This chapter of Romans digs into themes of judgement, righteousness, morality and conscience, and helps us gain insight how the concept of circumcision relates to New Testament believers.
This chapter addresses the following questions:
Is it fair for me to judge others?
What is God like as a supreme judge? What qualifies his judgement?
How do I think about my conscience in regards to God’s law and ways?
Can people know God’s ways if they haven’t read Old Testament law?
This chapter of Romans digs into themes of judgement, righteousness, morality and conscience, and helps us gain insight how the concept of circumcision relates to New Testament believers.
This chapter addresses the following questions:
Is it fair for me to judge others?
What is God like as a supreme judge? What qualifies his judgement?
How do I think about my conscience in regards to God’s law and ways?
Can people know God’s ways if they haven’t read Old Testament law?
This chapter of Romans digs into themes of judgement, righteousness, morality and conscience, and helps us gain insight how the concept of circumcision relates to New Testament believers.
This chapter addresses the following questions:
Is it fair for me to judge others?
What is God like as a supreme judge? What qualifies his judgement?
How do I think about my conscience in regards to God’s law and ways?
Can people know God’s ways if they haven’t read Old Testament law?
This chapter of Romans touches on themes of obedience in faith, holiness, the inclusivity of the Gospel, generous salvation, and the nature of God’s wrath.
This chapter addresses the following questions:
Who is the good news of Jesus available to?
Are all people accountable to knowing God’s truth?
What makes one deserving of God’s wrath?
This writing will break down the chapter section-by-section, offering commentary for your reflection. Don’t miss the ending titled Beauty in the Book where it all gets wrapped up in a bow—highlighting how every chapter is woven with uplifting realities of God’s goodness and grace.
Did you know that when God calls people into faith, he’s calling them to belong to Jesus Christ? It is an invitation of belonging. Of kinship. Of security. Of family.
Furthermore, it’s an invitation held out by grace. That means that this decadent belonging you’re invited to be a part of, isn’t according to your own ability to perform or get things right, but is due to the generous mercy of The Almighty God, who sets his sights upon you while you’re still tangled in transgression and he beckons you to step forward, deeper, further with Him until your life aligns with his ways more-and-more. (Romans 5:8)
His ways are good, fruitful, transformative, and pure. They are starkly different than society’s methods and cause his people to be disturbingly set apart. I don’t mean disturbing in the general sense of the word, but in the sense that when someone encounters a Christian for the first time—there is a disturbance, an impact, a shaking of the status quo. The world might call it disturbance anyways, but we as Christians—we know its proper title—holiness. There is a distinguishable“different-ness” to the one who belongs to Jesus.
In verses 1-7, we see this concept alluded to several times:
Verse 1: Paul describes his calling to be set apart for the Gospel of God.
Verse 5: He describes the grace he received to call the non-Jewish people (Gentiles) to the obedience of faith for the sake of Jesus’ name.
Verse 6: He addresses the folks in Rome, those who are among the Gentiles, and reminds them of their calling to belong to Jesus Christ.
He then offers a wide-sweeping address to all in Rome who are loved by God, and called to be his holy people.
There is this deeply-rooted theme of calling, holiness, and grace that welcomes us into the book of Romans. May it stir you to remember the invitation of belonging held out to you today— to step deeper into the people of God and into God’s transformative ways, according to his grace, and for the glory of his name.
Carrying a tone of love forward, Paul speaks to the church in Rome in a very pastoral way. He describes his diligent prayers for the church, along with a desire to see them face-to-face.Like a loving “spiritual father”, he commends their active faith and expresses gratitude to God for it.
Carrying along, he proclaims his mission to share the good news of righteousness by faith alone to both those who come from a jewish descent… and to those who don’t (labeled here as “Gentiles"). It’s also worth noting that Paul is writing to a collection of people familiar with Greek wisdom and shares that this gospel he proclaims isn’t just for the wise and learned of this world—aka the Greeks—but for the foolish as well.
It seems Paul wants to make it perfectly clear right out of the gate that having a certain background isn’t a prerequisite for this news he’s sharing, and he drives that stake into the ground ahead…
Romans 1:16-17 are power verses, and some even describe them as a sort of “thesis statement” for the entire book of Romans:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
It might seem strange to our modern ears to consider that one might be “ashamed” of the Gospel, especially in a letter written to a religious community, but as you may have heard before, the gospel of grace can be considered downright scandalous.
“The scandal of grace” is an attention-grabbing phrase that you may have caught floating around various Christian writings. I understand “the scandal of grace” to capture the idea of the shock that occurs when something extravagant is given without merit, to the undeserving. The very nature of this scandal is sure to offend those feel they have established a stake in their own self-righteous standing.
For those readers Paul addresses who come from strict moral backgrounds—according to Greek morality and philosophy, or to zealous, law-keeping Jews—the message of grace was sure to push the envelope and provoke strong reaction.
But Paul holds fast to this: he is unashamed to share of the grace that he believes most fully offers salvation to both Greeks and Jews alike.
Here Paul is—boldly and unashamedly—telling his listeners that this gospel saves. It saves them according to God’s righteousness, which is given by faith.
