Thy Word Have I Hid in My Heart

Monday, September 25, 2023

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.  Psalm 119:11

The entire 119^th Psalm refers to God’s Word ^{(43 times in its 176 verses)}.  Reading this Psalm out loud, every time you take a breath, you’re going to utter the phrase thy word!  It is the design of the Author to point to His own word as the benchmark for the way we humans should live what is called covenant life, living a life faithful and fruitful in the promises and precepts of the Kingdom of God. 

This touches virtually every aspect of a human’s existence; it touches the good times and tough times, the times bathed in faith, and the times of straying off the path, as well as the times of fear.  But the weight of the Psalm (for me) is summed-up in this: 

How sweet your words taste to me; they are sweeter than honey.  Psalm 119:103

This is a teaching Psalm, introducing God’s people how to live in light of God’s requirements, as people of light…the goodness of God, as opposed to the darkness of God’s evil enemy.  One writer expressed it this way:

The Didactic [teaching] Songs expound the totally separate paths known from wisdom literature as the ways of “the wise” and “the foolish,” from covenant literature as those of “the obedient” and “the disobedient.”[i]

To use a common means of expressing it, there are two kinds of people in the universe – those who trust in God (and live like it), and those who don’t!  A third possibility is those who slip in-and-out of both, just can’t make up their minds.

That third possibility is actually quite-flawed, because “slipping-in-and-out” is only a superficial residence in one or the other.  It is failing to choose (for an eternity) to live as God’s child, or as the child of God’s enemy.  Scripture tells us it is impossible to please God except by faith.[ii] 

There is a difference between simply being afraid God will punish us for our sins, so we behave for a while, and fearing God in the sense of reverence, respect, and therefore choosing to obey His commands for life and eternity, by turning away from sin, so you are able to live-into that respect and reverence with obedience. 

Hiding God’s Word in your heart is exactly how you do that.  You read it every day; you study and meditate on God’s Word.  You pray like the writer of the 119^th Psalm wrote, talking to God about your fears and faith, your successes and the times you messed-up.  You ask Him for faith to live as He wants you, and strength to oppose your own stubborn will. 

That’s what spiritual warfare is all about…not movements to challenge others’ faith or practices, or shouting matches over evil stuff…it’s dealing with your own rebellious heart.  We’re all born with that, and it separates us from God and each other if we don’t root out that sin…or more accurately invite God to come root it out for you…His Holy Spirit is an expert at dealing with your heart.

For You Today 

 So…how’s it going with that?  Are you hiding His Word in your heart?  Have you sensed God is moving-in where there used to be rebellion and darkness?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image(s) courtesy of Pixabay.com  and Pixabay.com                     

Images without citation are in public domain.  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

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[i] Asbury Bible Commentary Copyright © 1992 by The Zondervan Corporation

[ii] Hebrews 11:6  

Without a Single Fault

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering.  Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment.  Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.  Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault.   Jude 22-24

It takes a mountain of skill, experience, and work for a carpenter to take a log and make it into a flawless work of art.  One careless, ill-placed strike of the hammer or chisel can make kindling for a fire, rather than a priceless piece of furniture, to be handed down from one generation to the next.  Wood, by its nature, carries with it the internal characteristics of all it has faced since the day the tender shoot broke the surface of the earth…storms, dry times, wind, cold, and every other force of every day.  There are flaws cradled in the core of every tree’s story.

Apostle Jude cautions each believer to take part in caring for each other, rescuing our brothers and sisters from the self-destructive nature we all possess.  At the same time we are to be careful we don’t cross the line of judging, doing more damage to our own walk of faith.  It’s a fine line between helping and harming.

I recall a time more than thirty years ago when the pressure of a challenging time as pastor of a dying church had stripped-away my outer bark to bare, cracked wood.  Internal power struggles were destroying what was left of that church.  I began to realize I was losing hope.  I spent more hours weeping in my study than preparing for Sunday worship.  My heart had more cracks than wood left in the desert sun for forty years.

