A mediation on Psalm 1

Posted on March 18, 2016 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

The book of Psalm opens with these words:

Psalm 1 (ESV)
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

I have read this psalm many times, but this morning I came away with a different impression than I have ever had before.

In my past readings, I could sum up what I read by the phrase, “don’t act like the wicked, but be righteous.” As I read it, this psalm was an encouragement toward avoiding wicked influences and an encouragement to read the Bible and do what it says. It also implies that the righteous look on the wicked with disdain at worst or condescension at best.

But I missed one crucial point in my previous readings.

I am not righteous by what I do; I am declared righteous by being in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). But what I do will be heavily influenced by the fact that I am declared righteous. As a result of being in Christ, I have been given a heart of flesh to replace my heart of stone.

While I agree that I am in the camp of the righteous, I cannot look at anyone else with disdain or condescension. I am not in the camp of the righteous because of anything that I have done for myself. It has all be done for me by Jesus Christ.

With the change of heart, it is then possible for all the things to that are listed in verses 2 and 3 to be true. My new heart allows me to delight in the law of the LORD. Where I previously only saw condemnation, I now see love and blessing. Where I previously saw only duty and burden, I now see opportunity and freedom.

The Psalmist tells us that The LORD knows the way of the righteous. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).

I am not righteous because of what I do, but what I do is heavily influenced by the fact that I am declared righteous.

I am one of his sheep and he knows me.

Numbering our days: a reflection on Psalm 90

Posted on July 14, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre 1 Comment

Beyond a temporal understanding

I have been reading through the Psalms. Recently I came to Psalm 90 where it says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) This is a verse that has often been quoted, usually in the sense of expressing urgency to get busy in doing work for the Kingdom of God. In this understanding, the emphasis is on the fleeting nature of time and how we have, on average, some 70 years to accomplish things for God before life comes to an end.

If this is the correct understanding of this verse, wisdom would dictate that we discover our calling and work hard at accomplishing the most in the time we have allotted. Ephesians 5:15-16 would seem to support this understanding when Paul writes:

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.

I have even heard it said that we should keep a running countdown of the days until our 70^th birthday so that we can be aware of how much time we have left to work for the Kingdom. While the countdown is not a bad idea, I think that it does not capture the whole point of the prayer in the context of the Psalm. Awareness of the brevity of our days has benefit, but the focus should not be on what we plan on accomplishing but upon what God wants to accomplish through us.

Obedience is the key

Moving a few verses back in the Psalm, it can be seen that the context of the prayer is God’s judgment against Israel for their rebellion. In verse 8 it says, “You have placed our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence.” In other words we are to live with the understanding that we are under the scrutiny of God and as a result, we must have an understanding of our finite nature and respond to God properly. It is not our temporal awareness that is in question, but our ability to obey.

In reading the rest of the Psalm I have a sense that some of the anger at the nation of Israel was due to presumption on their part. They presumed upon God’s tolerance and as a result they reaped God’s anger. Can we not do the same? We can be busy doing all sorts of things and convince ourselves that we are doing it for God. Jesus often rebuked the Pharisees for this type of hypocrisy. The question is not whether we are busy, the question is are we being responsive to God?

On the basis of this, I see Psalm 90:12 as a request to help us understand our finiteness rather than an encouragement to pack in as much in our 70 years as possible. The lesson we learn from Matthew 7:21-23 is that activity is not the cause for reward, relationship with Jesus Christ is. This prayer is not a call to busyness or activity, it is a call to submission to God.

It is God’s plan

I do not for a minute buy into the argument that there is something that God needs me to do and I am the only one to do it. Yes, God allows me to participate in the accomplishment of his will but my rebellion or incompetence cannot derail his plan. I do not have to race the clock to get something accomplished for God. This is freeing if I allow it to be.