What feels like a staunch pivot is actually an organic Segway, as Paul breaks in topically to the reality of God’s wrath.
On one hand, it might feel like making a 180° from the positive topic of salvation to the negative topic of wrath, but on the other hand, if one is bringing up the notion of salvation, an organic question that might be asked next is: but what are we being saved from?
Cue: a discussion of God’s wrath.
There’s so much beauty hiding in this controversial topic (you can actually find a full blog post on it here), but here’s where I’ll begin for today’s purposes: God’s wrath is as sensible as it is rooted in freedom. What I mean by that, is that as you continue reading from verses 18-32, you’ll see that God’s wrath is a simply “giving over” of people to what they choose for themselves. Note these instances:
Verse 19-21: The truth about God has been made plain to all people. But people chose to reject it.
Verse 22: God gives them over to the false notions and fake idols they choose to embrace.
Verse 24: God gives people over to the sinful desires in their own hearts and the despicable lusts they wanted. Consequently, they receive the consequence for their error.
Verse 28-31: God gives people over to the depravity of their minds, and they naturally come to embrace all things wicked.
And yet, because of his incredible mercy—because of who He is—God never wanted any of this for mankind. Just as he freely gives people over to the evil that they choose for themselves and judges them according to their free choice, he also freely offers salvation to any one who turns to him.
And that option—option number two—is the one he wants for everyone. He wants them all to choose repentance, and to turn to him!
…he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9 NIV
He offers saving grace through the person of Jesus to Jews, Gentiles, Greeks, non-Greeks… to anyone who desires a life with him.
The righteous will live by faith. The righteous will live as they surrender their pride and their ideas that they can do this whole life-thing according to their own independent knowledge and wisdom. They will live as they trust God—trust in his ways through-and-through, culminating in his gererous way of offering salvation through the person of Jesus.
God’s wrath is rooted in his desire to let people come to him freely.
His judgement is rooted in justice—according to what is right and fair, in accordance with people’s free choices.
And most importantly, his gospel is rooted in love, so that an unmerited salvation is offered to anyone that places their faith in Jesus’ name.
While it might sound harsh reading about God’s wrath, there is actually a lot of beauty we learn about his character through these descriptions. We see that he isn’t willing to control us. Anyone who has ever been in a controlling relationship knows the soul-crushing nature of it. God invites us to come to him freely, not by a means of control.
Furthermore, we see his generous nature to offer salvation to everyone. He isn’t a wishy-washy God; he has firm stances on what’s good and true, and while the reality of our ability to turn away from him freely in our actions leaves us deserving of his judgement, his steadfast love for us caused him to make a way out for us—even when we were in deadset rebellion against him.
These people described in the section on wrath (and spoiler alert—we’ve all been these people) sound awful… and so, when we hold that in balance with the reality that this is the state we were in when God sent his very own son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin, his incredible mercy is emphasized. There is no one like our God.
He is eternally righteous, unmatchably just, and amazingly rich in love and mercy.
May we rest in these aspects of who he is when we feel painfully aware of our own sin or question if he even wants us. We see here that while the depravity of our humanity is real, the good news of his salvation through faith eclipses our sin, and he leads us on a journey towards holiness according to his benevolent mercy—for the sake of his Good Name. Praise the Lord!
The sixth chapter of The Psalms is a short writing that displays a beautiful and inspiring faith that pales only in comparison to it’s beautiful and inspiring display of God’s faithfulness.
In verses 1-3, we see a man in agony.
Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?
Transparently, I felt like that guy when I cracked open my Bible this morning.
Sometimes, life is just hard. We have ever-changing responsiblities, wacky hormones, these deep spiritual wells we call souls, and relationships that can be complicated beyond measure.
To add to the challenges of living in a world not yet restored, David—the author of this Psalm—spent years being literally pursued by enemies who sought to take his life. He knew what it was like to be in bleak-looking circumstances. A poetic soul by nature, he felt the weight of his own depravity deeply and poured many of those feelings onto the pages we now have scripted and bound into our Bibles today.
There is an implication in these verses that David felt the weight of his own sin. With humility and in a confessional nature, he turns to the only one who has the ability to meet him in his heartbreak and wipe his slate clean. He turns to the Lord—and may we all observe what happens next as we seek to lay our shortcomings before God.
Verses 4-6 go like this:
Turn, Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?
David asks for the mercy of God (v. 2), for his healing (v. 2), and for his deliverance (v. 4). He proclaims the love of God as being the fuel for God’s care in this time of hardship.
“Save me because of your unfailing love.” He says. David then articulates the reality that the life of the Lord’s servant is marked by proclamations of praise. It’s almost as though he is stating the relationship between himself and the Almighty: God loves. God saves. God heals. We praise.
And this is where things start getting spicy. (Okay, spicy… strange word choice, perhaps, but I am a 21st century suburban girl commenting on this Scripture after all! Bringing my whole vocabulary to the mix.) When I say things are about to get spicy, I mean “buckle up and pay attention”. Because the end of this Psalm has the power to zap some life into your soul—however weary it may be feeling—with the intensity of a chile pepper.
