From Exodus 12: The Blood

“The blood…will be a distinguishing mark for you” (v. 13).

The first Passover was an event of remarkable salvific power.

God, because of His gracious choice of Israel, made a way for their rescue. While pagans tasted God’s judgment, His people sheltered under His mercy. Everything was from God: the stakes, the instructions, and…the sacrifices.

How would God distinguish between the unbelieving and the believing?

Blood. From a spotless lamb. Applied by faith.

There is a reason our New Testament tradition looks back to this event. There is a reason for Passover carrying over into Christian understanding. There is a reason this still speaks to us.

It’s this:

We are still distinguished—covered, sheltered, identified—by the blood of a spotless Lamb. He—Jesus—has been given graciously. We, who believe, would see His blood applied for our sakes by faith.

And, in the end, it’s the only thing that effects our salvation, when judgment is due.

Thanks be to God.

— Tyler

From Psalm 53: Fools All

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There’s no God.’” (v. 1)

We are likely more familiar with Psalm 53 than we think. It’s just that we’re familiar with it in pieces.

Inspired by the Spirit, the Psalmist gives us that famously efficient rebuke of the atheist: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There’s no God.’” And we join him in the condemnation of such ignorant foolishness.

Then, we are given those verses that prove so foundational to our Gospel witness: “There is no one who does good, not even one” (v. 3). These are the very verses Paul alludes to in Romans 3, and they’re often the first stop on our explication of salvation.

So, yeah, we’re familiar with this one.

What we fail to do is actually put the ideas together.

The condemnation of the fool in v. 1 isn’t just decrying willful atheism. It’s revealing the state of our own hearts when we, as all people do, press on in willful sin. Every time we choose sin and self, we are tacitly denying the presence and the authority of Holy God. Sin, as it falsely asserts our own authority, makes fools of us all.

It’s worth putting this Psalm together, then, and turning around.

— Tyler

From Exodus 10: Light in the Dark

“Yet all the Israelites had light where they lived.” (v. 23)

Think about your world.

Think about its moral state. Think about all the things our neighbors are desperate to fill themselves with. Think about the acceleration of hopelessness.

Think about your world…and its darkness.

It doesn’t strike me as all that different from the darkening miracle God performed in Egypt. Ours may be metaphorical (whereas Moses’ act was wholly historical), but I think we know a similar feeling, spiritually speaking.

We are surrounded by a darkness that can be felt (v. 21). Our neighbors live in it.

But us? We, who have heard and believed the Good News of Jesus, the Gospel people?

There is light where we live!

We ought to count that as a gift, pure and simple—but we also ought to do something with it. Bear your light—the grace you’ve received in Christ—to your neighbors. Carry it into their darkness, so that they might glimpse hope, and turn around.

We’re a long way from Egypt…but never far from neighbors who need the Light.

— Tyler

From Psalm 51: Results

“Restore the joy of your salvation to me…. Then I will teach the rebellious your ways.” (vv. 12-13).

Too many of us want to be saved, but not changed.

Too many of us have desired forgiveness, but not purpose.

Too many of us have made a confession without making a commitment.

But David’s plea in Psalm 51 ought to be our prayer. We ought to desire a salvation that doesn’t merely save us from something, but saves us for something.

So what are the right results of a salvation that is rightly received?

Worship.

And witness.

A saved people ought to be a singing people, magnifying the name of the One True God in worship and praise and offering. And a saved people ought to be a sharing people, telling others of the free gift that rescued you and would rescue them, by grace.

Salvation should spur us to worship and to witness. There’s no way you can receive God’s everything…and do nothing.

— Tyler

From Psalm 49: Costly

“Yet these cannot redeem a person or pay his ransom to God—since the price of redeeming him is too costly….” (vv. 7-8)

There is one really compelling reason to not put your trust in wealth:

It cannot afford for you what you really need.

No amount of money, power, or property can satisfy your spiritual bankruptcy. We are dead in sin—and riches won’t revive us. You can’t even hope to buy a suitable sacrifice to cover your account.

These cannot redeem a person.

So our message is only ever Christ: He is our atonement, our gift, and our hope. He has satisfied the too-costly price of our redemption, paying it from heaven’s account, as an act of pure grace. The debt we could never pay—even if we had uncountable earthly resources—He has paid.

So don’t trust (and don’t chase!) worldly wealth. It cannot buy the hope you need. Instead, trust the One who covered your costly redemption.

— Tyler

From Exodus 5: It Gets Harder

“They must go and gather straw for themselves.” (v. 7)

What happens when the believer intersects the unbelieving world?

We might wish that those in the dark—that those who ought to hear and believe and obey, when they encounter the truth of God—would respond favorably. We wish that they would be on our team.

But Moses and Aaron realized the very thing we are realizing even to this day:

The wider world, in its perceived secular strength, isn’t on the team. In fact, without the gracious and elective influence of the Holy Spirit, the unbelieving world closes its own ranks…and antagonizes those who hold forth the truth.

