From Deuteronomy 8: Say the Blessing

“When you eat and are full, you will bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.” (v. 10)

I don’t know everything about you.

I don’t know who you are, where you are, or when you are reading this.

But, noting my ignorance, I remain willing to make a guess:

You have enough food. You have known God’s gracious provision. You might not have had exactly what you wanted when you wanted it, but, overall, you have eaten and are full.

Which prompts a question:

How infrequent is your prayer of gratitude?

I have prayed, like, a million-and-a-half “thank yous.” Yet I still find myself, though squarely and totally satisfied, neglecting gratitude in the moment. I treat my own fullness as a foregone conclusion. Though I know better, I still forget.

Make today the day you bless God for His faithful provision. When you sit down to your meal, pray a blessing on His name. And, when you are full, praise Him for His generous goodness.

— Tyler

From Deuteronomy 7: Inventory

“Do not bring any detestable thing into your house, or you will be set apart for destruction like it. You are to abhor and detest it utterly because it is set apart for destruction.” (v. 26)

Take a look around.

Like, right now.

Because, if we’re serious about the life God has given us, it’s worth examining our inventory.

I know we like to cover ourselves with too-fluid definitions of “Christian freedom,” but, honestly…

…are you keeping detestable things around?

The more our stuff looks like the stuff of the world—intoxicants, pornographic media, syncretistic idols—the less we look like the people God has called us to be. If we have trusted Him for the distinct and singular salvation that comes in Christ, then our stuff ought to be distinct, too. The more we permit the worldly in our world, the less we reflect His life in theirs.

So take an inventory…

…and, if anything shouldn’t belong, be rid of it.

— Tyler

From Deuteronomy 6: Righteousness Won’t Be Ours

“Righteousness will be ours if we are careful to follow every one of these commands before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’” (v. 25)

It really was pretty simple:

God’s people, if they obeyed God’s commands, would be counted as righteous in God’s sight. If we lived rightly—according to God’s sovereign boundaries of rightness—we would have righteousness.

You, of course, know how this turned out.

Every generation of humankind—from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to everyone ever—has failed the test of obedience. God’s instructions are for our good, but we think we know better. Instead of honoring every one of these commands, we struggle to honor even one.

Righteousness won’t be ours—for none of us have lived righteously.

How great, then, is the Good News? How great is the grace and mercy of Christ, who bore away all our transgressions, our Substitute? How great is the gift—Jesus, who took on all our sin and all our debt and all our penalty—given for us by God?

How great is the Gospel?

God made the One who knew no son to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

For those who have believed, repented, and been baptized in Jesus’ name, the righteousness we own won’t be ours.

It’ll be His.

— Tyler

From Psalm 94: Filled

“When I am filled with cares, your comfort brings me joy.” (v. 19)

The world can, in fact, fill you…

…but only with what it has to offer.

So you can be filled with stress, anxiety, and fear. You can drink from a ceaseless fountain of corruption, and turning on the tap is as simple as scrolling social media or watching cable news. You can explore the deep dark cave of self-justification on those long and restless nights, searching for an answer inside yourself.

You can be filled with cares.

Or…

…you can come to Him.

He will take your cares, if you’ll trust Him. He will pour truth into you, if you’ll listen. When you come to Him—by faith, in repentance, receiving His grace in Christ—He will fill you with His own presence.

These are His comforts, and they overwhelm the cares with His care.

— Tyler

From Psalm 93: Reliable

“The Lord reigns! He is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, enveloped in strength. The world is firmly established; it cannot be shaken.” (v. 1)

Did you wake up worried today?

The LORD reigns.

Do you feel weak?

He is enveloped in strength.

Are you confused and concerned?

His world is firmly established, and His throne has been there from the beginning.

How can we have confidence in the living of these days?

His testimonies are reliable.

Let Psalm 93 be a banner over your life. Trust the reliable God it reliably relates. And take heart: The One who has reigned will reign forever—and you are His.

— Tyler

From Psalm 92: Thrive

“The righteous thrive like a palm tree and grow like a cedar tree in Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they thrive in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, healthy and green, to declare, “The Lord is just; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” (vv. 12-15)

Where do the roots of your righteousness grow deep?

Where is flourishing founded?

Where are the fruit of faith enduringly budded?

