Co-incidentally?

I am still thinking yesterday’s thoughts. This morning as I sat to read I thought about my feelings and realised I have developed a hunger and desire to hear God’s voice as I read His Word (or rather He has grown that in me) even if it isn’t yet at the level I talked about then. I realised that I do want to learn and hide it in my heart so that I desire to please and become more like Him. I thought about the commands to bind the word on your forehead and right arm. I considered if every time I moved or used my right hand I had the visible word right there how it would affect me. If I could feel the weight above my eyes, bound around my head just above my ears how it might affect what I looked at and listened to and in turn what I said. The Voice adds that to the verse – the italics are the inference of the verse not emphasis.

⁸ Do whatever it takes to remember them: tie a reminder on your hand and bind a reminder on your forehead where you’ll see it all the time,

Deuteronomy 6:8

Whatever it takes. Those are some strong words. Just because they are Old Testament doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously. God was life or death serious about His covenant with the Israelites. He still is life or death serious with me. The wonderful, beautiful amazing thing is His grace and mercy. This last day or so an old temptation has reared its head, arising in unexpected places. I have stood firm with His strength but it’s been hard because it is my big weakness. So this morning as I read psalm 18:3 it was right on point – as always.

I call out to the Eternal, who is worthy to be praised—
    that’s how I will be rescued from my enemies.

Psalm 18:3

There’s the answer, right in His Word and right in the study I am doing. Almost as if He knew exactly where I would be and what I would need on the 1st August 2015… Of course He knew. He also knew that both the study AND my pastor are recommending the Psalms as a source of study emphasising the wealth and depth of teaching in them. Co-incidence does not even come close. This is God’s mighty and gracious hand at work right out there where I would have to be dead to not see it.

I am sure you are familiar with these verses from Psalm 25, but here’s a different version that gave me a new insight.

⁴ DEMONSTRATE Your ways, O Eternal One.
    Teach me to understand so I can follow.
⁵ EASE me down the path of Your truth.
    FEED me Your word
    because You are the True God who has saved me.
    I wait all day long, hoping, trusting in You.

Psalm 25: 4-5

Isn’t that just how He is? There’s no force feeding, no big stick held over my head. This journey is one of love and mercy. How else could it be when it started with Him giving His life for me, the ultimate sacrifice so that I might have abundant life in Him.

¹⁴ ONLY those who stand in awe of the Eternal will have intimacy with Him,
    and He will reveal His covenant to them.

Psalm 25:14

Those who fear Him, those who recognise that He is awesome and mighty and powerful and majestic and far far above us – so we bow and worship and He confides in us, He speaks to us, He tells us His plans and purposes. What an amazing God!

I am just reading about Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles. He was a man after God’s heart like David. This is an epitaph I would like to bear.

²¹ In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

2 Chronicles 31:21