A couple of men who were prayer warriors, and far above my pay-grade in spiritual warfare, recognized my empty fuel tank, and just happened to show up at the church one day around lunch time.  They would not take “no” for an answer, loaded the weary preacher in the back seat of the car, and carted me off for a two-hour lunch and time of prayer.  It didn’t solve the problems of that church (which took another two decades to finally close the front doors), but it lifted this man from the abyss! 

Those two could have been on the golf course, or tending to some need of their own; they chose to push the delirium of my personal faith crisis to a front row seat.  They helped me face the reality of a quagmire I’d allowed to overshadow and swallow my faith.  On that sunny Florida afternoon I received no epiphany of knowledge – and, truth be told, I didn’t need any more facts, or opinions about strategy, or just head knowledge – I got much better than any lesson.  What still stuns me from that afternoon has nothing to do with what I ate for lunch.  Or what was prayed.  Or who drove, or which car it was.  The memory I carry deep within is how much I was being loved. 

For You Today  

The fact of the quagmire with which you struggle, that deep, boggy, wet-mud that wants to drag your faith into oblivion, is part of the structure of your being’s core.  You were born with a sin nature that has endured many storms and parched moments.  You don’t know how it could be, that Jude could believe you will be presented to Christ without flaw.  But it’s even better than you hoped. 

That whole group of believers you gather with at church on Sunday – God has prepared them for you, and you for them…to be carpenter’s glue to all your woody cracks and flaws.  He’s building a masterpiece of an heirloom out of your life.  You are loved by Him, through them.  You go cooperate with Him in that!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

       Living in a War Zone   and   Chained Like Angels

Images:  Title Pixabay.com   Images without citation are either personal property of the author, or in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Divided Mind

 

Monday, October 3, 2022

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you.  He will not rebuke you for asking.  But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone.  Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.  Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.  James 1:5-8

To have a divided mind means a person’s loyalty is being pulled between opposing choices.  Up or Down, Right or Left, Good or Evil – we must constantly choose.  Even taking the next step is only possible when we choose which foot goes first. 

The person who has a history of choosing that which ends badly, eventually comes to the state of a divided mind.  Still sensing what is right and good, that person finds it impossible to decide; it’s being stuck, paralyzed by a mountain of drama and decline.  This is the instability of mind that, left unchecked, can sadly wind-up behind locked doors of a hospital ward.  At the very least, it is a painful existance.

This is a common problem in spiritual matters.  Apostle James may have been a sufferer.  James grew up in the same house as his older brother, Jesus.  He may have had typical sibling issues early on, but eventually found faith in his brother as Lord.  But the struggle to arrive at that surrender point, letting go of doubt and fear, may have been what was behind the sentences he wrote about the problem of coming to God with a divided loyalty, that which gets blown-about like a feather in a hurricane…basket-case unstable, and unable to focus on a useful life. 

Another Apostle, Paul, admitted to that syndrome:

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  I love God’s law with all my heart.  But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.  Romans 3:21-23

Paul understood what it was like to be unstable, unable to control his thoughts or actions.  He was powerless to consistently live out the life of self-control, or doing good, because the fight within was too strong.

Have you been there?   ---   Yeah, me too!

So, we don’t just want to identify the problem and leave it at that.  That would be like noticing that you have cancer, and saying:  Oh…I have cancer, I think I’ll go play golf. 

No…if your mind is divided by the cancer of sin’s pull, you DO something about it.  Let’s go back to both James and Paul for the answer to the dilemma.  The starting point, says James, is to ask God for wisdom:

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. James 1:5

And, recognizing his spiritual life-threatening condition, Paul takes us home to what to do with that wisdom:

Oh, what a miserable person I am!  Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Romans 3:24

For You Today

The answer is Jesus Christ, the LORD over all.  He was there in the beginning when God put us together.[1]  He knows how to put you back together – stable!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

Difficult Choices   and   Side Tracks & Sure Things   

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] See Colossians 1:15-18 here

Between Pinnacle & Pit - Part 5

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful!  But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.  Hebrews 12: 10-11

Note:  What follows are excerpts of the first sermon I preached, June 7, 1978

If you’ve worked with gold, or know something about gold, you know it begins as ore, dug right out of the earth – then it has to be washed.  When gold is in ore form, combined with all that dirt and other elements, it’s not useable.  When the gold is washed, separated from the other impurities, it’s still not fit for use; a gold nugget is no good; it’s only mostly pure, but still needing preparation for useability.  The final process is the fire; gold is melted-down to remove any other elements that might hamper its most productive state. 