Before we get to the boom at the end, I want to share a few more words of David that you might find relatable. Maybe this isn’t how you are feeling today, but it might have been how you felt yesterday, or it could be how you feel tomorrow. He’s in a rough spot when he writes this Psalm and isn’t holding anything back. It’s what we love about the Psalms—their raw nature and the steadfastness of God put on display in the process. Here goes. Verses 6-7:
I am worn out from my groaning.
All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.
Poor David! And poor us when this is the state we find ourselves in! The frailty of our humanity is real and sometimes the pain of that reality pours out of our eyes until we feel we couldn’t possibly cry another tear.
I can’t resist a sidestep to Psalm 56:8 for the one who might be in this place right now. Do you know the Bible says God catches our tears in a bottle? Tap on the verse here if you need to hear that, and know: not one tear is lost by our Almighty, All-Loving, All-Attentive Heavenly Father.
For the grand finale of all grand finales, let’s see how this psalm wraps up—in a bold but subtle exclamation of God’s lovingkindness. You ready for this? Psalm 6:8-10…
Away from me, all you who do evil,
for the Lord has heard my weeping.
The Lord has heard my cry for mercy;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
All my enemies will be overwhelmed with shame and anguish;
they will turn back and suddenly be put to shame.
Not more than two seconds (or more accurately, four verses) passes between David’s plea to God, and his triumphal statement that God has in fact heard his plea.
He weeps before God and immediately says, “The Lord heard my weeping”.
He cries for God’s mercy and immediately says, “The Lord heard my cry for mercy”.
He prays to God and immediately says, “The Lord accepts my prayer”.
What would it look like for us to walk in a faith like that? How often do I pour my heart out to God and then follow it up with thoughts of half-doubt like “I sure hope God moves after that.”
Over-and-over in the Bible, God is described as a God of Mercy. Don’t take my word for it! Allow me to share just a few passages stretching from the Old to New Testament, proclaiming the reality of God’s mercy. (I’ll be bolding the word mercy for emphasis.)
Hebrews 4:16: Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Ephesians 2:4-5: But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
1 Peter 1:3: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
Titus 3:5: …he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit…
Psalm 103:8: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Isaiah 30:18: Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
And to top it all off:
Lamentations 3:22: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end.
Now, don’t think we are going to brush over such an iconic description of God’s character without breaking it down… if we dig into that word, mercy, here’s a bit of it’s deeper meaning according to the original language the Biblical text was written in:
Mercy, in the Old Testament, is often translated from the Hebrew word, hesed, which means faithfulness, or abundant and plentiful kindness. (Okay, that’s sweet…)
The Heberew word raham (as in the Isaiah verse above) has also been translated to our English word of mercy. To dig deeper, this word denotes deep love, compassion, and tender care.
To know our all-powerful God is also deeply affectionate, compassionate, and caring is about enough to take one’s breath away. I’m able to grab hold more firmly of this reality when I picture a really incredible earthly Father. Picture one what is powerful and protective, strong and brave, but that also meets his children with incredible tenderness, sweetness, and affectionate love.
Wow, these are arms we can rest in and be held by, fully secure.
To add more cherries on top of an already decadent sundae, let’s see how this word mercy translates in the New Testament…
I’m very excited as I type this because I just peeked ahead and this was the definition of mercy that I remembered that I just can’t wait to share with you. (Okay, Annalisa, enough chitchat, get to the definition!)
Mercy is our English word, right? In Greek, the New Testament’s original language, the word used is eleos. And do you want to know how the original Greek-speakers understood that word?
Eleos is this: kindness or good will towards the miserable and the afflicted, joined with a desire to help them. (1)
His mercy is a compassion that takes action.
God’s kindness and goodwill towards those in pain takes place in conjunction with his desire to help them. He doesn’t support us begrudgingly. His help is driven by his benevolence.
When we call, he answers, because he wants to answer.
He isn’t doing us any favors. Well, I mean, he kinds of is… He’s doing us huge favors all the time. But it’s because his character is one that gives favor to those who are undeserving.
His character is one of mercy, and that’s exactly what we see David taking hold of in the Psalm above. He comes to God in times of trouble, with an expectation that God hears his pleas and comes to save him.
Now, we can end this article right here, right now, or you can come along with me on a small tangent that might seem like a bit of a buzz kill, but is entirely necessary to help a few of you out these to hold tightly to this truth and never let it go.
You might be thinking something like this: “But doesn’t God turn his face from people sometimes?” “Haven’t I read in the Bible that God won’t hear the prayers of sinners, or something like that?”
Briefly addressing this notion to bring comfort to any aching hearts… in this psalm, we see right out of the gate that David is in a position of repentance and humility. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. (James 4:6)
You can read more about this concept in an article at the bottom of this page. (2)
But know this: if you are approaching God from a position of humility—not wanting to hold onto sin or puff yourself with pride—but coming to him knowing that you’re in need of his mercy, we see God turn his ear to those prayers consistently throughout the Bible.
May we approach God in humility, with hearts crying out for his kindness knowing that we are in desperate need of his mercy. And when we pray those prayers, may we trust the benevolence of his character and his kindness to hear us when we call out to him. To the glory of his beautfiful name!