Which is why the work gets harder. Why fair engagement in the marketplace evaporates. Why “tolerance” tolerates everything except a biblical worldview under the One Living God.

The world is much quicker to deny access before it accepts the Message. Every work gets harder for the believer in the world. Yet we stay true—because we’ve seen God answer this challenge before.

— Tyler

From Psalm 46: As Secure as Heaven

“God is our refuge and strength….” (v. 1)

Psalm 46 returns to a familiar theme: God is our refuge and our strength.

Why do the psalmists keep coming back to it? Why would God repeatedly inspire this revelation in their hymns? Because we need to keep coming back to it. Our prayers—our joys and our sorrows and our confessions—are ultimately rooted in our utter dependency. We who have known instability and weakness need to come home to our Helper and Strength, in worship.

Here’s what makes this Psalm’s reminder of that so special:

The psalmist (inspired) gives us a contrasting picture. First, there’s the chaos and tumult of the world around us, which is trembling and toppling and roaring and quaking, wholly unstable. Then, there’s the place where God is, “the holy dwelling place of the Most High” (v. 4). It’s a place that will not be toppled (v. 5).

And that place is our home, our hope. Whatever happens here cannot shake what is there—and there is where we will be with Him, forever.

Did you come back to the Psalms for a picture of security?

Then know that your hope and your help are as secure as heaven itself.

— Tyler

From Psalm 44: The Work

“For they did not take the land by their sword—their arm did not bring them victory—but by your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, because you were favorable toward them.” (v. 3)

Here is the Gospel baseline:

Every establishing work—toward eternity, which we receive by grace through faith—is God’s work.

Israel of old knew this. From Abraham onward, the Promise was the gift of chosenness. Through Moses, the mighty acts of God were revealed in their rescue—but they were always God’s acts. These psalmists know their history.

Which is why they long to see God establish His people still—not only for the moment, but for eternity.

Such is our Gospel assurance—the enduring and everlasting security of hope and of heaven—as it has been accomplished by Him, through Christ.

We cannot affect our rescue, our peace, our establishment. It is His first-place for-us love that does the work.

— Tyler

From Psalm 43: Lead Me

“Send your light and your truth; let them lead me….” (v. 3)

It’s a simple formula:

If you follow anything else…

…if you follow popular opinion or shifting orthodoxies or cultural groupthink…

…if you follow anything else, you will end up anywhere else.

Yet my desire is to be led to Him, into the peace and the hope and the security that is only found in the sure presence of God. I want to be where He is, where worship happens. I want His solid ground.

And nothing else can carry me there. It is only His light, the Light we’ve met in Christ, that illuminates the path. It is only His truth, which we’ve been given in His Word, that keeps me on it.

I want those things to lead me, because following anything else will carry me anywhere else.

— Tyler

Back

Thanks for your patience, readers. We’re back.

Look for this page to be repopulated in the days ahead. And, as ever, feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments below.

Together with you,

Tyler

Paused

Please permit a pause on this page, as our family attends to personal matters (and, by grace, a vacation).

Press on!

— Tyler

From Psalm 34: Near

“The LORD is near the brokenhearted; He saves those crushed in spirit.” (v. 18)

My family has known tragedy and deep deep sorrow this week. So it goes in the valley of death’s shadow.

And yet.

He remains near. He is faithfully present. He comforts us—not imaginarily, but actually.

Rest in His presence, you who weep, for He weeps with us.

— Tyler

From Psalm 33: Skilled

“Sing a new song to Him; play skillfully on the strings, with a joyful shout.” (v. 2)

No one is surprised by the Bible’s insistence on worship. The God who has graciously made Himself known in these words is worthy.

But…are you worshipping skillfully?

The calling of Psalm 33 isn’t just to worship: it’s to worship intentionally, attentively, and creatively. Like a musician who hones her craft over a lifetime of playing, so too should our songs and our prayers and our attention to the Word be honed over a lifetime of church. We ought to strive for higher praise and deeper devotion. You start with “Jesus Loves Me” on a kazoo—but there are rhythms and melodies and lyrics waiting to burst forth from those who have put in the work of worship.

May we, then, worship skillfully—and maybe try our hands at the ten-stringed harp.

— Tyler

From Psalm 32: Bottled Up

Maybe you’re like me….

Maybe confessing comes slowly, whereas denial comes naturally. Maybe, because of fear or guilt or whatever, you think keeping sin covered up is the safer bet. Maybe bottling it all up seems better.

I know the feeling…

…and I know all the feelings that come with it. Like the Psalmist, I‘ve known the prolonged misery that accompanies secret-kept sins. And I’ve sensed the clear truth of the Word, the promised conviction of God’s Holy Spirit, His hand heavy on me.