Where does the believer thrive?

In worship. On the Lord’s Day. As the church.

When we gather, declaring His goodness and His faithfulness and His might, we grow. Where God’s church is, so too is His Spirit. We who desire a flourishing faith will only find its foundations while faithfully worshiping.

So go. So gather. So glorify Him in His house.

And thrive.

— Tyler

From Deuteronomy 1: The Long Wander

“It is an eleven-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea by way of Mount Seir. In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, Moses told the Israelites everything the Lord had commanded him to say to them.” (vv. 2-3)

It’s hard for us to hear.

(Mostly because we are culturally trained to duck guilt.)

But there’s a reasonable, biblical explanation for some of the long seasons you’ve spent wandering, frustrated and stuck.

Disobedience.

An unwillingness to go where God leads as God leads.

Rebellion.

Sin.

It should have taken Israel eleven days to get from God’s mountain to the Promised Land. God led their steps the whole way. He brought them to the doorstep, open the door, and impelled them to go.

But they didn’t. They distrusted and disobeyed, as if the God who loved and led them had lost His mind. They were called to faithful obedience—one last step on a short journey—but they chose self and comfort and disobedience instead.

So began their long wander.

It’s like this in our hearts, too, when we reject Him and His way. He leads and loves still—but we lose sight of our purpose and His provision when we refuse His plan. A straight line turns into a long wander, when we don’t follow faithfully.

Examine the places where rebellion produces resistance in you—and turn to follow Him again.

— Tyler

From Psalm 90: “Let us see…”

“Let your work be seen by your servants, and your splendor by their children.” (v. 16)

If you haven’t prayed this prayer in awhile, let me encourage you:

Pray this.

Pray that, as we have worshiped and worked and wondered and worried, God would make His own works known to us.

Pray that He might let us see His sovereign grace in action.

Pray for the gift of radical, visible, countable miracles in the life of the church.

Pray that our kids would get to know His might and His majesty.

Pray, like Moses prayed, for the invisible God to be seen among us.

And then…keep your eyes open.

— Tyler

From Numbers 27: Next

“So Moses appealed to the Lord, “May the Lord, the God who gives breath to all, appoint a man over the community who will go out before them and come back in before them, and who will bring them out and bring them in, so that the Lord’s community won’t be like sheep without a shepherd.” (vv. 15-17)

On the doorstep of the Promised Land, Moses gets the news:

This is where he will die.

So he appeals to the LORD. He makes an earnest request in prayer. Moses steps up to the Judge’s bench to plead a case.

Question:

What would you have asked for? What would you have argued for? What would you hope the Judge would do for you?

Odds are that you and I would plead for more days, more life, a little bit more of a taste of the Promise.

That’s sensible.

But what does Moses ask for?

Give the people another shepherd.

Moses pleads for God to continue in His sovereign care for Israel. He doesn’t skirt the judgment he’s owed. He simply asks that God would bless the people with the next leader.

Now consider your faith life:

Are you living merely in pursuit of more and better days for you? Are you only ever concerned with the extension of your own life?

Or are you praying for, investing in, seeking out and calling up those who will inherit the church?

Maybe we should be making more pleas for those who will serve, shepherd, and steward what comes next.

— Tyler

From Numbers 22: Derailed

“Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the path to confront me. And now, if it is evil in your sight, I will go back.” (v. 34)

How do you account for obstacles?

In our very American way, we tend to see them as things uniformly conquerable, things for the determined to overcome. An obstacle is an opportunity—to press on and press through, to persevere.

And, look, I’m not advocating for turning around and giving up at the first sign of resistance…

…but is it at least possible that some obstacles are actually protective?

In Numbers 22, the country prophet Balaam is caught in a geopolitical conflict. And, even though his calling sent him into the counsel of a pagan king, it’s fraught with unholy works. So God, by grace, stands in the way—invisible to all but the donkey!—leaving Balaam’s purposes derailed.

God says, “If you had pressed on, you would have died.” The man was completely unaware.

So maybe—just maybe—that hiccup in your plan and progress is actually protective. Maybe you and I, when we are derailed, ought to seek God’s face in prayer on the way to persevering.

Maybe He’s the One derailing us, for our good.