That’s the way a lot of Christians are, we make a decision for Christ, and we’re only a raw possibility at that point.  We’re washed by the blood of Christ, much like the ore that’s been washed…quite pure, we are washed by the blood, and forgiven, but still not ready for His best use; not unless we yield to the fire.  The prophet Isaiah said:  Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.Isaiah 48:10 ^(KJV) 

Of course Isaiah wasn’t talking about the gold or silver you dig out of the ground.  He was talking about the gold of your life’s possibilities that have been yielded to the fire, refined, and molded into something ready to be used.  

But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.  Job 23:10^(KJV).

Elizabeth and I have been praying for her mother and father.  This morning ⁽¹⁹⁷⁸⁾ my mother-in-law is in a hospital room in Port Richey.  She had two heart attacks this week, not just one.  She had one that put her in the hospital; she wouldn’t give up – she had another; that’s two strikes.  I will tell you something; we have been praying for her for a long time, for her salvation, and her husband’s.

Update to 1983.  Elizabeth’s Mom died this year.  After she was gone, we were going through her belongings and found the answer to our prayers.  It was her Bible, given to her by a visiting pastor.  On the flyleaf was written in her hand, and dated shortly before she died, this inscription:  “Sofie saved”! 

The Holy Spirit tugs at a heart…gently, ever so gently.  The Holy Spirit deals gently with us until we come to a point.  How hard the Holy Spirit tugs at your heart is up to you.  Repentance, turning from sin, is the only thing that interrupts the consequences of our sin from something drastic being done to get our attention.  When you have people praying for you, that you’ll turn to the LORD, but you keep turning away, you’re going to benefit from God’s chastisement.

We know what chastisement is, and we know why…it’s a purging, a cleansing.  Now, how do we benefit from it?  Paul’s letter to the Roman believers tells us:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28^(KJV)

Our life is like the gold, dug out of the ground, raw possibility, but still needing the discipline of shaping for God’s good uses.  It needs to be yielded to the fire of God’s’ purifying character, making us fit for His purposes. 

For You Today

Chastisement, the move of God to discipline, teach, correct, and mature his children, comes in many forms:  experiencing problems, sickness, financial difficulties, and a myriad of other roads we walk.  One thing always common to chastisement is the experience gets our attention.  This is God’s blessed way of training his loved ones into a peaceful harvest of right living.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these:                                                            

                                 Seeing and Following the Light… Part 1 and Part 2  and  Part 3        

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

Between Pinnacle & Pit - Part 4

Tuesday, August 23, 2022

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful!  But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.  So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees.  Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.  Hebrews 12: 10-11

We are continuing with our investigation of the gap between the pinnacle of genuine faith, and the pit of unbelief. 

Chastisement, or when God disciplines, is what God does to make us “fit for use”. That is the whole purpose of training, to become useful for God’s Kingdom.  The sermon[1] upon which this series of devotions is based, includes an illustration of God’s purpose to take our brokenness and use it for His glory, and puts into perspective those difficult times of testing and training we all experience:

He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  John 15:2

A week, or so, ago (in 1978) the muffler fell off my car.  It’s that big Mercury, so you know it’s a long dude, and it’s heavy.  I got under the car trying to put that muffler back on for what seemed like an hour-and-a-half.  I was getting weary; I was on my back with arms in the air lifting that muffler for an hour-and-a-half, but I just could not get it right.  The pipe I tried to use to get the muffler back together was too long for the space.  It just wouldn’t fit. 

After trying so many times I was exhausted.  The point here is that I finally gave-in; I gave-up.  I prayed at that moment, out loud, under the car:  Lord, I give up.  I can’t get it done; you gotta do it.  You know me – I don’t have anything left.  I waited a few minutes for the LORD’s answer, and decided to try again.  I pushed it and the whole thing fell apart.  Now, a few years back the old Russell would’ve gotten angry, looked up and said:  Hey…why…what have YOU got against me?  But not this time.  I just said, OK…looks like you have some other plan here.  I crawled out from underneath the car.  I was picking up stuff to put in the trunk and walk home, but as I got to the back of the car, I noticed the muffler clamp on the back end was still attached.  I saw how impossible it would be to put the muffler back together. 

