Psalms 63:8 (62:9 LXX)

My soul follows close behind You;
Your right hand takes hold of me.

Encouraging Words

One of my favorite things to do in life has been to take hold of one of my children’s hands and lead them to where I want them to go. And now I have the privilege to do this with my grand­children. Sometimes this leading is to walk my child or grandchild through some scary situation. They know that I am there to protect them, to guide them, and to comfort them. Sometimes it has been to lead them to something new and exciting that they have not yet experienced. Life cannot be much better than doing this in the life of someone you love and care for, whether it be a child, a grandchild, a spouse, a friend, or anyone else. This is the image that comes to my mind when I read this verse. I visualize my Lord, my Father, my Abba, reaching to take hold of my hand and saying, “Follow me! I will walk through this with you! I have some­thing wonderful to show you on the other side!” That is how He treats us, with love, grace, compassion, and mercy. Glory be to God? Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, the sinner… and Your child?

Judith 8:14

You cannot plumb the depths of the heart of man, nor grasp the thoughts of his mind. How then do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and come to understand His mind or comprehend His purpose? No, brothers! Do not provoke the Lord our God to anger.

Personal challenge

We are often so arrogant in the midst of our earthly wisdom and intellect. That arrogance usually plays out by acting as if we know the mind of God and speak as if we are His personal spokesperson. I have been attempting to live a Christian life for more than half a century. That is a long time, I remember those days when I practiced my faith with others who prided themselves on how many books by the right Christian authors they had read, or how many scriptures they had memorized, or whatever earthly measurement was used to assess one’s understanding of God. This has never worked for me and now works even less as I strive to live as an Orthodox Christian. I have come to the point where recognize that the closer I get to my Lord, the more I learn about Him, then the farther from Him I am, because I am a sinner, and the less I know about Him because He is unknowable. This truth is humbling! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!

Luke 6:27-31

“But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who asks of you. And from him who takes away your goods do not ask them back. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.”

Personal Challenge

Are You kidding me, God? Do You have any idea how hard it is to live this way? The answer to the first question is, “No!”, God is not kidding here. And the answer to the second question is a resounding, “Yes!” Of course, Jesus knows exactly how hard it is to love this way because He did it! Jesus also knows that we cannot do this on our own. That is why He sent the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to live within us and to empower us to live this way. If we go back to the two core commandments that we are asked to follow, then we will see both why and how we are to do this. We are to live our lives loving God and loving our neighbor. It is from this life lived in love that we begin to understand how to sacrifice our wants and needs for others. It is not easy, but it is what we are to do. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Psalms 63:3 (62:4 LXX)

Because Your mercy is better than life,

Judith 8:11-13

They came to her, and she said to them, “Listen to me now, rulers of the people of Bethulia! Your words spoken today to the people are not right, nor is the oath you have sworn and pronounced between God and yourselves, promising to surrender the city to our adversaries unless the Lord turns and helps you in so many days.

Now who are you to have put God to the test this day, setting yourselves up as God’s equal among the sons of men? You are testing the Lord Almighty, but you will never come to know anything!”

Personal Challenge

Judith is admonishing the rulers of her community for doing something that we all do at one time or another in our lives. Since they are under attack by the massive army of Holofernes they have resorted to bargaining with their God. “If you do this God, then I will do this.” “If I do this, God, then I expect you to do this.” God does not work this way. God does what He does and it is our responsibility to trust and obey Him. We need to act in the situations that we find ourselves in ways that honor Him and demonstrate our trust in Him. He will not be manipulated. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Luke 6:20-23

Then He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you poor,
For yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
For you shall be filled.
Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you,
And when they exclude you,
And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,
For the Son of Man’s sake.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!
For indeed your reward is great in heaven,
For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.”

Encouraging Words

The beatitudes are such a powerful part of Jesus’ sermon on the Mount. So many practical life applications are in here and most, if not all of them, are completely opposite of what our world would like us to do. How can we be blessed if we are poor, or hungry, or weeping, or hated because we love Christ? This is truly a mystery, but if we always remember that as children of the Living God, our home is not of this world, but of the heavenly kingdom of God, then we begin to see that our blessings are being piled up in our the home as we deal with the issues of this temporary dwelling. Glory be to God!

Psalms 62:8 (61:9 LXX)

Hope in Him, all you congregation of people;
Pour out your hearts before Him;
God is our helper.

Encouraging Words

God is our helper. Do we really believe this? Do we really understand the depth of this? God promises us that He has sent us a Helper to guide us through our lives and yet we continually live our lives the way that the world tells us to. God promises us that He will meet our needs and yet we spend so much of our time and resources planning for retirement that we miss the opportunities of everyday life to invest in those around us. When it comes down to the bottom line of our faith, it can all be encapsulated in two things that God wants from us. These are to love Him above all else and to love our neighbor. We cannot do this unless we put our hope in Him. We cannot do this without a community of other believers around us encouraging us in this choice. We can do this through Him because He is our Helper and has led the way by loving us enough to die for us. God is our Helper. God is my Helper.

Judith 5:20-21

“Now my lord and master, if there is any sin of ignorance in this people and they sin against their God, then we will identify their offense and will go up to defeat them. But if there is no lawlessness in their nation, then let my lord leave them alone, lest their Lord shield them, and their God defend them, and we will become a reproach before the whole earth.”

Encouraging Words

Here in Judith, one of the Old Testament apocryphal books, we have Achior, an Ammonite, informing Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, about the nation of Israel. The Ammonites were neighbors to Israel and had seen many of the mighty things that their God had done in their history. The Assyrians were conquering the known world and now had Israel in their sights. In this short passage, Achior is warning Holofernes to be careful with the Israelites. If they have not been sinning against their God then they will be a formidable force because their God will be commanding their puny army and He never loses a battle. Is this not a powerful message for us today? If we are striving to live our lives for our God, submitting our wills to Him, and obeying His precepts, will He not protect us as He did the nation of Israel? He keeps his covenants! Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner!

Luke 5:31-36

Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Then they said to Him, “Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise those of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink?”

And He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; then they will fast in those days.”

Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.”

Encouraging Words

There is so much that could be unpacked from this passage. The one consistent thing across these three scenarios is the reminder that God does not do things the way that we expect Him to. We always forget that He has the whole picture in His view, past, present, and future. He knows the conditions of everyone’s heart as well as the intentions of their wills. That is part of the reason that while He walked here on this earth, so many of the things that He did caught everyone off guard. And many times I believe that is what He expects us to do, especially if we are to walk in His footsteps. Lord, have mercy! Lord, have many! Lord, have mercy!