— Tyler

From Psalm 86: Undivided

“Teach me your way, Lord, and I will live by your truth. Give me an undivided mind to fear your name.” (v. 11)

I haven’t kept count…

…but I think I have thought about, like, seventy-eight things so far today. (And it’s still pretty early.)

Of all the ways I might describe my own mind, undivided almost certainly wouldn’t make the list. I vacillate between distraction and distress, between worry and waste—and the things of God are left to sort of fit in wherever. Maybe He gets some of my mind part of the time, but He’s not getting all of it.

So it’s comforting to me to see one such as David praying that God would give Him, as a gift of grace, an undivided mind. We, in our fallen state, wrestle fractured thought-lives. But God, who is gracious, can heal us, captivate us, and pull us toward worship when we ask.

I’m praying for an undivided mind today, for His glory in me.

— Tyler

From Psalm 84: A Nest Near the Altar

“Even a sparrow finds a home, and a swallow, a nest for herself where she places her young — near your altars, Lord of Armies, my King and my God.” (v. 3)

We find ourselves generally ready to jibe with Psalm 85: How lovely is the LORD’s house, and how happy are the people who worship Him there! Joy and hope and strength and favor—all gifts of His grace—are found there.

I, too, would trade a thousand days of anything else for one day of genuine worship in His presence.

Which is why we ought to organize our churches around stellar kids’ programming, contemporary comforts, and a host of amenities and preferences, right? We ought to get the messiness of kid-noise and the strain of parenting out of the picture if we expect others to want to worship. Otherwise they’ll just prefer another Sunday off.

(I am, of course, joking.)

The picture the Psalmist gives us isn’t one where families drop their kids off in a program classroom. It’s not a model of easy, catered worship. The Psalmist, in telling us of the joys of God’s “house,” says (in effect), Bring your kids close in and close up. Worship with them. Don’t worry about the noise or the inconvenience—and don’t worry about whether you’re strong enough to parent them through a few more hours—because here, in the house of worship, you will know His strength.

Let’s rediscover the joy of worship together, and let’s—like the Psalmist’s sparrows and swallows—lead our whole families to Him.

— Tyler

From Psalm 83: Silence Breaker

“God, do not keep silent. Do not be deaf, God; do not be quiet.” (v. 1)

It might seem like the other voices are winning.

It might sound like godlessness will win the day.

You might sense the increasing and ceaseless advance of those who oppose the truth, of those who despise the One True God.

We see it all in the seeming silence of God.

Yet we pray:

Do not keep silent. Do not be deaf. Do not be quiet.

This God will shatter the silence—in judgment, yes, but also with a piercing grace. He will prove righteous. He will call humankind to repentance. And He will speak and be known—by His Word, and when He comes.

The seeming silence of God will break, and the world will be remade right. Pray that hearts are turned to Him first.

— Tyler

From Numbers 14: Part B

“The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion. But he will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation.” (v. 18)

When you read a verse like this, it draws you in. It encourages your heart. Your hands might even go up in worship. It’s good news!

The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in faithful love, forgiving iniquity and rebellion.

Yes!

We’re good with Part A.

But what about Part B?

But He will not leave the guilty unpunished….

We have to know that we do not get to revel in one and refuse the other. The Good News is an invitation, and God’s patient grace is the very thing that affords our opportunity to respond, in the Spirit (see 2 Peter 3:9). Yet judgment is still promised. The unrepentant receive what is rightly owed. And the patience of God meets its terminus—either when the dead are judged, or when Christ returns to judge the whole earth.

The bad news is what makes the Good News so good.

Let’s tell the world.

— Tyler

From Numbers 13: Negative

“So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size.” (v. 22)

Imagine with me that, on the other side of adventure and effort and engagement, there is real Kingdom fruit.

Imagine that our calling, though it would carry is into and through an adversarial culture, will reap a Gospel harvest by God’s grace.

Imagine that our work and our witness in the world are worth it, though we are tempted to worry.

Imagine all that is so.

Would you go? Would you be obedient? Would you press on according to that calling, trusting the Faithful God to faithfully accomplish His purposes through you?

Or would you complain, make excuses, and stay on this side of what’s promised?

Such is the quandary of Israel’s negative scouting report in Numbers 13.

How is history speaking to you today?

