you ever think about that? The Lord’s Prayer says, "Give us today our daily bread." Daily bread. Not bread for the future, for the month, not even for tomorrow, but only what we need for this day, for this moment. And bread. The basic necessity for today. Father, give me today what I need. Do you know why? Because we might not even be here tomorrow.

Why do we fret and worry about what might happen this afternoon or tomorrow or next week? Every victory belongs to the Lord and He is well able to accomplish it. We need to rejoice in His strength and in His victories.

(2) We need to trust in the Lord (v. 7a).

Trusting God means actually trusting Him. It means walking calmly through the mess of our lives and not trying to fix or change or alter or manipulate. It means walking into the fiery furnace even if He doesn’t save us! Do you know that story? The story of the three young men who were thrown into the furnace because they refused to worship an idol? Their response to the king, prior to being thrown in, was this:

"If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:17-18 NIV).

Trusting God means actually trusting Him. It means walking through the darkness if that’s where He leads. It means learning what He wants and doing it, over everything else. It means doing His will, even if it’s the worst thing that could befall you in this life.

The Lord Jesus, in the garden, prayed: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will." (Matthew 26:39b NIV). The worst possible thing that could happen to the Lord Jesus was the torture and death He was facing at Calvary. And the best thing that could happen to us was the torture and death that the Lord Jesus was facing at Calvary. He had to die so that we could live.

God’s will is complex, but it is always for our good. Our. Good. Not just my good, but for our good. For the good of us all. The writer to the Hebrews, after accounting all the wonderful things done by the Old Testament saints through faith, wrote this:

"These [saints] were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:39-40 NIV).

We need to trust God because His plan is larger and far better than anything we could ever dream of. His plan goes beyond the confines of this creation and are always for our good! We need to trust Him completely, and in that trust, learn what joy really is.

(3) Joy comes when we sing and praise about God’s might (v. 13b).

We delude ourselves that we are in control of anything! Do you realize that we can’t even hold the very atoms of our bodies together? Our cells are held together, not by any laws of science (those laws simply observe and report on how things appear to work), but rather by the very power and presence of our Father God! We aren’t in control of squat! And once we understand that simple fact, we can begin to experience the joy that comes in truly understanding God’s might. God’s love. God’s plan. God’s wisdom.

Happiness is a fleeting thing. Happiness is that weird combination of hormones that is produced by our brains as a result of some learned response. Our bodies produce those hormones because, at some point in our past, a similar experience "felt" pleasurable. But that kind of pleasure, that kind of happiness, doesn’t last. This world is on its way to being destroyed and our hormones along with it! Why do we search after happiness with almost a frenetic craziness? And why, as Christians, do we try to make ourselves believe that joy and happiness are the same thing?

Joy isn’t about a feeling; it’s about a truth. Joy isn’t about our circumstances; it’s about God’s character. Joy isn’t about what’s happening now, but is rather about how God’s plan is working out through eternity.

Joy is about God and being in His presence. Joy is about God’s strength, about our trust in that strength, and about rejoicing in His might! Joy is about our Father. All about Him and nothing else. If we want joy, we need to go into His presence: "You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand." (Psalm 16:11 NIV).

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.