Maybe you’re like me.

And maybe we need to confess—now and not later, fully and not in part, guilty and needing mercy.

May we who are faithful pray to Him immediately (v. 6), and may those prayers ever be steeped in repentance.

— Tyler

From Genesis 39: Day After Day

“Although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her.” (v. 10)

Day after day.

That’s the reality of temptation’s timetable.

It’s not one moment on one day. It’s not overcome in a mere instance. It’s almost never in the past.

It’s day after day.

Joseph, in Potiphar’s house, withstood the wiles of his master’s wife—and he did so day after day. But how? By never letting the momentary matter more than the everlasting. He knew that his life and his work were gifts from God to be stewarded for God. Jeopardizing all of that could never be worth it to Joseph.

But he had to make that assessment and resist that temptation and preserve his integrity day after day.

It’s a good reminder, an example worth following.

—Tyler

From Genesis 35: Crowded

“Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you. Purify yourselves and wash your clothes.” (v.2)

It doesn’t take long.

Jacob—the man who has known every grace from God, the man who met God face-to-face—has a problem. His family is called to return to the home for right worship, Bethel. But, either by will or because of ignorance, they’ve accumulated a bunch of “other gods”: pagan idols, cultural superstitions, popular beliefs. It’s been, like, ten minutes since God spared Jacob and restored him to his estranged brother—yet his family is not worshipping with purity and sincerity.

It doesn’t take long for right worship to become crowded.

What have you permitted in your family’s baggage? What are you giving your time and attention and heart to, even though it all ought to be His? How have you wandered from the God who has been faithful?

Check your schedules and your accounts and your search histories. Get rid of the stuff that crowds right worship. And come home.

—Tyler

From Psalm 28: Help

“…my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped.” (v. 7)

I need help.

I need encouragement. I need a strength that far exceeds my own for the living of these days. I need the confidence of salvation and the comfort of a Shepherd.

I need help.

And I only find it when I hand my heart over to Him.

If my heart only trusts in me or in what the world has to offer, I’ll never know peace. I’ll only know insecurity. There’s no help to be found inside myself. And there’s even less in the world.

But…when my heart trusts Holy God, whom I know in Christ, I am helped.

—Tyler

From Genesis 32: First Move

“I have sent this message to inform my lord, in order to seek your favor.” (v. 5)

Somewhere, out there, right now…

…you’ve got someone.

It ended badly. Y’all had words. The whole thing is unresolved. You’re estranged, unreconciled, and stuck.

A broken relationship—and the sins from which we have never repented—is both a specter in the past and an obstacle in your path.

So what should you do about it?

Learn from Jacob (who, by the way, is totally freaked out about seeing the brother he betrayed):

Make the first move.

Repent in your heart, yes, but also seek reconciliation. Be contrite. Speak honestly, not ignoring your history, but instead plainly stating your desire for peace. And maybe be a little bit generous on the way.

Restoring broken relationships is hard—not because of them, but because of our own brokenness. Pray, and pick up the phone.

—Tyler

From Psalm 26: Prescription

“I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, LORD, raising my voice in thanksgiving and telling about your wondrous works” (vv. 6-7).

Have you ever wished that the Bible would just tell you what to do?

(You shouldn’t have to look too hard here. The Bible is filled with direct instruction for your good—and for God’s glory in your life.)

You might not have been looking for a prescription in this Psalm’s prayer…

…but try this:

Repent, and choose moral purity.

Worship in the church.

Live gratefully.

Give others the Good News.

Is there more to the Bible’s instruction? Obviously. But could a faithful life reasonably be less than this? No, not really.

If you will choose moral purity, worship the Lord with the gathered body—all while cherishing contentment and sharing the Gospel—you’ll find yourself on the only God-honoring path.

That’s a tidy enough prescription.

—Tyler

From Psalm 25: One and not the Other

“Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation….” (v. 5).

Why do we turn to God? Why do we confess Christ? What are we after in the Spirit?

For the vast majority of us, the answer can be stated simply:

Salvation.

We have trusted the goodness of the Gospel. We have been convinced and convicted by conversionary preaching. We who walked in darkness have been radically redeemed by the light and the hope of Jesus’ finished work…and His free gift of forgiveness.

We have turned to God for salvation, for life.

But did we stop there? Did we get what we wanted and go no further? Have we learned the essentials of the one Message…and closed our ears?

The Psalmist reminds us, in the Spirit, that we ought to continually seek truth, which is singular. He prays that we would want to be taught by Holy God. He repeatedly implores the believer—the rescued people!—to seek God’s way, will, and Word. What salvation begins, devotion grows, for His glory in our lives.

We, culturally, tend to desire one but not the other. We prefer a Gospel without discipleship, conviction, or apologetics. Yet it ought not be so!

The God who led you out of death is still leading you. Seek His truth in His Word all your days.

— Tyler