Old Sandals

I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the LORD.

Worship is a corporate thing.  “We gather together to ask the LORD’s blessing”, to give thanks for our salvation, to center our lives on Him.

The Lord  is  your keeper; the Lord  is  your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

Never forget the nearness of our God.  He is nearer to us than any calamity, than any circumstance.  He is the shade at our right hand on the hottest day. The secret to all spiritual growth is the increasing ability (by the grace of the Holy Spirit) to practice the presence of God—every day and every hour.

I  am for  peace; but when I speak, they are for war.

We may not really  have enemies as David did. But if we do, we should love them. Do good to them. The kindness of God displayed through our actions may lead them to repentance.

But it takes perseverance. A winsome approach. And a lot of prayer.

Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with  my  whole heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.

“When one undertakes to examine Scripture in an idle, intellectual way, he creates hatred and quarrelling. Why? Because the intellectual approach to Scripture does not help us to turn and reflect on our sins, but instead makes us focus on problems and concepts related to the study of Scripture, with the result that our logical and intellectual faculties are aroused to no real purpose. “Knowledge” by itself does not add anything. On the contrary, it encourages the cultivation of the individual and his private sense of things; it fosters the self-sufficiency of his personal opinions, which he then seeks to justify and impose on others. This kind of approach to Scripture immediately places you in conflict with others; it opposes your will and opinion to theirs, prompting you to disagree and argue with them, and to make enemies of your brothers. Filled as I am with my own opinions about things, I am not able to receive anything from God.

“The correct way is to read Scripture with simplicity and to allow God to tell us what He wants to tell us. It’s one thing to read Scripture because you want to collect information, and another thing to read it because you want to acquire its true content, that is, the Holy Spirit. This kind of knowledge is the life of God (Jn 17:3), the entry and extension

of God into our life; it is God’s descent and dwelling among us. We can judge whether or not our study of Scripture is authentic based on the number of tears we shed when we study. To be sure, I can also read Scripture without shedding tears, and without a strong sense of my sins, but with the hope that God’s grace, through my reading of Scripture, will break open my hardened heart. Read Scripture, then, but don’t forget about your sins and reduce Scripture to an object of intellectual inquiry, for at that point it ceases being the word of God and you start seeing it as something human. The criterion for your study

should be this: the way you read the Bible should bring peace to your heart, communion with God, love of neighbors, and the consciousness of your own sinfulness: the recognition of how unworthy and ill-prepared you are to stand before God.”

Elder Aimilianos, On Abba Isaiah

The stone which  the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.

A cornerstone to build on. A rock to stand on. A great boulder under which to take refuge.

And the truth of the Lord endures forever.

The truth of the Lord.  We live in a world with a million opinions and points of view.  Relativism rules.  “You have to find your own truth” is the philosophy on the street.

But the truth does not belong to us; we are not like the creative artist who stands before an empty canvass with paint and brush in hand.  How long does the truth last that we ourselves fashion anyway?

The Lord is the truth.  He is the great Artist.  And his truth endures forever.

I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.

We offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving when we remember to thank Him for each and every day, no matter how we feel; no matter our circumstances. In reality, in light of so great a salvation that has been wrought for us by the very Son of God, is our daily giving of thanks a sacrifice at all?

The heaven,  even  the heavens,  are  the Lord’s, but the earth He has given to the children of men.

The world is a big place.  Billions of people.  How much greater must heaven be! How many angels are there? God is infinite.  Personal, but infinite nonetheless.  Big numbers don’t bother Him.

Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock  into  a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters.

This is a warning.  This is wise advice.  This is a reality check.  Who could not but tremble in the Lord’s presence?  Even His people are advised to rejoice with trembling.

Who  is  like the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are  in the heavens and in the earth?

Oh the majesty and the condescension of the Almighty! Not only does he humble himself to behold; in the Incarnation He humbles himself to be a part of our physical world.  The Word was made flesh…