Waist Deep 2018 - A Daily Dip in the Bible

Psalm 23: 2, 3 He leads me beside quiet waters; he restores my soul. (NIV) We shouldn’t demand impressive signs from God, but listen for God’s still, small voice through his Word.* What is it like to have your soul “restored?” Is it a physical experience or is it totally spiritual? Could David be describing both? This poem may be about sheep and their shepherd, but the human application is about us and God’s provision. God provides us with physical rest and renewal when we need it. Often, our bodies may need to be recharged before our souls can get fired up. The literal translation of the Hebrew for “quiet waters” is “waters of rest.” These are not the rapids found in a mountain river nor are they the stagnant waters of a swamp, but they are the clear, pure stream that flows from the fountain of living water.* Remember the old Simon and Garfunkel song, “Bridge over Troubled Water”? The 20th century song evokes a picture of safety as one passes through turbulent ...

Psalm 19: 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight. (NIV) Men can choose what to set their hearts on.* If I had written this psalm, I would have worded it in reverse order. I would have asked first for my heart to be pleasing, because a pure heart doesn’t produce impure words. Perhaps it was for the sake of poetry that David listed his request in this order, but there is no question that it was David’s desire to please God. It was not enough for him to have the approval of men. He could say and do the righteous things, but he needed God to be pleased with the meditations – the deepest thoughts – of his heart. As David knew, “If our heart and spirit are not right, our motivations will not be right.”* The condition of our heart matters. We are capable of putting on a mask of piety and masquerading as a Christian. Some do it to fool others. Sometimes we do it to fool ourselves. But we never fool God. The meditation of my...

Psalm 19: 7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. (NIV) The Word of God is living, active, and life-shaping not because of our prowess but because of his empowerment.* God’s law, David says, is the opposite of human law. Human law is imperfect. It does not revive the soul. It doesn’t do anything special! It has been said that there are two “books of Divine Revelation” – the heavens, and the Bible.*   Indeed, according to verse one of this chapter (see discussion on Psalm 19: 1), nature reveals the glory of God, but the law reveals his will and moral character.* When David wrote this psalm, he had only a small portion of scripture as his reference point. (Did he know that he himself was writing scripture?) He had access to some history and the law, but not the Gospel. If the law, which was given not to bring about redemption but to point up the need for it*   could be called “perfect” in its incompleteness and inability to save us, how much ...

Psalm 19: 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. (NIV) Nature speaks of nature’s God.* Other nations worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, but David exposes these objects as nothing but God’s handiwork, calling upon men to worship the creator rather than the created. Even if people refuse to praise God, the skies announce his praiseworthiness. All of creation shouts his glory. How can people be deaf to the sounds of nature giving glory to its Creator? In Romans 1: 19 and 20, Paul writes, “What may be known about God is plain . . . because God has made it plain.  . . . For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Nature’s message about God is “as a legible book,”* and ignorance is not an excuse because there is no such thing as ignorance when it comes to creat...

Psalm 18: 35 You stoop down to make me great. (NIV) God, who must stoop to view the skies and bow to see what angels do, looks to the lowly and contrite, and makes them great.* In James 4: 10, we are instructed to “humble ourselves before the Lord,” and if we do, James says, we will be lifted up. It is one of the paradoxes of God (along with “you can’t out-give God” and “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”) that when we humble ourselves, God lowers himself to lift us up.  God demonstrated humility through his Son, who “was willing to come down to our level because he knew there was no way for us to rise to his.”* There is no greater example of humility than that of Jesus, who went from being God to allowing himself to be made “a little lower than the angels.” (Hebrews 2: 9) He emptied himself, “not of his identity, but of his divine majesty in order to become human.”*   If you have ever had to give up a place of honor for an inferi...

Psalm 18: 19 He rescued me because he delighted in me. (NIV) He delights to weave the adversity of our experience into his beautiful plan for our lives.* David could have claimed that God rescued him because he deserved it. After all, David was royalty – chosen by God to be the first of a dynasty that culminated in the Messiah. He was a warrior, a shepherd, a poet, a musician, and a king; but he was also an adulterer and a murderer. Yet, David maintains that God’s favor is due to his delight in him. Is it presumptuous to believe that the words of this Psalm apply to me as well as to David? I can’t claim to be as great a person as David, but I’m no greater (or less) a sinner, either. Jesus, who was God in the flesh, demonstrated God’s delight in humanity. Unlike us, he found that other people were not a source of stress, but a source of joy.* Where I might find it draining to deal with people and their problems day in and day out, Jesus was energized by i...

Psalm 10: 1 Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (NIV) God is everywhere all the time. It’s just that most of us are so busy with everything else that we don’t notice.* We know this about David: he isn’t afraid to express himself to God. We know that God is never distant, that he never hides himself, and David knows it, too; but he bravely confronts God with his feelings of abandonment. We have a God who cares when we feel alone and listens when we complain about it. Unlike in other relationships, we can tell him what is on our hearts and be confident that it will strengthen our bond, not destroy it. Do you ever feel as if God has abandoned you? Feelings change. Feelings are unreliable. When it feels like God is gone, have faith in his faithfulness. He is not off somewhere out of reach. He’s not busy. We have his attention beyond just the time we want it. He never stops watching us, hanging on our every word, sitting ...

Psalm 9: 10 For you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. (NIV) It wasn’t right that the Son of God was forced to hear the silence of God.* If David is correct, those who seek the Lord may be tried and tempted like Job; hunted by enemies like David; or feel forsaken as Jesus did on the cross; but they are never forsaken.* Is it possible, though, that David’s words, like a proverb, are applicable most of the time but not all of the time? After all, it was David’s words, from Psalm 22: 1, that Jesus called out from the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27: 46; Mark 15: 34) Did God forsake him – or did it just feel like he had? While feelings are not reliable indicators of condition, if Jesus felt forsaken then I think it is safe to believe that for a moment, he was forsaken. In that instant, Jesus experienced Hell so that we wouldn’t have to. “As he hung on the cross, ‘made sin for us,’ he was left to struggle without a sense of...

Psalm 8: 3, 4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? (NIV) God’s goodness extends far beyond our understanding.* The work of his fingers! God put the universe in place with the work of his fingers - not even a wave of his hand or the crossing of his arms and blinking of his eyes, I Dream of Jeannie style. If he created the universe with a wiggle of his fingers, did he have to move at all to make me? And what are we that he is mindful of us (that his mind is full of us)? Does every crafter care so much for every tiny little item he produces? “Oh, yeah. I made 7,205 of that model but I remember something special about each one and I think about it every day.” Probably not. So, what makes us so special? God does. We are special simply because he made us, but we are also special because he made us special. He created us...

Psalm 8: 1 (and 9) O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. (NIV) Know him as he revealed himself.* Your name is what is on your birth certificate. It can also be your reputation, your title, your character, or merely your nickname. If you could have named yourself, what name would you have picked? Is that a cute name? A manly name? Does it tell us something about you? In some cultures, names are also words, so everyone’s name “means something.” In Exodus 3: 15, God introduces himself by his name: I Am Who I Am . Since God had to have named himself, his name tells us what he wants us to know about himself. He is who he is. God’s name also tells us what his purpose is. In Matthew 1: 21 and 23, we read that Mary named her baby “Jesus” but that he would be called, “Immanuel,” which makes it a nickname of sorts. Both names illustrate his purpose – “Savior” and “God with us.” By proclaiming that God’s name is majestic in all the earth, the ps...