Daily Bible Reading
Psalm 108
1 O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory.
2 Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
3 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.
4 For thy mercy is great above the heavens: and thy truth reacheth unto the clouds.
5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and thy glory above all the earth;
6 That thy beloved may be delivered: save with thy right hand, and answer me.
7 God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.
8 Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver;
9 Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; over Philistia will I triumph.
10 Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?
11 Wilt not thou, O God, who hast cast us off? and wilt not thou, O God, go forth with our hosts?
12 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.
13 Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.
Psalm 109
1 Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;
2 For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me: they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.
4 For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
5 And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.
6 Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin.
8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.
17 As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so let it come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment which covereth him, and for a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
20 Let this be the reward of mine adversaries from the Lord, and of them that speak evil against my soul.
21 But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.
22 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness.
25 I became also a reproach unto them: when they looked upon me they shaked their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God: O save me according to thy mercy:
27 That they may know that this is thy hand; that thou, Lord, hast done it.
28 Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice.
29 Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude.
31 For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.
Psalm 110
1 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
2 The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
3 Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
4 The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
5 The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
6 He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
7 He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.
Daily Devotion
FLASHING RED
The USA just experienced a massive display of the Northern Lights. If you missed seeing them in person, there are a ton of photos online. Purples, blue, greens, yellow and variants of them all showed the glory of God and his handiworks. They were beautiful! The brightness had a lot to do with where you were. Inside city limits didn’t have the same vibrancy as a mountain or a ways out of town did. Distractions of parking lights, store front signs, maybe a ball field took away from the northern lights.
The word of the Lord is a light unto my feet. The light can chase away the darkness, lead the lost home, but it can also warn us that there is danger ahead. Fire trucks, ambulances and police vehicles have flashing lights to notify us that something is coming up. And it is often not a good scenario when we come upon an accident. We are trained to yield to emergency vehicles because at times someone’s life is on the line.
Scripture gives us those warnings or flashing signs too. Psalm 109 tells us what may happen to the those who are wicked and are deceitful against the children of God. Judgement obviously follows. His days be few, his children fatherless, vagabonds, begging. Let their posterity be cut off, let no one show them mercy. Because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but persecuted the poor…. Psalm 109 8-16
So how do we tell if we are on the road to destruction? It starts in the little things, speeding, not slowing for construction signs. No signals, riding someone’s bumper can all lead to an accident. If you are a typical Washington driver, you have quite a few conversations with your fellow road mates in a week. You can usually foretell the possibility of an accident coming by erratic behavior. The same is true in church behavior. We usually don’t wake up one morning and say, “This is it. I am drawing the line today.” We need each other to watch our blind sides and let us know if we are veering off course or going so slow we are going backward. One person on the road can cause many to collide. We affect each other good and bad.
So if you feel I am an accident waiting to happen, please caution me. Use the light of the word to lovingly correct me. Warn me of the curves ahead if my speed is too fast, my tongue too sharp or my actions too abrupt. And if you allow, give someone the grace to do that for you.
~Karen Dauenhauer