If you liked breaking down this Psalm verse-by-verse, you might like the Bible study below which walks through seven Psalms step-by-step and asks thoughtful questions along the way—keeping the Gospel in view all-the-while.
Additionally, there’s this cute bookmark in my shop which I was actually moving through when I came across this psalm. It helps you read a psalm per day (or week, or whatever) and mark them off as you go to help you keep covering fresh ground in God’s word. I am so blessed by this and how it pulls be graciously into a consistency that nourishes my soul. There are proverbs on the back too, so it’s a double whammy!
(1) All of these definitions were taken from a helpful resource called Blue Letter Bible. It’s a website that helps you dig deep and can be really fun to utilize. Just send me an email if you want some help navigating this resource! Would bring me loads of joy to walk you through it. (annalisavsawtell@gmail.com)
(2) Got Questions: Does God hear / answer the prayers of a sinner / unbeliever?
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God? Psalm 42:2 NIV
That was the phrase that entered my mind day-after-day.
One o’clock in the afternoon rolled around, and each day I was faced with the conundrum: do I give my weary body more coffee and try to muscle through some tasks? Or do I take a moment to pour some chamomile tea and rest for the afternoon ahead?
I was in a season of feeling totally wiped. I knew I needed something; it was just a matter of what.
I knew my depleted body didn’t need any more coffee, yet day-after-day, I bought into the lie that my life would function best if I simply had a little more caffeine and found a way to power through what was needed.
As you may be predicting: that pattern only led to my own crashing and burning; the choice for coffee made me an irritable mom, a tense wife, a foggy thinker, and a slow worker.
After days of this bad habit, one o’clock rolled around and that same question popped into my mind.
What will I choose today: coffee or chamomile?
Just as quickly as I asked the question, this nudge came back around: “You don’t need coffee. You need chamomile.” I decided that today was the day I’d listen to that reoccurring whisper.
I poured some tea and sat on my couch. Wooowww.
I took a deep breath, sipped a perfectly hot bit of chamomile tea, and exhaled.
Maybe for the first time all week.
Because you see, in that moment, it hit me: I wasn’t just muscling through my daily tasks, I was stuck in this awful pattern of trying to muscle through my life with God.
I was starting to become suspicious that this whole coffee-chamomile-conundrum may have been God’s way of leading me into a deeper truth regarding my relationship with him.
Do you ever try to “run on more coffee” in your spiritual life?
That happens to me sometimes. My good desire to pursue an intimate walk with Jesus gets all twisty and weird and I find myself anxiously feeling like no amount is enough.
The lies sound like this:
“No amount of Bible reading will fill me with the wisdom I need.”
“No amount of prayer will help me live the life God wants for me.”
“No amount of repentance will cleanse me internally like I want to be cleansed.”
The list goes on-and-on…
Now, hopefully it goes without saying that Bible reading, prayer, and repentance are really good things. It goes awry however, when I start viewing God as a taskmaster versus a loving Savior.
When I forget that he delights to meet me in the moments I devote to him. That it’s his pleasure to save. That it’s his joy to offer wisdom to the one who asks. That he is happy to guide us in our journey. That he spared not only his own son to wipe our souls clean!
It’s when I lose sight of his benevolent grace, that my soul starts feeling depleted.
And when my soul starts feeling depleted, I convince myself that simply working harder will bring the rejuvenation I crave.
In doing so, I continue my journey away from the sight of his grace. And it’s soul-crushing.
We were made to rest in his grace.
We were made to operate in our Christian walk from a place of rest and fullness, with his love flowing through us and out into the world!
Which brings me back to that day… on the couch… with chamomile…
I spent an hour sipping tea, letting the reality of God being with me soak in.
I was reading my Bible—but not frantically like I had become accustomed to, as though it were slipping through my fingers even as I flipped the pages. I read it restfully, believing it was relaying to me the story of a God who stopped at nothing so that I could be restored in his Son.
I prayed—but not frantically, like there was an angry person on the other end of the telephone line judging my words. Instead, I had a light conversation with one I walked closely with, decorated with moments of silence, and riddled with the fragrance of rest that comes only from a well-acquainted relationship.
I softened and paid attention to the shifting of my heart: noticing the rhythms of grace encircling me, transforming me, and calling me ahead in my journey, one little step-at-a-time.
I was enchanted by his grace. And his grace fueled me.
Being with him refreshed me.
And I entered into that afternoon as a wife and mom who had just been hugged by the goodness of God. My children were met with smiles that day. I welcomed my husband home and cared about his day with a heart full of “having-been-cared-for-by-God-myself”.
I was able to do my work—to think clearly and move diligently—from a place of rest.
That hour of chamomile tea may have been the best investment for my productivity I had ever made! And the irony of it, is that that wasn’t even the point.
I hope you’re understanding by now that it wasn’t my actual beverage that made the difference, but the heart posture that God’s grace is surrounding me, and that his benevolence is a a place I can rest in when my soul grows weary.
His love refreshes us when our souls feel parched.
