Psalm 15: God, My Rock, Be My Stability

Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?

The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others; who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind; who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent.

Whoever does these things will never be shaken. - Psalm 15

"Whoever does these things will never be shaken."

Does this seem realistic? When I read these verses, I see landmines everywhere. Each one of these seems to me something which makes my life more uncertain. It feels like playing king of the mountain and everyone and every circumstance threatens to dethrone me so I would have to be on the defensive all the time. Whenever my character is called into question there is always a tendency to defend myself, to "prove" that I was doing the right thing. So it always feels shaky. 

I think it feels shaky because I really feel like I will cross one of these lines. That doing these things is about what i can do.  It is shaky because these key ideas: respect for neighbor and respect for God are not at the core of my being. Instead, they are tacked on to the edges of my character so that any strong wind can dislodge me and my determination to "do better" So these need to move from the fringes of my convictions to the center of who I am in Christ so that the casual or serious storm won't catch me off-balance. These are not things i do by myself but i can do in Christ. God, my rock, be my stability.

Micah 6:1-8: Red Flags In My Testimony

Listen to what the Lord says: “Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the Lord has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel."

“My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me. I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. My people, remember what Balak king of Moab plotted and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the Lord.”

With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God - Micah 6:1-8

To my mind, the "he said, she said" type of argument is the worst. Two people are involved in a disagreement, but there is no one else who can testify to what was said and what was done. Using the sublest of indicators, the jury is asked to estimate who is more likely to be truthful, especially in a case when one party claims egregious injury.

Israel has come before God and claimed injury by his hand. God throws up his hands and says, "My people, what have I done to you?" God searches for witnesses and asks Micah to question both sides: "Stand up, plead my case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, you mountains, the Lord’s accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth" The mountains and the hills are called upon to listen to both sides--God and his people--and to adjudicate between them. 

It isn't initially clear what the charges are, but they along the lines of "you place such a heavy burden for forgiveness." The accuser stands up and says, "With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings...Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" In essence, the accuser is asking how much he has to pay to get forgiveness and have God ignore the way they have been living. 

But God isn't playing a quid pro quo game with his people. He isn't looking for a bigger paycheck from his people. Instead he says, in his defense, that he hasn't asked for complicated rituals and big payoffs. His asks from his people were simple: "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." He will spend the rest of the chapter testifying how his people have avoided doing exactly these things: it was never about offerings. It was about respecting God as God.

I think this is a good metric for any Christian: if we start finding and justifying a way of acting that is not just, that is not merciful or is not humble it is a red flag that we have gone off the path and whatever reasoning we used to get there is wrong and damaging to our soul. Any red flags in my life?

2 Thessalonians 2:1-17: Only Christ is Right

Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us—whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter—asserting that the day of the Lord has already come. Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.

Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.

But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters loved by the Lord, because God chose you as firstfruits to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word. - 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17

 "They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." These words open a question in my mind: Why do they refuse to love the truth? There must be something unpalatable about the truth that people would refuse to accept it or the promises that come with it. It is somehow so repulsive that Paul has to remind the believers in Thessaloniki to "stand firm and hold fast" because they might perfer to give way and let go. 

What is it? I think it is the death to self. "Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Matt. 16:24) There are dreams that must be placed on that cross--an exchange of my dreams for God's. And those magnificent dreams of God are often fuzzy, so distant and not made clear to us--so obscured that we trade them for the paltry hopes that we can see. We trade the feast promised tomorrow for the soup and bread that we can grasp now.

Then Paul talks about the future delusion of the world. When people follow after the "lawless one" we know what he is offering, maybe know it is a lie but rationalize that a lie we know is better than glorious future we don't know. But this lawless one lets us keep the illusion that we are in control, the illusion that it is our choice, never realizing that all of the so-called choices he gives are equally damning. Christ asks us to choose him, to admit that we have chosen badly, and follow him wherever he leads.

Acting this way--choosing a person rather than choosing a destination that we choose is really difficult because it means we don't get to be right. We don't get to be the hero of our own story. There is no more rationalization. We are failures-but failures who are deeply loved. 

We don't get to be right. Only Jesus gets to be right. That can be liberating or really upsetting. Every time we try to climb back in the throne and try to be the one who is right, we find it a loser's game.