What I do need to do is bring my finite understanding to God and seek him for what I should be about today. Do we really believe Jesus when he said take not thought for tomorrow? I don’t need to plan out what I need to accomplish for God, I need to do what he has asked me to do today. God will take care of the years moving forward if I simply submit each day to him.

Beware the leaven . . . thoughts on contemplative prayer

Posted on February 22, 2012 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

There has been some discussion lately about the danger of contemplative prayer in the Church. While I understand that some proponents of this practice lean heavily on eastern religious practice and error has crept in, I am concerned that an over-reaction is taking place.

There was one group that Jesus singled out in his warnings, the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus did not say “beware the leaven of the philosophers.” Nor did he warn us against the leaven of the false religions. He warned his disciples to “beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matthew 16:6). We have been warned against the leaven of the Orthodox, the Biblically correct, the ones who should have known better. Jesus warned us against smug confidence that we have all the answers.

Now I’m not saying that orthodoxy does not have value, it does. Nor am I saying that eastern religions provide adequate answers to life, they do not and we should be wary of anyone who wants to borrow from eastern religions. We do have an obligation to be sure that our belief and practice correspond to the revealed truth of the Bible.

What I am saying is that rather than decrying the wrong ways to pray, it is more profitable to teach the valid ones. Let us not have a knee-jerk reaction to error and throw out the good with the bad.

The good part of the discussion about contemplative prayer is the move to make prayer less transactional and more relational. Too often in the prayer meetings of my youth, prayer consisted of listing situations where God’s help was required with a good bit of advice for God on how he should handle those situations.

There is mystery in prayer that much of the doctrinally correct, Bible believing church has lost over the years. Say what you want, but Psalm 46:10 tells me that I need to spend more time listening and less time talking to God. Whether you call that contemplative prayer or not, I need to stop striving and listen.

My own experience is that when I take the time to ask God to instruct me he does. When I take the time to meditate on a verse and seek deeper understanding of what it is telling me, God is faithful and often provides the insight. When I focus my attention on God, as he has revealed himself to me in Scripture, then my prayer becomes less transactional and more relational. When I am in the right mindset to listen, God answers.

When a finite human interacts with an infinite God, there is bound to be mystery. When we, being bound by time and space, interact with a God who is outside time and everywhere, there is bound to be mystery. We cannot fully understand God, our vision is like the view in a foggy mirror (1 Corinthians 13:12). We cannot take the mystery out of prayer; prayer in its very nature is mysterious.

While we cannot remove the mystery, we can confront known error. But error can only be effectively confronted by replacing it with truth. If people are looking for relationship with God through prayer, we should encourage this with the focus being on the nature of God as he has revealed himself in Scripture.

Instead of spending time condemning contemplative prayer in its entirety, we need to do the hard work of understanding what practices which claim that title are wrong, but also which are right. Our response then is to jettison the wrong and embrace the right.

We don’t want to throw out the wheat along with the chaff.

Paths of Righteousness for His Name’s Sake

Posted on September 18, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre 3 Comments

In Psalm 23:3, King David writes, “he leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”

While there is benefit to me in walking a path of righteousness, my benefit is not the primary purpose of God’s leading me. David points to God’s reputation and God’s purpose as the reason for the leading.

This is freeing and challenging at the same time. It is freeing because I am not responsible for the outcome, I am only responsible to go where I am lead. God will take care of the rest.

This thought is challenging because the consequences of not following are great. Not that I can thwart God’s plan by being disobedient, but I will miss out on the blessing of being used by God if I do not follow.

I am writing this post from a men’s retreat where the speaker shared about some personal tragedies in his life. When he was going through the tragedy, he had no idea how that experience would be used by God in the future. With hindsight, the speaker was able to share how those experiences prepared him to be used to touch the lives of others who had experienced a similar loss.

Somehow I need to keep in mind that both the good and the bad experiences are allowed into my life by God for his purpose and his glory. God or bad, the experience should cause God’s name to be glorified. This will keep me from being overinflated by the good things and from being decimated by the bad.

Soli deo gloria