And hey! Have you seen the chamomile collection?! I created a painting series along this concept of sweet and delicate chamomile. You can find it in the shop.
And don’t miss the stationery cards laden with chamomile, reminding you and recipients to be rooted in rest. Love to you all!
God is intimately involved in every single detail of our lives.
How many of you need to hear that today?
Because I don’t know about you, but sometimes I behave as though if I don’t perform just right—getting quiet time with the Lord in the morning, reigning myself in perfected self-control, and continuing in prayer—that I lose out on God’s presence. But that simply isn’t true.
While spiritual disciplines are healthy, vital, and good for the sake of our faith life, they don’t manipulate or coerce God’s presence with us.
This is good news for the one who wants God’s involvement in all things, but can’t help but feel like they fall short on the daily.
On a cognitive level, most would say that God is with us always. We hear the verses like Isaiah 41:10 which says “do not fear, for I am with you” or Matthew 28:20 telling us that Jesus is “with us always, until the very end of the age”. But personally, I’ve noticed anxiety beginning to creep in on me as I have fallen into a mindset that I must spend my days grappling for his presence. Here’s how it has gone…
As I’ve come to learn and appreciate the beauty of Spiritual disciplines—reading my Bible, praying, solitude, etc.—I’ve lost sight of the reality that God’s power supersedes my human frailty.
Because while these disciplines are fruitful and valuable for the sake of building up my fragile interest in God in the midst of a distracting world, the truth is that God never loses interest in me, even when I miss the mark.
When I become unaware of his presence, his presence remains with me just the same.
Or as the writer of Psalm 139 puts it, even in the midst of our own darkness, everything is as light to God:
“…even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” Psalm 139:12 NIV
Our unawareness of Him, His presence, or how He is working doesn’t supercede the fact that He is there. He is present. And He is working. Psalm 116:1-2, communicated sweetly in the NLT version, describes God’s attentive nature:
I love the Lord because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath! Psalm 116:1-2 NLT
Don’t stop calling on the God who is there! And who moves. Our prayers matter because God is good and powerful—and by some divine mystery, he has ordained that mountains are moved by the prayers of his people.
Psalm 139 is a portion of Scripture that many are introduced to early in their faith journey, and for good reason—it breathes life into a weary humanity longing for any sense of value. It notably states the fact that each and every person is “fearfully and wonderfully made”.
But may we never let the well-known nature of certain verses make them trite. Every ounce of this weighty Psalm holds meaning and purpose for our lives today.
Would you like to take a walk through Psalm 139 together?
Have you ever experienced that feeling of somebody getting you a gift that was just perfect for you? That inexplicable bliss of being fully known and fully seen?
In verses 1-11, the inspired author of this Psalm describes God’s intimate knowledge of our lives. God knows what time we open our eyes in the morning, and is well-acquainted with how we spend our time. He knows those moments of our days where we just need to sit, and sees us when we take a deep breath and keep going in our daily tasks.
He sees it all, and knows it all. And when we partner this beautifully truth with realities found in Romans 8 (below), we are reminded that God doesn’t just intimately know us, but continually loves us in all the waking-and-resting moments of our lives.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. Romans 8:38 NLT
You are never separated from God’s knowledge, or God’s love. As a perfect Father, God is attentive to us. Let’s revisit this piece we covered above from Psalm 116:
I love the Lord because he hears my voice
and my prayer for mercy.
Because he bends down to listen,
I will pray as long as I have breath! Psalm 116:1-2 NLT
“Because he bends down to listen.” Picture a parent kneeling down before their distressed child, listening attentively. That is the kind of love that is ours with our Heavenly Father.
And as if the Psalmist of Psalm 139 read my mind (and perhaps yours) he covers a question that instantly came to mind upon reading this: “But does God ever turn away from us?”
Images from the Old Testament flooded my mind as I recalled accounts of God’s obstinate people in rebellion against him and experiencing hardship—like the Israelites grumbling against the Lord and spending more time in the desert. (Exodus 16) Or verses like Psalm 88:14 in which the writer cries out in pain, asking God why He has turned against him.
In instances like this, I think it’s crucial to remember God’s loving heart of discipline isn’t a neglectful lack of presence. Just as a loving parent may allow their children to undergo the consequences of their own sinful behavior that they would learn from it and change their path, so God disciplines those he loves. And he does love his people.
See how Isaiah 65 describes God’s merciful love to even his rebellious ones:
All day long I opened my arms to a rebellious people. But they follow their own evil paths and their own crooked schemes. Isaiah 65:2 NLT
He opens his arms to them. It reminds me of my own child being lost in a tantrum; even in a fit of rebellion, all my heart wants is to open my arms up and embrace him. I want to call him home into my love.
Or consider the story of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15:11-32. In this story, even after the Father’s son had lived recklessly and away from him, the love in his heart opened his arms in warm embrace to welcome his son back into the security of his care.
And let’s consider the arms of Jesus, spread wide on the cross—once and for all making a way for every sinner to fall back in to the loving arms of the Father.
And to draw back to Psalm 139, we see the Father’s hand rested gently on our shoulder, as he surrounds us tenderly in all the moments of our lives:
You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5 NIV
Our Father sees every ounce of our lives, and his heart is set on going alongside of us and surrounding us, even when we can’t sense his presence.
