#35 Aug 31, 2015
2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.
Psalm 127:1
Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the guards stand watch in vain.
Ps. 127 is one of the Psalms of “Ascents” (Ps 120 -134). These are poetic songs sung by pilgrims ascending to Jerusalem for the three required festivals; Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacle during the time Israel was a Theocracy (Exodus 23:14–17). In the Near East poetry is used to express what is important in life and culture. As all Scripture these passages are important for the Church today and for the followers of Jesus because these passages speak to the reality of life and to the problems we face in our culture. (see Calvin Institute of Christian Worship)
The verse we are memorizing is part of a Psalm of Ascent. Psalm 127 includes much of our daily lives: the places where we live, our cities, our comings and goings, and half the Psalms speak to family. The Psalm flies in the face of Planed Parenthood, legal abortions, disregard for life, and hold up children as one of the major blessings of God. The Psalm starts with our personal environment, our homes. It moves on to our extended environment, our towns, cities, and our state, country, and world. It moves on to personal actions, eating and sleeping. The Psalm ends with the most personal of all our actions, intimacy, conceiving, bearing, and raising children. The overriding theme is that God is in control and we trust Him by following Jesus. Make God part of your life!
That is what verse 1 is talking about “unless the Lord builds the house the builder builds in vain”. When we retired we started an addition in 2010 that would take about a year. We did not know God was going to call us to do a very specific ministry overseas. Satan placed obstacles in our path, raising funds, illness, and militant Islam but the addition to our home was not one of them. We just received our Certificate of Occupancy, Aug. 2015. Praise the Lord! God builds our house by keeping our priorities of serving Him first! God also protects us in our cities and country. We are no longer a Christian country, yet God protects us. Make no mistake; God is in control of every situation either by His allowing or by direct intervention. Let us pray and ask Him to build our lives and protect our nation.
© 2015 cgvw all rights reserved.
Heavenhigh 