Daily Bible Devotionals

Grab your Bible & experience the Groundworks Ministries Podcast as Steve Wiggins leads us through the full chapter of Psalm 118. Click the links below to watch or listen now!

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“Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Laud Him, all you peoples! For His merciful kindness is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 117:1-2 (NKJV)

You have probably heard of the literary term “oxymoron.”  An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.  For instance, “Jumbo Shrimp.”  How can something be jumbo and shrimpy at the same time?  How about “deafening silence”?  How can something silent be deafening?  Or, “atom bomb”?  Can something with the smallest physical component create the largest explosion?  Describing today’s Psalm involves a bit of an oxymoron.  Psalm 117 is atomic in size.  In two short verses (the smallest chapter in the Bible) yet, it communicates a mushroom cloud of theology!  Its message: Gentiles should praise the Lord because His kindness and His Word (truth) endure forever.  In short, Gentiles can have a relationship with the Lord, too!

Somehow, throughout the generations, that message has gotten lost on the Jewish community.  The understanding of God’s covenant promises among most religious Jewish people does not leave much room for His blessing of the Gentiles.  Perhaps, some rabbis may concede that after the flood of Noah, God made general promises to all mankind, but they hold to the belief that the Jewish soul has the unique capacity to know God personally.  They reject the idea that Gentiles could enter into the same relationship with the Lord.  That idea of nationalism and racism permeated Jewish culture, even in the days of the Apostle Paul.  Paul declared that his former zealousness for Judaism had kept him from seeing the “mystery” of the Scripture, namely, Messiah’s true mission, and that Gentiles could receive eternal salvation along with Jews who received Messiah Jesus as Lord.

“ I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.” Colossians 1:24-29 (NKJV)

“For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins.’” Romans 11:25-27 (NKJV)

“O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 116:16-19 (NKJV)

Years ago, USA Today published an article about how eating oatmeal dropped cholesterol levels. Oatmeal sales skyrocketed.  Isn’t it amazing how people will scramble to the stores to buy-up products that may add a few years to their lives, yet they do not rush to find a Christian who could share the way of ETERNAL life?  Any follower of Jesus can find today’s psalm relatable, for it is a “Thanksgiving For Deliverance From Death.”  Truly, thanksgiving is what every believer should exclaim when we remember how we were dead in our transgressions (Ephesians 2:1-10). Yet, we have received eternal life through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross!  

The writer responsible for Psalm 116 is not ashamed of his prior near-death state.  But, even if he was, he is more concerned with telling everyone at church about how God has healed him.  We should take that same perspective concerning being honest about our spiritual transformation.  We should neither glorify nor be ashamed of our past; we should boast in the Lord’s work!  Furthermore, we should not be afraid to call others to make a public profession of their faith.  We are not trying to embarrass people for their past.  We are giving them an opportunity to thank and praise Jesus for salvation in the midst of the assembly of believers.  If we will not make our confession in a room full of believers who love us, we probably will not make a stand for Him out in the world where people are hostile to Him.

“Therefore, whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 10:32-33 (NKJV)

Jesus did not consider the gospel invitation as shaming.  He used it as an opportunity to glorify His power to transform!

“Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, ‘Who touched Me?’ When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, ‘Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, “Who touched Me?”’ But Jesus said, ‘Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.’  Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. And He said to her, ‘Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace.’” Luke 8:43-48 (NKJV)

“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of Your truth. Why should the Gentiles say, ‘So where is their God?’ But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell; they have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk; nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them; so is everyone who trusts in them.” Psalm 115:1-8 (NKJV)

Whenever I teach a songwriting session at a worship conference, I begin by drawing a skeleton on the whiteboard, the type of skeleton that hangs on a steel stand as you find in a medical school.  I ask my students if any medical student believes a skeleton is an actual person.  Of course, they all say no.  Then I ask if we took surplus human organs, muscles, skin, and hair and affixed them properly to the skeleton so that it was equipped and looked like a person, would it then become a person?  Again, no.  That’s because a person isn’t a person without a soul.  Neither is a hit song a collection of words and ideas.  It must have “soul”.  Man can fashion a very convincing idol, but it will never be a real god.  As long as it depends on you, it can never save you.  The apostle Paul articulated this very idea at Mars Hill.

“Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.  Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.  And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, “For we are also His offspring.” Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.’” Acts 17:22-31 (NKJV)

Many people at Mars Hill laughed when Paul spoke of the resurrection.  But the psalmist of Psalm 115 addressed it as well.  

“The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence. But we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 115:17-18 (NKJV)  (see also: Luke 20:37-38)

“When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, Judah became His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion. The sea saw it and fled; Jordan turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs. What ails you, O sea, that you fled? O Jordan, that you turned back? O mountains, that you skipped like rams? O little hills, like lambs? Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters.” Psalm 114:1-8 (NKJV)

When we think of a sanctuary, we typically think of a church.  So, what is interesting about the psalmist’s statement today (that Judah became God’s sanctuary) is that the priests came from the tribe of Levi.  The Levites were in charge of all the articles of worship, both in the desert tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple.  We would naturally assume that Levi became God’s sanctuary, so why Judah?

Sanctuary does not always refer to religious practice.  It can denote a safe place. For instance, when a person runs into a certain city, a church, or a foreign embassy to claim “sanctuary,” they are not necessarily claiming a religious right; they are claiming that they are endangered and have fled to safety.  With respect to today’s psalm, Levi would be the tribe to whom the Lord would make His presence known in religious matters, but Judah is the tribe He chose to carry the Messianic line.  And the psalmist tells us today that God began to establish that choice at the Passover when Israel left Egypt.  Jacob had prophesied concerning the matter in his last words, recorded in Genesis 49, 400 years before the Exodus.

