Tag Archives: encouragement

O Jehovah, keep us faithful. Amen.
Reading:

Psalm 12

I wasn’t going to do this this morning because I was going to publish “Faith That Moves God” at my CLE site and then send out my Sunday School email to my “Thoughts for the Week” subscribers. But then I read Psalm 12 and got “sidetracked” pecking out some notes…

This dire, dreary Psalm begins with David declaring that the godly were gone — the inventory of them was depleted. The faithful ones had disappeared from humanity.

  1. Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
  2. They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
  3. The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:
  4. Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
  5. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.
  6. The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
  7. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
  8. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.

When I was growing up (especially after hitting my teens, of course), I knew was surrounded by blatant and unapologetic corruption, oppression, injustice, deception, and immorality. And with them, accompanying fears and decadence that poison and rot the soul and spirit. I found the States to be noticeably and refreshingly less so. It was amazing. Continue reading →

Keep running! Stay focused! Run, run, run!
Reading:

Hebrews 12:1-3

My morning plan does not include posting here. But when I opened my Bible program for my early morning reading, Hebrews 12:1 displayed instead of a blank screen.

  1. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
  2. Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
  3. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

This isn’t some pep talk for wanna-be runners. This is encouragement for those presently running. “Let us run” is written in Greek’s present active volitive subjunctive (I see in Robertson’s work and, to some extent, in Strong’s also) — “Let us keep on running, folks!”

Remember those in history’s bleachers Continue reading →