When I waited on the LORD, I saw the solution to the problem that was there all the time.  I backed off, gave it up, listened, and the LORD showed me the right way.  I had taken the wrong approach…I was doing it my way.  I waited until things came unglued before I prayed and trusted.

That’s the way of instruction.  A lot of times you don’t see the LORD’s instruction until retrospect…that time when you stop doing things your way,  look back, and it dawns on you, oh yeah! 

Imagine your life as a sweater being knitted.  God’s the knitter, and you decide to take the needles.  You make a mistake (don’t we always) but God’s not going to continue where you left off; He’s going to take out the error.  That’s called purging.

For You Today

The sweater or muffler in your life may be different than mine, but the principle holds…we can continue struggling with doing it our way…or we can learn early in the process to give-in, and give-up, to God’s teaching.

Tomorrow we’ll have the unveiling of God’s glory in this whole process.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these:                                                                 

         Why Does Bad Stuff Happen to Good People? and Seeing and Following the Light - Part 1      

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] From a sermon, Chastisement, June 7, 1978, Russell Brownworth

Between Pinnacle & Pit - Part 2

Friday, August 19, 2022

Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?  If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.  Hebrews 12: 7b-8

We are continuing with our investigation of the gap between the pinnacle of genuine faith, and the pit of unbelief.  The issue is discipline, and it will drive you to one or the other.  Unbelief will receive discipline (from God), as well as faith.  Any “bad response” will drive you to the pit; God’s advice throughout this passage is to respond well to His correctives, and be lifted to the pinnacle of faith, a joyful relationship with your Creator.  So, the question is begged and on the table:

What is a Good Response?

In our text the writer poses the question:  What child isn’t disciplined?  This is a loaded question in contemporary culture’s parenting mode.  The lack of even the simplest forms of accountability when it comes to civil behavior, or manners, runs rampant in our land.  So is the result – a lack of respect for any kind of authority, and a nation’s character crumbling like the Towers on 9/11.

In fairness, you must consider the “WHY” behind parents not saying “no” to their children, backed-up by consequences.  It stems from a faulty evaluation of who we are at our base nature.  Parents imagine their children are “good”, and unacceptable behavior is merely a phase, which will give way to that inherrent goodness, like cream in a milk bottle, rising to the top. 

Scripture informs us[1] that our sin nature does not give way…it resists any inhibition whatsoever:

For I know how stubborn and obstinate you are. Your necks are as unbending as iron. Your heads are as hard as bronze.  

Isaiah 48:4

So, a child left uncorrected, unaccountable, doesn’t tire of his unacceptable behavior, changing into a fine human being – he keeps pushing the envelope until it breaks.  He abuses parents, peers, and those who get in his way, until God, or the penal system intervene.  Just like a garden that is left unattended, a lack of discipline will evolve into a rowdy mess of weeds, unproductive, unsightly, and totally unstable.  Humans in that category are tempermental, angry, selfish, sociopathic child-adults, unable to play nice with others.

A side-effect to all this is the child infecting the parents.  Many a parent, unwilling to say “no” to their child, has become frustrated that their hands-off routine didn’t work!  They get to that last straw of frustration and begin to abuse their child(ren), in a knee-jerk rebound from their failure.  What then replaces permissiveness is overbearing punishment, frustrating the child beyond any hope of accepting the parent’s intended good will.  The conclusion is that permissive parenting doesn’t work, because it is founded on a faulty premise:  good children left to their own choices make good choices.  How wrong, and how sad.

For You Today

True discipline always begins with love for the child.  Defined by He who IS LOVE, genuine discipline is always accountability-based, instructive, helping a child to learn to obey God’s authority, so he can grow into God’s loved and loving child:

For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  Galatians 5:14

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these:  Punishment Island and Earth Day - Part 4      

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com     Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] The word “stubborn” appears 66 times, relative to human obstinacy – (see the list here)