Seeing Jesus in the Psalms

  Psalm 88 “ He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.  We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care.” Isaiah 53:3 The verse above from Isaiah is universally accepted as a messianic verse referring to Jesus the Christ and can be linked to a few gospel passages such as: “He told them, “ My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death . Stay here and keep watch with me.”” Mark 14:34 Two songs came to mind as I read Psalm 88 today. One is a hymn I have know since I was a child and I feel emotional when ever I sing or say the words even today. It deeply expresses the wrongness and yet rightness of the way Jesus suffered: Man of sorrows what a name for the Son of God, who came ruined sinners to reclaim: Hallelujah, what a Savior! If you don’t know this hymn and the story of the writer then I encourage you to enrich your heart and mind with both the music and story of P. P. Bliss. The other song mi...

  Psalm 85 MAIN POINT: Jesus has come as saviour and will return as saviour, and we are invited to listen to His words of peace and experience and expect His salvation. Sometimes it isn’t easy to get your bearings in the Bible. One reason is that the Bible speaks about time as things that have happened, are happening and will happen more fluidly than we might be used to. But since God is 100% sure what has happened, what will happen, and what is happening, He can reveal things with confidence. We on the other hand usually can only apply such confidence and interchangeability of time to the immediate or possibly the past. Another aspect of the Bible that you might find challenging in our individualistic society is the principle of representation. We do get this idea sometimes but we don’t always get it. We often think that all the uses of representation are suspect to a negative prejudice. What I mean is that an individual is painted with the same brush as the whole. All Americans ...

How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7 NLT   Psalm 36 We are confronted with a description of wickedness that is frightening. The seemingly unbounded wickedness of humans denying God is followed by the truly limitless love of God. I have heard people say that we don’t see the grace of God until we get to the new testament but I have seen the grace of God continually since I have begun to write in response to the Psalms. Grace, mercy and love are fountains and rivers flowing from God toward all humanity. The quality and quantity of God’s love is determined by God and His character, not by the recipient. David asks for justice but recognises that God’s love is in the first place indiscriminate.  MAIN POINT: God’s unfailing love is greater than mankind’s wickedness. 7 How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. 8 You feed them from the abundance of your...

Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. Psalm 25:5 NLT   Psalm 25 As I copied the Psalm today I had three impressions.  The first is grace. I was taken aback by how loving, gracious, forgiving and helpful God was in the eyes of David.  The second was that David was concerned about his sin. He talks about it a lot, and all of his sin: past youthful sin and present sin too.  Lastly I noticed a preoccupation with problems, enemies and depression (a negative perspective).  I am going to explore all three and see if I come out with a unified central theme. My first question is possibly obvious for you. If God is so gracious, so loving and so kind, why does David have such a concern for his sin? Further, if the rescuing presence of God is with him, why does David have all these problems all the time? This is a common cry of David and it persists throughout the Psalms. Isn’t David chosen? Isn’t he anointed? Hasn’t he been rescued and does...