— Tyler

From Psalm 79: It’s Not (Just) about You

“God of our salvation, help us,   for the glory of your name. Rescue us and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake.” (v. 9)

Our experience of salvation is so personal that we sometimes forget its purpose.

Yes, this God loves you, and His Son is given so that you might know everlasting and abundant and forgiven life. The Gospel is for your specific good, by grace.

But it’s not about you.

(OK, it’s not just about you.)

The salvation that is for your good is ultimately about the glory of His name. Everything about the Gospel—from the Promise to the Passion—is the theater for God’s glory. The whole of history magnifies Jesus—and that includes your story!

We worship with gratitude. And we do it, because the freedom we’ve received is intensely and intimately known by us.

But all of it—His help, His rescue, His atonement—is about His glory.

— Tyler

From Psalm 78: Tell

“We will not hide them from their children, but will tell a future generation the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, his might, and the wondrous works he has performed.” (v. 4)

This is the parent’s—and the grandparent’s, and the mentor’s—first responsibility.

We have to tell them the truth about God!

If we raise them toward every worldly benchmark—if we strive for test scores and sports achievements and activities—but we don’t tell them the Gospel and its history, we fail them. They’ll see their purpose and their place in history in the moment only. They’ll miss the big picture while settling for lesser gods.

Worse, the further generations—the ones we won’t live to see—will believe even less. Who will be there to tell them?

So don’t hide what matters in between and underneath all the stuff of earth.

Tell them.

— Tyler

From Leviticus 23: The Edge

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you are not to reap all the way to the edge of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the resident alien; I am the Lord your God.” (v. 22)

Let’s presume you have handled your resources wisely.

Let’s presume you have budgeted thoughtfully. Let’s presume you have prioritized the needs of your family over your wants. Let’s presume you have given—perhaps the biblical preference of a tithe, or at least a suitably generous offering in worship.

Let’s presume you are a wise steward, a wise manager.

Then let’s ask the question:

Did you leave any margin?

You ought to have a deliberate plan for every resource God gives you. But that plan—for His glory and your own good—should also consider the good of others. Not everyone needs to budget significant dollars for additional giving, but everyone ought to leave some room at the edges, so that they might still faithfully engage the needs of their neighbors.

If we squeeze every penny out of our plans for our own purposes—if we reap all the way to the boundary—we’ll count giving as a calling that is beyond us. So plan to leave a little in an envelope at the edge. Plan for a little giveable margin.

Your neighbors will thank God for you.

— Tyler

From Leviticus 16: Sabbath Plans

“It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you must practice self-denial; it is a permanent statute.” (v. 31)

Funny thing about the Sabbath:

The Bible’s instruction for rest—on a day that is set apart for the Lord and His things—remains perfectly clear. We work out of our worship, and the rest of our week flows from the rest in our week. So we honor the Sabbath, a Lord’s Day, which He has given by grace.

What we miss, however, is the instruction for self-denial.

We retranslate rest as leisure. We think, so long as we don’t give it all over for work—so long as we worship, and then play—we’re hitting the Sabbath mark.

Yet God’s instruction is this: You must practice self-denial.

What does a self-denial Sabbath look like?

It looks like worshipping, even when it’s hard to get the kids out the door, and even when all the other Sunday opportunities lure you.

It looks like intentionally choosing not doing, not dashing, not driving to the fun you’re afraid of missing.

It looks like saying “no” on Sunday to things that get your “yes” on Saturday.

Will we get it all the way right? Probably not. But the instruction is for our good.

Maybe a little more self-denial belongs on our Sunday schedules.

— Tyler

From Psalm 75: The Cup

“For there is a cup in the Lord’s hand, full of wine blended with spices, and he pours from it. All the wicked of the earth will drink, draining it to the dregs.” (v. 8)

It’s true.

There is a cup.

It belongs to the Judge, and its contents are just, to be given to the wicked in judgment.

Sinners deserve it, every drop, to the dregs.

But, by grace, God has given the cup to His own Son, and not to a sinner like me. Jesus hadn’t earned it, but He took it. Jesus didn’t deserve it, but He made it His own. Jesus despised the very notion of it—but He desired us more.

Thank God for the One who took the cup, the One who became sin for you so that you could have His life, when you believe.

— Tyler