Daily Meditations

Hebrews 1:2 Heir of all things Phew! How do we embrace all the truths that are wrapped up in this short verse that extols and expands the roles and the significance of God’s Son? Firstly, He is God’s declaration to the world; every word and every action of Christ Jesus is a word to us from heaven. He is the outspeaking of God which is why John confidently refers to Him as the “the Word.” (John 1:1) He is the fulfilment of the predictions of the prophets, He is the explanation and the extension of everything that had been previously known, Jesus is God speaking to us.  We should never underestimate the power, authority or significance of Christ for this world, indeed the entire universe, was created by Him and for Him, and will, one day, be ruled over by Him. The insignificant rabbi from Nazareth, dismissed and ignored by so many, is actually the ultimate inheritor of our planet and will rule over it in the ages to come. Everything and everyone that God created, is intended for Him....

Hebrews 1:1 God speaks through His Son Remember, this wonderful book of the Bible is written primarily to Jewish believers, men and women steeped in the Scriptures and who have made their faith into a religion that stood head and shoulders above any of the world’s great faiths. Does this mean that Hebrews is not really for us Gentiles? Of course not! What it does is to bring the Jews and the Church seamlessly together and it shows how both have an equal part in the plan of Almighty God.  The Jews are highly privileged; they are God’s earthly people with a heritage that includes a specific land and access to all the revealed words of God up to the coming of Christ. When we read about “the Scriptures” in the New Testament the authors are not talking about the Gospels or Paul’s letter or any book of the Bible between Matthew and Revelation; the Scriptures are the Tanakh or what we call the 39 books of the Old Testament. When Paul wrote  “ All Scripture is God-breathed and is usef...

  After a wonderful pilgrimage through the Psalms of the Bible, it became a dilemma to try to work out where to go next in our musings. I pondered Ephesians, since that is a wonderful, heavenly explanation of who we are and all that the Lord has done for us, it also covers the relationship between Jews and Gentiles and the nature of the spiritual war that we are involved in. However, it is impossible to take a verse from Ephesians and writer a bite-size commentary on what it means! Then it became clear, it has to be Hebrews. No Scriptures are more quoted in the Book of Hebrews than the Psalms, in fact the writer composes much of his letter as a series of arguments from the Psalms showing us how Jesus came to fulfil so much of what is written by the ancient songwriters. The Book of Hebrews was written for Jewish believers in Christ, and it sets out to confirm that He fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures particularly as High Priest.  The author of Hebrews remains anonymous alt...

Psalm 150:6 Praise the Lord! In terms of our journey through the Psalms, this is a sad moment indeed. The last verse of the last Psalm is before us. It has been such a rich and fulfilling expedition that I am tempted to go back and start all over again! The Lord has led us through green pastures beside still waters, He has also carried us through the valley of the shadow of death and bid us dine with Him at His banqueting table. Personally, I have faced death on three separate occasions whilst being on this journey and yet, here I am, living and breathing and still praising the Lord! It’s time to move to pastures new and I invite you to come with me. However, before we leave, there’s one more anthem to sing, one more special offering to bring before the altar of our God. If we are living, breathing creatures, then we are called to “Praise the Lord.” That is partly what our lungs and our tongues are for, to take deep breaths and then utter exclamations of glory and honour to the incredi...

Psalm 150:3-5 Praise Him! Although it means we end the Psalm rather more abruptly than we hoped, it would be a bit of a task to write daily thoughts about the next 3 verses! They are basically saying one thing, “ Let the whole of the orchestra praise the Lord! ” So, eight instruments are mentioned embracing wind, strings and percussion, and right slap-bang in the middle, is dancing! Praise music across the world has moved on from days of just church organs or pianos, which were mighty instruments of worship indeed. Modern congregations like to hear guitars and drums and keyboards and possibly a wind or brass instrument too! If we do not have the musicians, then we can watch and participate with online celebrations and we thank God for that! The one thing that has changed, that was unthinkable in my youth, is that dancing, movement and banner-waving are all legitimate and acceptable expressions of worship today.  The other point that we should remember, even though we are near the e...

Psalm 150:2 God's acts of power and His surpassing greatness Verse 1 of this Psalm tells us where the Lord our God is to be praised, now we read the reasons why He is to be praised. Two prominent reasons are given; firstly, we must praise Him for His acts of power and secondly, for His surpassing greatness.  God’s acts of power are revealed primarily in creation, for the Word teaches that all of this amazing, glorious universe that He has made came about simply by Him speaking or commanding! There were no intricate factory workshops, God did not need zillions of tons of raw materials to convert, He was not assisted by computer technology or by AI! He just spoke and such is the authority and power in His Being, that all things came about and obeyed His voice. I find this incredibly hard to taken on board, don’t you? If this is a true reflection of who God is, then who or what are we? Nothing by comparison! God’s acts of power are not just confined to creation for He has revealed His...