As if to follow that same line of thinking, the Psalmist continues to comment on God’s ever-presence, proclaiming the reality that whether we are aware of God’s with-ness, it endures nonetheless. God is with us, feel-it-or-not.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence? Psalm 139:7 NIV
The answer to this seemingly rhetorical question, is nowhere. We can go nowhere apart from God’s Spirit, and we cannot flee his presence.
Being closely observed can feel lovely, but it can also feel exposing at times. Remembering God’s benevolent hand and saving help can cause us to embrace the reality of his presence—not longing to hide in the darkness, but knowing the beauty and brilliancy of his light.
I love the way it’s described as we carry on in Psalm 139. The writer describes how God is always there to hold us fast. That even in the darkest moments of our lives—those moments where it feels like everything around us has become darkness, we can trust that God is with us.
The darkness doesn’t feel dark to him, because He Is Light. (1 John 1:5)
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you. Psalm 139:11-12 NIV
I hope this encourages you today. If you are in a season where you don’t have a tangible sense of God’s presence, or you don’t feel like you can see how he’s working, know this: God is present and God knows how he’s working. The darkness isn’t dark to him. To him, your entire circumstance is drenched in his marvelous, all-encompassing light.
(Psst—if you need a fuller reminder of God being with you in the valley, check out this writing.)
As though it weren’t lovely enough to rest in the truths we have covered so far—that God sees us fully, loves us entirely, and is intimately knowledgable of our present circusmtances—we get to move into the face that he has fashioned very nook and cranny of our innermost selves. Let’s continue on…
Here, we approach some of the most often-quoted portions of Psalm 139, those parts that describe how God knit us together in our mother’s wombs, and has made us both fearfully and wonderfully.
Lest we miss a moment, can I invite you to the tippy top of this section and explore with you Psalm 139:13. There’s some gold in there I’d hate for us to miss:
For you created my inmost being… Psalm 139:13a NIV
What exactly does it mean that God created our inmost being? In some versions, it’s said this way: “For thou hast possessed my reins”. C. H. Spurgeon commented on this language in a way I’ll never forget:
“Thou art the owner of my inmost parts and passions: not the indweller and observer only, but the acknowledged lord and possessor of my most secret self. The word "reins" signifies the kidneys, which by the Hebrews were supposed to be the seat of the desires and longings; but perhaps it indicates here the most hidden and vital portion of the man…” —C. H. Spurgeon on Psalm 139
A person’s inmost being is the absolute core of who they are. Spurgeon noted that at the time of writing, this language might imply God created a person’s inner-workings, including their deep-seated longings and desires.
At face value, this Psalm comments on God crafting a person in-utero. And whether we take this to simply mean a person’s ligaments and bone structures, or their emotional disposition and interests, the fact remains: every single person has been crafted by God with the utmost intention and care.
This is an idea we see carried on into the New Testament:
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 NIV
In Christ Jesus, we are made anew as God’s special handiwork, with purposes God has laid out for our lives in accordance with his good design.
God crafted our innermost beings. God redeems and restores us in Christ Jesus. God is intimately involved in both our being made, and how our days are carried out.
Psalm 139:16 blows my mind in this regard. It says:
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16 NIV
When we think about God’s eyes “seeing” what wasn’t yet formed, I find it helpful to consider examples from our day-to-day lives.
We “see” things that aren’t yet there all the time.
I am reminded of my friend Jess who moved into a “fixer upper”. She describes the first time she entered the home to find hot pink shaggy carpet and bright blue walls. It might have been an eyesore at the time, but her eyes lit up as she described how “she could just see the finished product”. What she visualized wasn’t yet in existence, but she knew her plans for the design of the house.
Or as an artist, I think about a new painting series I might embark on. Long before my paintbrush hits a canvas, I spend time in my mind visualizing my every intention for the piece.
I see it before it exists.
And God saw you before you existed.
He envisioned you. He designed you. He set to work crafting you. And he has intentions for you. As one version of Ephesians 2:10 puts it, we are God’s masterpiece.
His thoughts concerning us are precious, and more vast than the grains of sand sweeping across every beach on earth. (Psalm 139:17-18) May we know the extravagant worth placed on our lives according to the wonderful design of our Creator.
As if in understandable shock, the author of this Psalm seems to go on a small tangent, asking God to slay those who speak of Him with evil intent.
After considering the steadfast love and knowledge of God, it’s easy to understand how our minds could be perplexed at the ones who speak ill of God and rebel against him.
Evidently, the writer isn’t making this statement from a position of pride—as he carries on to acknowledge his own waywardness in the verses to come—but from a position of alliance with God.
This Psalmist has proclaimed God’s goodness to be with him in all the moments of life, and it almost seems like an exclamation of the Psalmists desire to be with God too.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? Psalm 139:21 NIV
Love for God bursts forth from this Psalmist as he proclaims his disdain for those who hate God. And now, it might be worthwhile to note that God doesn’t advocate for our hatred of people. (In fact, he advocates that we love our enemies.)
