Category Archives: Scripture

Value in hypothetical questions?

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Certainly some hypothetical questions are a waste of time.   Yet others can lead to profitable reflections.  Recently, a few of us from CPCC considered Psalm 124, and it’s opening lines — which are practically in the “hypothetical question” format.

124:1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side-let Israel now say – 2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3 then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;          

Here, amidst the songs of ascent (often sung by pilgrims heading up to Jerusalem) the psalmist calls his fellows to consider “What if God was not on our side…”  The thought is far more than sobering!  They would’ve been swallowed up, overwhelmed without even a fight!  In this case, a hypothetical question leads to greater humility and greater praise to the LORD our God.  As the psalm concludes –

8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.       

How might your life today be different, if the Lord were not so graciously on your side? In many, many ways, I imagine!  Perhaps you ought to sing His praises over those very things!

Standing by the grace of God

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When the Lord brings something to your attention more than once, you should definitely pay attention. Earlier this year, the text of Psalm 20 was before me, and my heart grabbed it as my own testimony of how I have come to another year.

Psalm 20:6-8 Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.   

Today the text was before me again in my morning devotions. And as the first of July fast approaches, so does my anniversary as Pastor of CPCC — July 1995 to the present. And this longevity in ministry here is not by anything less than the grace of God to me and to many. Praise be to the Lord our God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Redeemer of all those who belong to the Savior Jesus Christ.