Psalm 150:1 Praise the Lord! Oh dear! Oh dear! This is the last Psalm in the psalter and It feels as if we are preparing to say “Goodbye” to a dear friend. I first started the process of studying the Psalms, verse by verse,  in May 2019 and it’s taken me nearly 6 years! I feel so privileged and so blessed. These studies have made an enormous impact on my spiritual walk with the Lord, and it has been an absolute joy to share these thoughts with others. Psalm 150 is sometimes called “The final Great Hallelujah!” There are those who think it was composed specifically to bring an appropriate end to the collection of songs and thus it embraces the whole universe and every form of praise. Let’s dive in and enjoy these final moments of uninhibited worship of the Lord God.    V1        Where is it that the Lord should be praised? Firstly, in His sanctuary. For Jewish readers and singers this meant, of course, Jerusalem and the Temple t...

Psalm 149:9 The Lord will carry out the sentences that are written Let’s remember that this powerful statement begins in verse 5 where the Lord’s faithful people rejoice because of the delight that He has in them. These faithful ones are encouraged to rejoice in this honour, to sing at bedtime and to never stop praising their God. His Word is their weapon against wickedness, and the Lord intends to bring justice and vengeance against the nations and the peoples and all those arrogant rulers who defy Him. Verse 9 now goes on to describe a heavenly charter or register of God’s decisions. This book has no name, although we read in Revelation of the Lamb’s Book of Life and that faithful believers’ names are recorded there. At the time of God’s final judgement of the wicked we read that books are opened –  “ And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what th...

Psalm 149:8 Binding the kings and the nobles “Fetters” are chains or shackles that are attached to feet and then either fastened together or to a heavy object. In the past they were usually made of brass or iron, they were used in pairs and the Hebrew word here, “zikkim” comes from a root word that means to bind. If you put the feet of an enemy in fetters or shackles, he’s going nowhere! Thus, the psalmist is anticipating the capture and the imprisonment of the kings and nobles as a form of God’s just retribution against His enemies and the enemies of Israel. Let’s not forget what we said at the start of this Psalm that Israel are God’s chosen Ones and they have a special significance in His heart and in His plans. There are many, many covenant Scriptures that confirm this but let’s just pick one of them, Deuteronomy 26:18-19 says, “ And the   Lord   has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession   as he promised, and that you are to keep all his ...

Psalm 149:7 The power of the Word Let’s concentrate on what these verses are saying to us and what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. We are being prepared to take  ”vengeance on the nations and to bring God’s punishment on the peoples .” and what are the weapons that He gives us? Not swords, or spear, guns, tanks and missiles but the praises of God in our mouths and the double-edged sword of the Word in our hands. So, this is where Paul gets his inspiration for the armour of God in Ephesians 6! What an encouragement these verses are, for they explain precisely what we have to do to take on the enemy and how we are to equip ourselves.  We have studied, on numerous occasions on our journey through the Psalms, the power of praise and the universal nature of it, as all creative works resound with the praise of our God. There is power in worship, enemy forces are driven back, individuals are left with gaping mouths as they see and hear the praises of the Lord. The Satan’s kingdom is...

Psalm 149:6 The double-edged sword Well, this is a surprise, praising the Lord becomes a military matter! Remember that we are talking primarily about Israel, although, of course, there are lessons for the modern-day church here. As we all go into battle, we don’t sing the songs of the world but instead, we praise the name of our God. It doesn’t matter if the battle is in the trenches, or in the boardroom, whether it is in a classroom of uncooperative kids or an office of gossiping busybodies, wherever we are at war we need to keep the praises of God in our mouths. But, the Psalm goes further for it identifies the kind of weaponry that the Lord God calls upon His children to carry with them. A double-edged sword is in their hands. Immediately, our thoughts go to Hebrews 4:12 where the same imagery is used , “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitude...

Psalm 149:5 Sing for joy in our beds! This verse continues a theme; what is it that should cause the faithful people to rejoice? V4 tells us that it is because the Lord takes delight in His people but also because He crowns them with victory. This evokes images of a Roman victory march where the soldiers who have conquered and overwhelmed their enemies are paraded before spectators and crowned with laurel wreaths and garlands that represent their regiment or their particular general or leader. The closest thing we have to this in the modern day are the victory parades of football teams, who wave their medals whilst sporting the colours and the clothing of their team, accompanied by the triumphant roars of their supporters.  God calls His people to celebrate triumphantly both publicly and privately, for “ He has done great things for us. ” Would that not be a spectacle? Local church congregations regularly parading through the streets to celebrate the victory of their Lord? It happe...