So while this moment might seem a bit tongue-in-cheek, I think it’s a human display of wisdom: we want to love what God loves and hate what he hates. We want to “be on God’s side”.
To fear the Lord is to hate evil… Proverbs 8:13 NIV
In humility, the author turns the mirror on himself and finishes this beautiful Psalm with a prayer we would all benefit from incorporating into our rhythms:
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23-24 NIV
After a bold proclamation on his own hatred for the sinfulness he sees around him, the psalmist desires to pursue holiness inside of himself. He knows this is only possible according to God’s guidance and goodness.
Psalm 139 covers God’s intimate knowledge of every detail of our lives, and the beautiful reality that there is nowhere we can go that is outside his care.
His hand is with us, always. Even when circumstances seem dark or dismal, nothing is without light in God’s eyes. He sees clearly, even when we don’t.
We get to know and trust his goodness, partner with him in a love for the light, and ask him to shine on all the deepest parts of our soul and expose what needs to become more aligned with his perfect ways.
We are so blessed to have a God who cares enough about us to go with us and guide us.
May we find peace in this knowledge today, friends!
Did you enjoy walking through this Psalm? If so, you might like to look into this resource below. I’ve written a Bible study that walks through seven really lovely Psalms.
It’s not so much of a devotional style as this writing, but will break each Psalm down into bite-sized pieces and invite you to dig deeper through cross-referenced Scriptures printed right inside, through word studies, and those special sections tying each Psalm to the truth of the New Covenant. If you’d like to learn more, check out “Summer in the Psalms” below!
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.
The Lord will indeed give what is good,
and our land will yield its harvest.
Psalm 85:11-12 NIV
Have you ever felt discouraged? Okay, I know… that’s kind of a “gimme” question….
We all feel discouraged at times. Maybe I should get more specific:
Have you ever felt like you were “trying your hardest” to honor God and obey him, yet watched areas of your life look like they are falling apart and wondered exactly where God was in the midst of your heartache?
I’ve felt that way. Recently... Actually, in the last 24 hours. I felt like I lost the battle of faithfulness.
I was experiencing hardships, and using every tool in my toolbox to get through them. But—spoiler alert—what I needed wasn’t a bigger toolbox. What I needed was bigger faith.
In the last 24 hours, I experienced one of those moments where I lacked any sense of purpose, clarity, direction, or understanding of how God was at work in the midst of all the feelings and circumstances I was experiencing.
I didn’t feel like I was seeing breakthrough; I felt broken down.
Thankfully, I run with a pretty vulnerable prayer crew at my church, and one woman was bold enough to ask for prayer in our group text thread. She had similar feelings of wanting to overcome in the battles she was facing. Relating to what she shared, I reached out to her via text.
By the time I reached out to her, she had already seen God’s light shine in her circumstances, and I’ll never forget the words she shared regarding His faithfulness to show mercy and provide us with the strength we need:
He will show up for us. We can hold onto hope. The sun will rise.
I thought this was just about the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
As if that wasn’t enough to uplift my downtrodden spirit, my friend had the wisdom to reframe my entire experience from the night before. Where I felt discouraged—like I had lost the battle of faith because I couldn’t see God working in my circumstances—she described my trial as an opportunity for growth. It was time to trust what I couldn’t see.
Where I felt overcome, she proclaimed an opportunity to persevere in faith.
Where I felt incapable, she proclaimed an opportunity to give control over to God.
Where I felt defeated, she proclaimed an opportunity to receive God’s loving mercy, anew each and every day.
My friend had received fresh perspective from God, and passed it along to me. And boy, was I grateful!
I saw this passage of Scripture burst to life:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 NIV
Pure joy. That was the tone of my friend’s text messages, and it was contagious.
Before my trial transpired, one thing had become clear to me: I was in need of perseverance in a variety of life’s circumstances. What began as a disheartening event—not sensing God’s presence or having clarity in what to do—transformed into a blessed opportunity to grow in my ability to have faith, become more perseverant, and gain maturity.
What a much-needed perspective shift! As a sort of cherry on top of her encouragement, my friend also referred me to Psalms 84-86 which contained all sorts of relevant goodies.
For starters, Psalm 84 refers to how the one whose strength is found in the Lord can walk through metaphorical valleys and have springs appear. Psalm 84:7 then says this:
They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
“They go from strength to strength.” Yes, please.
That is the reminder we all need at times. It’s not about seeing the steps ahead and trusting our own ability to get by. (Plus, my own strength definitely wasn’t cutting it for this one…) I needed to trust God’s faithfulness to provide strength after strength to get me through—not only this hardship—but through every day stretching from now into eternity.
Furthermore (and this is where it gets fun and artsy), I had already intended to list some artwork today depicting an overflowing pot of shrub roses—which were symbolic of God’s faithfulness to bring about growth.
While these roses on my front step spoke to my heart about God’s faithfulness each morning this past summer, I didn’t quite have the words to explain what these little blooms meant to me… until I continued on in the Psalms and came to Psalm 85:11-12.
