The Passion in the Psalms

I just have to tell you all how much I have enjoyed the first several days of our time together in the book of Psalms! The different angles that the posts are presenting and the emotional outcries for our God are simply overwhelming!!! You ALL continue to amaze me with your honesty, your "realness", your insights, and your love for our Lord. We are now in the book that is considered to be the halfway mark of the Bible. HALFWAY LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! Congratulations and well done!!! I know for a fact that Jesus is pleased with your steadfast reading of His word!!!

All five of the Psalms that we are reading today are written by king David. I have the honor today of having probably THE MOST well known Psalm included in my post. Psalm 23 is one of the MOST beloved chapters in all of Scripture. There is a good reason for that! I have been saying in some of my comments so far on this incredible book that Psalms is like an oasis in the middle of the Bible and that it is a balm for our souls. If Psalm 23 does not give you a feeling of a loving "balm" over your soul, I would be at a loss to find one that does! BUT, because this Psalm is so familiar to us and one that MANY of us have memorized, we run into the danger of familiarity. When we are familiar and comfortable with something or, especially, someone, we have a strong tendency to take them for granted. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read this amazing Psalm again for the "first" time and let it fall all over you afresh and anew. Let it start at the top of your head and run down your face and the rest of your body with a "balm" of love, protection, safety, peace, and justice. I would challenge you to read it in several different versions so that you can get the rich meaning of all the words in this beloved Psalm (if you click on the list of the readings below it will take you to the website where you can read a passage of Scripture in ALL the different versions that are available to us today...PLEASE take advantage of this resource!).

But, also tucked carefully in these five Psalms is the passage of Scripture that most clearly depicts and foreshadows the Passion of our Lord Jesus in all of the Old Testament (along with chapters 52 and 53 in the book of Isaiah). Psalm 22 is that picture of the most amazing love that this world has ever known or will ever know. Verse 1 of this chapter tells how God will forsake Christ in his moment of agony. Verses 7 and 8 tells how Christ will be scorned and ridiculed. Verse 16 foreshadows how Christ's hands and feet will be pierced. Verse 18 foretells how others will gamble for Christ's clothes. Here again is displayed the wonderful connectivity of Scripture and indisputable proof that Jesus is found throughout the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the preparations for His appearing after 400 years of silence in the New Testament.

Do you know how wildly and madly in love with you Jesus is? I have a rubber bracelet from our preschool VBS from this past week that says, "God is wild about you!". Why is it that after we are adults we think that this kind of love no longer applies to us? Jesus is absolutely CRAZY IN LOVE with His children! So let's walk through our daily lives with the JOY of knowing that we are lavished with love by our Savior! Do you know the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7)? The peace that makes NO SENSE to human intellect, analysis, and insight? Do you know the peace of lying down in "green pastures" that our Lord so desperately wants you to have? He is right there ready to give it to you...TAKE IT!!!