Psalm 149:4 He crowns the humble with victory What a patient, gracious God it is whom we worship. Frankly, our disobedience and our lack of consistency and true faith must drive Him nuts at times! This was certainly true of Israel and there were occasions when the Lord must have let out a deep groan of exasperation before putting into place what was needed to bring them back into line. He must have been particularly pained as He watched them being enslaved and taken captive or conquered by Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians and Romans, but the Lord never gave up on Israel and because of this we know that He ultimately takes delight in His people. Not least the millions who have been dragged back to the land from every corner of the planet in recent decades.  Jews are not really renowned for their humility, maybe that is part of their downfall over the centuries, but it is the humble man or woman who is exalted by the Lord, the verse tells us that the humble are crowned by H...

Psalm 149:3 Praise His name with dancing In recent years, our local church fellowship has embraced some of the celebratory events that mark the Jewish calendar. So, in addition to traditional Easter gatherings we always have a night set apart for Passover, and at Christmas we also remember the Festival of Lights or Hannukah. The one thing that symbolises these events is the joyful singing and dancing that are part of every Jewish celebration.  Dancing before the Lord was very much frowned upon in churches and chapels when I grew up, it would have been impossible to convince the elders and deacons that it was a Biblically endorsed form of praise! But here it is, the verse before us clearly encourages us to dance before the Lord and in so doing we can “Praise His name.” To be fair, I’m no dancer, but I certainly do not stand in the way of those who are! I, like many of you perhaps, stand in the second category of worshippers and prefer to make music to the Lord, not just with stringe...

Psalm 149:2 If only Israel would worship their King! Whilst many Christians have conflicting views about the status and relevance of the nation of Israel today, we should not forget that this is a nation that was created by the Lord God. He made promises to Abraham and Isaac that were fulfilled in Jacob and his 12 sons. It was the Lord who put Joseph in a position of great power in Egypt which led to the eventual arrival of his father and brothers in that land. For 430 years the Lord watched over their successful development from a large family group into a nation of Hebrews that could have totalled as many as 2 million people! So powerful had they become that they posed a threat to Pharaoh, a threat that the Lord had already foreseen when he planted a Hebrew, Moses, in the royal family!    Moses had to learn servitude and dependence which he did as a shepherd in the Sinai Peninsula. The God anointed Moses to challenge the power of the Pharaoh and to ultimately lead the Hebrew...

Psalm 149:1 Sing a new song to the Lord A Psalm that calls upon Israel to celebrate their special significance in the heart and plans of God. They are a nation that is highly honoured simply for being chosen by the Lord. They were delivered from Egypt, they were given the Law of God on Mount Sinai and also became sealed into a special covenant relationship with the Lord of lords and King of kings. Israel was chosen to be God’s emissaries to the whole world and also to execute the judgement of God over the pagan nations. Their status and eminence in God’s eyes goes hand in hand with His provision of a homeland and His insistence, from the earliest days, that this tiny nation should be major players in the affairs of the planet.  Small wonder that they are so hated and despised by the world, they are still God’s chosen people and will never be eradicated. So many have tried to destroy them and still do, to this very day. In this they are an earthly parable for the Church.  ...

Psalm 148:14 Close to His heart The phrase  “He has raised up for His people a horn”  has been used before in the Psalms. “Horn” symbolises strength and power, so when the psalmist tells us that the Lord has raised up a horn for His people, it usually means an anointed person or persons. In other words, the nation is in a good place because the Lord has appointed someone to lead them and protect them, He has given them strong leadership. In the psalmists’ language this usually referred to King David and the royal family who found their ultimate fulfilment in Christ, their Messiah. The stronger the leadership of a nation, the stronger are the people who live in it, here referred to  as “all His faithful servants .”  It follows that Christ is our horn and therefore His church should be the strongest and most powerful nation on earth! It also follows that all true believers should grasp the completeness of who He is and who they are as faithful servants. What a privileg...