After describing God’s faithfulness to show unfailing love to his servants—and to save those who fear him—Psalm 85 steps into this beautiful, nature-oriented piece of Scripture:
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Psalm 85:11-12 NIV
God’s faithfulness to give what is good—in its proper time, to his people—is something that we can rely on. He will “indeed” give what is good.
As I tended my shrub roses this past summer, sometimes pruning left them looking bleak. And yet I knew this pruning was a necessary part of the process if I wanted them roses to flourish.
My roses wouldn’t have made their way into maturity and fullness without pruning.
In the same way, moments of trial give us opportunities to fully mature, as we trust God’s faithfulness to bring about all that is good.
And he won’t let us down.
He’s eternally faithful and entirely good. May this image below remind you to remember God’s faithfulness no matter what fiery ordeal you’re walking through, and to rejoice in his goodness in the beautiful seasons to come.
Blessing to you, wherever you’re at!
The truth is, that for as long as I can remember, I’ve been watching Isaiah 55:8-13 unfold before my very eyes.
For while lies from the enemy have assaulted me at every twist and turn, and done their darnedest to convince me that God is, in fact, not good, the victorious power of the Gospel actively transforming my life has begged a different story.
Before we take any steps further, allow me too share the incredible value of truth found in the passage at play with you, Isaiah 55:8-13—
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”
It opens with a line proclaiming that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours—a line that, if spoken by another human, might come off arrogant or overtly offensive. But, when referring to the mind of God, can only be received in humility as an obvious and necessary truth.
God is God, and we are not. And praise be. Because not only is God higher than we are, but better than we could ever begin to fathom.
The power we are submitting our lives to is the greatest force of love that ever existed: the author of life itself, and the provider of all things good and beautiful. (Exodus 20:6, James 1:17, John 10:10, Hebrews 12:12, Genesis 1:31, 1 John 4:8)
I love the way this passage from Isaiah carries on, describing the words that flow from the mouth of this High and Mighty God: it says they go forward, accomplishing what he desires.
And to circle back to what exactly it is that God desires, may we always remember that what God desires is good.
That when he sent Jesus to the cross, he did it out of his steadfast and abundant love (even for the sinner), for the salvation of the weak and hopeless, and to hold out a cosmic and generous hand for anyone who turns to take hold of it. (John 3:16-17)
As God’s word goes forward, it accomplishes what he desires. I remember the first time I caught a glimpse of God’s will—what makes God happy—in Ephesians 1. It says this:
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. Ephesians 1:4-6 NIV
God’s will for us is that we be adopted to sonship through Jesus Christ. It pleased him to do this. Isaiah 53:10 puts it a little more graphically, as this passage of Scripture in the Old Testament prophesies about Jesus coming to save us from our sins:
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. Isaiah 53:10 NIV
The suffering of Jesus was tragic, and yet, for what it produced, the Father was unwilling to spare it. For us.
We can trust his heart for us. It’s more beautiful that we could ever imagine.
As Isaiah 55:8-13 goes on from describing God’s word going out to accomplish his will (our salvation), it continues to use the most whimsical metaphors to help our human minds grasp all that this entails. We simply must revisit it:
Isaiah 55:12-13a—
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow…
As God’s word, will, and purposes permeate our lives, the result is a being led forth in joy and peace. It reminds me of a child being led forth by the hand of a parent who has long-shown their loving desire to bless their child with goodness.
This passage describes the mountains and hills bursting into songs before the one who is the Lord’s. And honestly? This feels like exactly what my life with the Lord has entailed:
I feel like with Jesus, the lights turned on. Like my life used to be lived in black and white, but the more I walk with him, the more colorful my life becomes. I have eyes to see that places which used to look like just sweeping hills of green actually have variety, and depth, and life tucked into every square inch.
I didn’t have eyes to see the wildflowers all around me, and not only that, but I’m also able to take in—by the power of His Spirit—the new life he is springing up in every moment.
He’s the author of life! If only we might receive him!
He is merciful to do this. To take the weedy barrenness of our lives before him and trade us grace, beauty, and abundance.
He sees our thornbushes, and throws us flowers. He sees our briers, and brings us blooms.
It has to be exclaimed: there has never been anyone better than Him!
And that’s exactly the thing—his mercy isn’t purposeless. The natural result of receiving a mercy so steadfast as his, is praise.
If you read through the rich and beautiful passage of Ephesians 1:3-14, you’ll see that while the author Paul describes all of our incredible spiritual blessings in Christ, the line appears multiple times that God did these things “to the praise of his glory”.
The glory of God is his true character, his true nature, and his true goodness: shown in the utmost by the person of Jesus Christ. (Colossians 1:15, John 1:18)
And who he is, results in his renown, or his remembrance. His fame.
…This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.” Isaiah 55:13b
The goodness that God imbues our lives with shows all of existence who He Is. We, in Christ, are living, breathing, walking, moving testimonies of the goodness of God.
Praise him forever!
I created a gigantic painting to capture the essence of this passage: God’s heart of goodness and his ability to de-weed our lives of sin and imbue our lives with goodness as we walk with him. Even capturing the way he leads us on this garden walk all the way into eternity! Please visit the shop for prints of this image, or even the original for as long as it’s available!