Troubles With Unbelief

I received the following question:

I have a problem and thought that maybe you could help.

Living in this world of growing distractions and confusion, I’m now having trouble with unbelief.
It bothers me to feel this way.

I think it comes down to the same reasons that others struggle with such doubt, such as…

“The Bible is just a bunch of old stories and ancient myths.”
“Why the need for God to create this long drawn-out story of planet earth?”
“An ark with all the animals?”
“Evolution”

Anyway, the list goes on, and I’m sure you’ve heard them all.

Have you written, or do you know of, any articles that could help give me some encouragement?

You have hit the nail on the head about the world with its distractions and confusion. This is the believer’s constant struggle: to swim against the flow of what “everyone” knows and believes to live a life of faith. The world cries out its ideas loud and strong, and if we are not careful we can easily start to listen.

Passion in the Life of a Believer

While teaching the Bible to inmates one day, I became passionate about what I was saying. Afterwards, one of the men came up to me and said, “You were angry today.” I was surprised by his accusation and told him that I was not angry, but he insisted that I was. Only later did I realize that he had mistaken my passion for anger. Perhaps the only time he had ever seen anyone get passionate in his life was when angry, and so he confused my passion with anger.

The passion of anger is usually about some offense or slight against oneself. Those who only get passionate when angry reveal that, in their hearts, they are really only passionate about themselves – their own lives, their own benefits, their own pride. What a sad thing! Yet I suppose this is not very uncommon. For believers in Jesus Christ, though, this is not the way it should be. Our lives should be full of passion – a passion that is bound up in love.

Comments on Article: Does King’s X Hate the Church?

At one time I subscribed to CCM magazine, which gives all the latest info on contemporary Christian music and artists and so forth. On the cover of an issue back in the ‘90s was advertised an article with the following title, “Does King’s X Hate the Church?” King’s X was a contemporary Christian music group of the day, but this article sounded intriguing, so I turned to it to see what it was talking about. I read that King’s X, which is a group made up of three guys, sounds like they are rather disillusioned with mainstream Christianity in general. In fact, they said in the article that only one of them will still use the adjective “Christian” to describe himself. One of the reasons they gave for their aversion to the church was how negative the reaction was whenever they talked to anyone who wasn’t saved and that person found out they were Christians. I guess they were disillusioned with all the hypocrisy and self-righteousness that drive so many people away from the church in general.

The Meaning of Meditation

I received the following questions:

What does meditation mean?  Especially as used in Psalm 1:2 and Psalm 104:34.  What is significant about meditation?

First of all, you can read my article on this at:

https://precepts.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/consider-my-meditation/

To meditate means to think extensively on a thing.

2. But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.

This psalmist thinks extensively on the Scriptures. He ponders them, whether books, passages, verses, or words. He considers them and what they say, running over them in his mind. He does this at all times of day, both day and night.

34. May my meditation be sweet to Him;
I will be glad in the LORD.

The psalmist desires that the things upon which he thinks and upon which his mind dwells will be sweet to God. He wants the LORD to be pleased with all that he ponders in his head. In other words, he wants his thoughts to be in conformity with God’s pleasure.

The Lord’s Prayer

Here are a few brief thoughts about the Lord’s prayer.

Our Father

Some seem to make a big deal about giving equal time in prayer to the Father, Son, and Spirit. As if one would be jealous of the others if we didn’t give them equal time in prayer. The Lord always addressed His prayers to the Father. I don’t think this is a good thing to spend a lot of time worrying about.

in heaven,

God is in an exalted place, higher than us. He has a better perspective on everything than we do!

Worship in a Time of Trouble

How do we come before the Lord in prayer when we are in a time of trouble, of turmoil, of heartache?  As we come before the Lord this morning in worship, I want to consider together Psalm 5, a psalm of prayer and worship to God in a time of trouble by David, Israel’s great king.  In this psalm, we read:

1.  Give ear to my words, O LORD,
Consider my meditation.
2.  Give heed to the voice of my cry,

All David’s desire and hope at this time of turmoil are turned towards the Lord.  David calls upon God to listen to his words as he cries unto Him for help.   He wants God to consider his meditation and what it says about his heart.  He wants him to heed his voice as it cries unto Him.  Give ear, consider, and give heed…these words are repeated to express David’s earnest desire for God to take notice of his plight and come to his aid.  The last Psalm title that listed an event for the writing of the Psalm was Psalm 3, which says it was written as David fled from Absalom his son.  I believe that Psalms 4 and 5 were also written upon this occasion.  Thus, we can easily see why David earnestly desired the LORD to hear his cry for help at this time!

The Word of God

The words of the Lord are pure words:
Like silver tried in a furnace
Of earth,
Purified seven times.
Psalm 12:6

Your word is a lamp unto my feet
And a light unto my path.
Psalm 119:105

“Your word is truth.”
John 17:17b

The entrance of Your words gives light;
It gives understanding to the simple.
Psalm 119:130

All the kings of the earth shall praise You, O LORD,
When they hear the words of Your mouth.
Psalm 138:4

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
Deuteronomy 18:20

If you would take a concordance of the Bible and run down the listing of the occurrences of “word” in Scripture, you would find it a very imposing list.  And if you would go further and delve into the occurrences, you would find that many times it is used in the phrase “the word of the Lord.”

Death in the Pot

II Kings 4:38-41 records a very interesting story from the ministry of the prophet Elisha.  There, we read,

38. And Elisha returned to Gilgal, and there was a famine in the land. Now the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” 39. So one went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered from it a lapful of wild gourds, and came and sliced them into the pot of stew, though they did not know what they were. 40. Then they served it to the men to eat. Now it happened, as they were eating the stew, that they cried out and said, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

Here a very interesting event is recorded for us. Elisha’s servant is preparing a large pot of stew for him and his “school of prophets.” A man, one of the “sons of the prophets,” accidentally adds a poison gourd to the stew pot. When they begin to eat, they discover that it is poisoned, and so the prophets say to Elisha, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!”

Consider My Meditation

“But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

And in His law he meditates day and night.”

Psalm 1:2

“Give ear to my words, O LORD,

Consider my meditation.”

Psalm 5:1

Have you ever considered Christian meditation?  That almost seems like a contradiction in terms to us.  After all, when we think of meditation, we think of some person in an eastern religion, sitting in a cross-legged position, emptying his mind of all thoughts, and humming some pagan chant.  Yet the Bible speaks often in the Psalms of our meditation.  What does it mean?  Should Christians sit cross-legged, empty their minds, and hum?  Or is Biblical meditation something different?

True Worship

When we think of the word worship in connection with our relationship with our Lord and Savior, what do we think of? What does this mean? How do we worship the Lord? Let us turn our minds to this thought.

What does it really take to worship? Is it by doing something outwardly, by performing some ritual or maintaining some right? Is it by an uplift of emotions, a soaring of the soul, when we can truly say we have worshiped? How is it that we must truly worship God today? What does He want us to do?