Psalm 148:13 God's Name alone is exalted above all else This verse reinforces all that has been said in the earlier verses, it is a universal call to worship, that all people, all creatures and all of God’s creative works should combine to praise the name of the Lord. Two reasons are given for this, the first is that His Name alone Is exalted. As the Bible makes clear on so many occasions, the Creator is far more glorious than even His creation. If we marvel at all that has been made, then let us marvel even more at the One who made it all! Over my lifetime the theories of how the world came into being, as promoted by science and unbelief, have changed several times. It is all conjecture and it seems that each new explanation is even more spurious than the ones that came before! That is inevitable because every new discovery casts more light on the complexity and the vastness of the universe and all objects contained within it. How much simpler it is to admit that actually, this co...

Psalm 148:12 All people should praise the Lord! The call to “Praise the Lord” now goes out to every man, woman and child on the planet. We are all encouraged to bring our offerings of praise and to offer them gladly, to our Creator, to the One who is in control of our individual and corporate fates, who made us and who regulates the day we will be born and the day we will leave planet earth. There is only one kind of person who will fulfil this requirement, it is the one who acknowledges and believes that there is only one, true God; that YAHWEH of the Bible is the supreme Being in the universe and therefore is the only God who is worthy of our praise and obeisance. That belief surpasses the requirements of religions and faiths around the world, it is fundamental to the security and longevity of mankind, without this God and our allegiance to Him, the human race has no chance of survival and will collapse upon itself and eventually be destroyed. Only this God can save us, only He has t...

Psalm 148:11 All rulers should praise Him The emphasis of the Psalm shifts subtly and significantly. Now that the praises that the Lord is due have been ascribed to all created things, now that we have seen that they do His bidding and thus they glorify their Maker, it’s time to think “human” again. If all of the listed elements, forces and creatures are willing to “Praise the Lord” and in so doing contribute to the health and prosperity of the planet, what about men? In particular those men and women who owe Him the most for they have risen to thrones and position of power and wealth in the world, surely these people owe the Lord God the greatest honour and respect? Sadly, and I barely need to enforce this point, they are the ones who seem least likely to give the Lord glory for what they have achieved or for the honour and prestige that have been granted to them. Kings, princes and rulers on earth are exhorted to praise the One who exalted them, and they are also ordered to encourage...

Psalm 148:10 Creatures praise their Creator Our survey of the created world now embraces living creatures, a number of them are lIsted here,  “wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds .” Once again, we are being reminded that songs of praise emanate from these creatures and join with all other natural objects and forces in giving glory to the Lord. It’s so easy to listen to the sounds that all animals make and to break them down by function; “Oh, that deer is calling for its mate, or, that cow is mooing because it is hungry.” But how do we know? I have studied birds for over 50 years and listened to many explanations of bird song. According to scientists, warblers migrate to the UK and sing their beautiful melodies to attract their mates in spring. That theory held out until the same species were tracked into deep African jungles where they spend the winter months, and it was discovered that they sing identical songs outside of the breeding season. Why does a s...

Psalm 148:9 Mountains and hills and trees  The psalmist is growing in excitement as He surveys the earth and embraces the notion that the created world praises the Lord. We’ve already looked at some of the aspects of the created world whose function is to represent the Lord and in so doing to gain Him glory and praise. We’ve visited the ocean depths and pondered the weather! Now we are to lift up our eyes to the mountains and hills, and then to survey the trees that cover the earth from the mighty cedars to orchards and fruit plantations planted by men. All of these gloriously beautiful and dramatic additions to creation have one primary objective and that is to  “Praise the Lord. ” We, as a human race have taken all of the natural wonders and turned them to our benefit and forced them to serve us. It would be a crazy world where we were unable to use wood for construction or to pick apples, pears, oranges and the rest, from our fruit trees. But, in so doing we should learn fi...

Psalm 148:8 The elements do His bidding! This verse gives us a clue as to the nature of the praise that is offered to the Lord by elemental forces and the inanimate objects that are the fundamental building blocks for the created world. The writer lists a number of weather features and then explains that “They  do His bidding .” Literally this means that they obey His Word. In Psalm 147:15 we read,  “He sends His command to the earth; His Word runs swiftly.”  We need to realise that what gives God the greatest glory, what please Him above all else is that we “ do His bidding.” It’s time to forget about climate change and focus on the One who guides and administers the weather, in this instance – lightning and hail, snow and clouds and stormy winds. If we take the Word of God literally, and I see no reason why we should not, then it clearly declares that all of these forces are controlled from above, that nothing is left to chance, the weather patterns across the world are...