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.” Genesis 49:10 (NKJV)

We are safe, then, to assume that the central subject of Psalm 114 is Messiah.  While Messiah Jesus is fully God and fully man, the human line (through whom Messiah would be born) was preserved through Judah.  But the presence of natural signs and wonders (earthquakes, seas, and rivers parting and water gushing from rocks) testify that while the humanity of Messiah was preserved through Judah, the eternal deity of Messiah was present with Israel in the wilderness, as well.

“Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ [Messiah]. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” 1 Corinthians 10:1-5 (NKJV)

Just as Israel in the wilderness had a faith choice to make, that Messiah was in their midst, we must also choose to believe in Him as we wander the wilderness of our generation.  God still beckons us to “Come out” of this world and believe in Jesus!

“Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord! Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its going down the Lord’s name is to be praised.” Psalm 113:1-3 (NKJV)

Today’s psalmist (author unknown) exhorts us to praise the Lord’s name “from the rising of the sun to its going down.”  Where else have we seen that “all day, every day” approach to worship?

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NKJV)

So, we have a direct connection between seeking God’s Word, meditating on and conversing about it, and praising Him continually.  Because we live in the world, we are attuned to its powers and authorities within our culture, the powers and authorities that oppress us.  Only the Bible tells us how we can transcend this world and attach ourselves, not only to something bigger than us but to one true God, the One who is high above the nations yet graciously and mercifully desires to commune with mankind.

“The Lord is high above all nations, His glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, Who dwells on high, Who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth?” Psalm 113:4-6 (NKJV)

And exactly how do we benefit from His grace?  The Bible says we are co-inheritors with Messiah (Romans 8:17) and that we will rule and reign with Him (Revelation 5:10)

“This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself." 2 Timothy 2:11-13 (NKJV)

Unlike the World, God neither prefers nor promotes the proud self-seeker.  He chooses those who humbly reach out to Him and who realize they are spiritually poor, needy, and barren.  

“He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that He may seat him with princes - with the princes of His people. He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 113:7-9 (NKJV)

Now, that is something to praise the Lord about!

“Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; the generation of the upright will be blessed.” Psalm 112:1-2 (NKJV)

Today’s psalm, the “Blessed State of the Righteous,” takes no time pointing out the relationship between blessedness and delighting in God’s Word.  We are immediately reminded of the message that began the Book of Psalms.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.” Psalm 1:1-2 (NKJV)

If we delight in God’s Word, we will seek its counsel every day and allow its instruction to preside over our thoughts and actions throughout the day.  In fact, that was God’s direction when He gave the Commandments to Israel.

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NKJV)

If we have a culture that stresses we know the Bible and teaches it “diligently to our children,” then we better understand Commandment #5.  Commandment #5 presumes that the Israelite parents would live in obedience to God’s Word.

“Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.” Deuteronomy 5:16 (NKJV)

We honor our “father and mother” (those who taught us God’s Word) when we demonstrate that we have received their values by delighting in the Bible, as well.  Our culture of faith is to be passed down to our children throughout the generations, in addition to affecting our present generation of unbelievers for the gospel.

“But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble. My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil.” Proverbs 4:18-27 (NKJV)

Grab your Bible & experience the Groundworks Ministries Podcast as Steve Wiggins leads us through the full chapter of Psalm 111. Click the links below to watch or listen now!

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“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.’ The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power; in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not relent, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ The Lord is at Your right hand; He shall execute kings in the day of His wrath. He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries. He shall drink of the brook by the wayside; therefore He shall lift up the head.”  Psalm 110:1-7 (NKJV)

Today’s psalm is an “Announcement of the Messiah’s Reign,” and it prompts us to ask a few questions.  1) If Messiah is eternal and has existed from eternity past (Micah 5:2; Revelation 13:8), why did He wait so long (after Adam and Eve sinned) before coming to earth and redeeming mankind? 2) If Jesus has conquered sin and death, why is He sitting at the right hand of God, waiting for Him to make Jesus’ enemies His footstool?  The simple answer is that God, in His wisdom, has ordained a timing by which history’s events are to unfold.  And His timing will not be hastened or shortened even one second before or after He has ordained things to take place.  There is no panic in heaven, only planning.  We should praise the Lord for that, because within the window of His timing, we have been given the opportunity to put our faith and trust in Jesus for salvation!

“The Lord is not slow [slack] concerning His promise, as some count slowness [slackness], but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 (NKJV)

The idea of waiting on the Lord is intimately related to our trusting in Him because it communicates that we do not need to see the results of His faithfulness in order to validate our faith in Him.  We simply must trust that if He said it, then it will certainly come to pass.  And that should be enough for us.  It is also why His Word (the Bible) is essential to our faithfulness.  In the Bible, we are reminded over and over about His past faithfulness.  If we are to consistently live by faith, we cannot do so without that daily reminder in His Word.  (Romans 10:17)  Another concept to consider is when God leads with His strength, we are encouraged to volunteer.

“Then Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam sang on that day, saying: When leaders lead in Israel, when the people willingly offer themselves, bless the Lord!” Judges 5:1-2 (NKJV)

Finally, we are introduced to the Old Testament idea of Messiah as High Priest, not according to the Levitical Priesthood, but in the order of Melchizedek.  (Genesis 14:18-20; Hebrews 5:7-9) Again, some things in the Bible may seem obscure in the moment, yet they unfold in God’s timing to reveal His wisdom and perfect plan.