Watching Daily At Wisdom's Gates

'O Lord , in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch. ' Psalm 5:3 ESV God doesn't just want the fag end of our days as it were, a hasty prayer at the end of the day by our bedside. He deserves the first-fruits of our time. The Lord should be our first thought in the morning. King David was a busy man no doubt, running the nation of Israel. Nevertheless, the Lord heard his voice in the morning. It seems his practice was to pray 'out loud'. We don't have to just pray 'in our heads'. No doubt it was a sacrifice for David to give up the first hour or so of his days to the Lord. Yet he knew it was worth it. He started his days out right, by consulting with the One who orders our time. Prayer isn't just about presenting a 'shopping list' of requests to God. He isn't a divine slot machine. We're to devote ourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, as the Apostle Paul put it. 'O Lord, m...

 Psalm 103:2 ESV   Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,    We are to bless the Lord. We're not just to pay him lip service. Our very souls are to bless his holy name.  Benefits have a negative connotation in the UK, which has a relatively generous welfare state which arguably many people exploit. Lots of people are on state benefits who should be working and benefiting the greater good by paying taxes. Spiritually, if we receive God's benefits, we're to bless others. It's not enough to scrounge benefits from God and to be miserly with them. If he forgives us, we're to forgive others. If he's a Father to us, we should treat others like family. As Jesus said, if we want to be forgiven, we need to forgive. We can't earn the benefit of forgiveness. Having been forgiven however, we should benefit others with forgiveness. 'O Lord, we bless your holy name. May we always remember your benefits to us, especially forgiveness. In Christ's...

 John 15:4 ESV   Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.     What does it mean to abide? Jesus goes on to illustrate what it means. As a branch abides in the vine, so we must abide in Christ. We're not very agricultural nowadays, so an easier illustration might be that of an arm within a body. As an arm is connected to the body, so we are to be connected to Christ. We can't bear spiritual fruit apart from him. The Apostle Paul talks about people who have a form of godliness, but deny its power. That's like a snapped off branch boasting of its fruit. Apart from Christ, we can do nothing. A severed arm can't boast if it's holding a tool by rigor mortis. It's only in connection with our Lord that we can be spiritually effective. We don't just abide in him to bear fruit, but because he is our raison d'etre, the meaning of our lives. 'Heavenly Father, may ...

 Hebrews 13:16 ESV   Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.    I think when we come to know the good news of salvation in Christ crucified, the danger is that we can become like spoilt children. It's not enough to be saved: we're saved to serve. If we're truly saved, we will progressively become less selfish and more 'otherish'.  We might be tempted to neglect to do good. If we don't need to earn our salvation, we might think we can remain bad people. Yet if we don't start to become better people, we betray the fact we haven't been truly saved. There needs to be evidence of our salvation. We need to do good and to share what we have. There's no room for miserliness or stinginess in the Kingdom of God. I appreciate that the writer admits that to be sharing and good requires sacrifice. He acknowledged that it's hard to be like this. Yet if it pleases our Lord and Saviour, sacrificial generosit...

 1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV  So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.   Elsewhere, we're told that the Kingdom of God isn't a matter of eating or drinking. Yet there are ways of eating and drinking that glorify God. For example, we're not to be greedy or get drunk.  When it comes to food sacrificed to idols, the Apostle Paul has a nuanced approach. Of course, food sacrificed to idols isn't poisonous. Yet he wouldn't have us to partake in pagan, demonic worship.  For the sake of unbelievers, if they specify that food is halal for example, I avoid it. For their own sakes, I don't want them to think that I'm okay with Islam as a demonic religion. I'm not hostike to Muslims, but I wont flatter or deceive them that they're okay as they are, and I'm unashamedly anti Islam. We're to eat and drink to the glory of God. He's a jealous God. He won't share his glory with another. That's why I won't eat fo...

 I prompted AI to write this story... The Prodigal’s Mother She heard him before she saw him—the gate complaining on its hinge, the old sound of return. The servants ran. The father ran. But she stayed where she was, hands wet with flour, the dough cooling under her palms. He stood in the yard thinner than memory, a man-shaped apology. Dirt clung to him as if it had chosen him. When he lifted his eyes, he looked first for his father, then—hesitating—for her. The father embraced him with the clumsy relief of a man who had rehearsed grief too long. “My son,” he said, as if saying it might stitch the years together. Orders flew. A calf lowed. Sandals were fetched. A ring found its way onto a finger that had known other weights. Only then did she step forward. She did not touch him. “So,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron, “you’ve remembered the road.” He opened his mouth, closed it. The speech he had practiced collapsed like a tent in wind. “Mother—” “You left hungry mouths here...

'In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O Lord , make me dwell in safety.' Psalm 4:8 ESV I'm not wishing to belittle insomnia. Yet sleep is a gift of God. I don't regularly suffer from insomnia, but at times I have I have literally gone mad, like any of us would if we didn't get enough sleep. Without wishing to generalise, I think a lot of insomnia is down to doubting that God helps us to dwell in safety. If that's us, we can ask him for the free gift of faith in him. If we get a good night's sleep, or any rest at all, we should be thankful to him. I think insomnia can lead us one or two ways. It can drive us away from God in despair, or towards God in prayerful dependence for the rest we need. I'm sure David had plenty of sleepless nights in his tumultuous life, but he trusted in God to give him the rest he needed. When David was a fugitive, on the run from murderous king Saul, or even as a king battling enemy kingdoms, he must have str...

'many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah ' Psalm 3:2 ESV I relate to David here. This Psalm was written when his life was unravelling. Many casual observers assumed there was no salvation for him in God. To casual observers of my life, there may be no salvation for me in God. Many people assume that if we do good, good will come to us; if we do bad, bad will come to us. The problem is that none of us deserve God's salvation. God promised David a Descendant whose Kingdom will never end. That was David's hope. The Son of David is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah and Saviour of the world. He was born in David's town and died outside David's city to redeem us to himself. David didn't deserve salvation. He was a murderer and adulterer. I don't deserve salvation either, but my hope is in Jesus, not in myself. 'God, words cannot express how grateful we are that our salvation doesn't depend on us...

'He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. ' Psalm 2:4 ESV A worldly caricature of God is of a cosmic killjoy, some grumpy old man up in the sky with an almighty chip on his shoulder. The reality is profoundly different. If I can say this reverently, God has a sense of humour. As far as God's concerned, the biggest joke is mankind's rebellion against him. We might assume he's helplessly wringing his hands at our iniquities against him. Yet from his point of view, us opposing God is like an ant opposing an anteater (multiplied by infinity!)! We might rebel against God. Yet we will ultimately fail. Even if we gain the world and lose our souls, that is not to our profit. When we look at tyrants carving out empires for themselves, we might feel helpless in the face of evil. Yet God knows they're mere mortals who will ultimately have to give an account to him for their actions, like the rest of us. Unless we trust in the Son of God, we'r...