Psalm 148:7 Looking beneath the surface! Well, we’ve enjoyed eavesdropping on the praises of the angels and the heavenly bodies, the waters and all inanimate objects in creation, now it’s time to take a dip into the oceans! The sphere of life that is explored here is the ocean depths and the psalmist calls out songs of praise from the creatures that inhabit these dark, secret places. In Genesis 1:21 we read, “ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds  …” In Psalm 74:13-14 we saw that the primeval, chaotic waters were depicted as a many-headed monster that the creator God overcame, He is the same Lord who parted the Red Sea to make a path through for the Israelites as they fled from Egypt. The Bible suggests that these waters were all part of God’s creative purposes and that it was He who placed living creatures within them. What cannot be argued is that the oceans and seas al...

Psalm 148:6 Established forever Listen to these words from Jeremiah 31:35-36. “ This is what the Lord says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moons and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar – the Lord Almighty is His name: “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, “will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.””  Comments on previous verses in this Psalm suggest that maybe the inanimate objects that inhabit the heavens are able to respond in some way to the Lord. At the very least, the fact that they studiously fulfil their functions causes them to give glory to His Name. They clearly announce that God is alive and well and keeping His promises to us all. As Paul succinctly puts it in Romans when he talks about the wickedness of people,   “Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualiti...

Psalm 148:5 He is our Creator! This verse gives us the reason why even inanimate objects are prompted to praise the Lord. It’s because He created them! The same principle applies to us, we may find 10,000 reasons why we should praise the Lord, but the first reason is simply that we exist! We can add up the events and circumstances, the moments and the experiences that we have enjoyed when the Lord has revealed Himself to us, but the first cause for celebration is that we have been granted life! He could have ignored us or left us out of his plans for planet earth but, no, He decided that we should be allowed to live in His world and He chose the parents that would make that possible. I am here, because God wanted me here. I live and breathe and enjoy the beauty of the planet because God enabled it to happen. We are incredibly privileged, to be born human and to be planted on the earth for our time. Not only that, but the Lord has organised our future as well, the fact that He made us f...

Psalm 148:4 Even the clouds praise Him! God is so carefully maintaining and managing our planet that even the depths of the great oceans and the moisture held by the clouds are under His command! The great masses of rain-filled clouds that journey around the earth are not just random phenomenon that can be rationally explained, they have a purpose, they work to a divinely conceived plan. They are the waters that fill God’s storehouses or cisterns, that are emptied and filled above the earth’s crust as He commands and calculates what, where and when they should operate. So, the clouds are the “deep” above us and they pour out their contents to fill our rivers and streams that eventually flow to the oceans which are the “deep” below. It’s only as I read these verses that I realise afresh just how fundamental to our existence the divine management of the planet really is. Again, it throws doubts over the claims that climate change is caused solely by man’s abuse of the earth and its resou...

Psalm 148:3 Praise Him, sun and moon This is not the first time that we’ve been made aware that the psalmists believed that all creation, even inanimate objects, join in worshipping their Maker. It’s not just the psalm-writers, Job believed it and so did Isaiah. In fact, this is a premise that is adopted throughout Scriptures, and we would do well to meditate upon it for a moment. We are people living in a scientific age where it’s possible to identify the processes that give life ,accurately, and to ascribe all matter on earth to particular categories and states of existence. Thus, rocks and stones, mountains and deserts and all other matter has apparently been in existence for millions, if not billion of years and is basically dead! That Is, until amazing discoveries are made of some of the precious minerals and Rare Earth elements that are now fundamental to our modern technologies. Trees, plants and all forms of vegetation exist through processes like photosynthesis and give and ta...

  Psalm 148:1-2 Another hymn of praise to the Lord from all of creation We are just three Psalms away from the end of this glorious and unique collection of hymns and songs. This offering is dedicated to every created aspect of the heavenly and earthly spheres, that all things that God has made should be willing to praise Him, even inanimate objects like the stars or the weather! The icing on the cake of this symphony of worship is the nation of Israel, or all God’s chosen people, that we too should unite in bringing Him tribute and expressing our gratitude and wonder at who He is and all that He has done.     V1-2    The origins of worship are in the heavens and the first 6 verses of Psalm 148 call upon the celestial beings and objects to recognise the Creator who brought them into being. This is a common theme of the Psalms, that actually we owe the Lord our gratitude and undying admiration, simply because we exist! The few insights that the Scr...

We may think It’s great to be American or English, French or German or maybe Chinese or Indian, the list is a long one and could embrace every nation, race and language across the world, but however proud we are of our heritage, in Biblical terms one nation surpasses all others. It is Israel, and in this day and age, that is a very controversial and provocative thing to say. What are the grounds for such an opinion? Read these verses carefully. “ The Lord said to Abram, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.””   Genesis 12 :1-2. See also Genesis 15. “There above the stairway stood the LORD, and he said to Jacob: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on ea...