October
Fall Holy Day Schedule
Trumpets - Friday, October 8th - Gray Summit, 11 a.m;
potluck following service
Atonement - Sunday, October 17th - Saladins’, 11 a.m.
Opening Night of the Feast of Tabernacles -
Thursday, October 21st - 5 - 8 p.m.,
Rockwood Resort, Branson, MO
Ice Cream/Welcome/Bible Study
No local services October 23rd or 30th
Where Are You? by Cynthia Saladin
What are many of your conversations centered around these days? The mask mandates? The vaccine mandates? The crisis at the southern border? The fiasco in the Middle East? The wildfires and drought conditions out West? The unrest and disquiet? What about the lies we’re being fed? I was thinking about the morass of deceit, conflict, evilness, and anxiety all around us. What a terrible place to be!!
Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. (Psalm 120:2)
Do you know where this verse is? It’s in the beginning psalm of ascent. This is the psalm which starts the journey towards fellowship with God for eight days during the Feast of Tabernacles. The psalmist says he’s in the tents of Kedar, in Meshech - places which are a fair distance from Jerusalem. He’s in a place physically far from Jerusalem, but that’s not the biggest problem; it’s also spiritually distant from God and His ways.
So what does the psalmist do? He asks for God’s deliverance. That’s a good place to start - to recognize that he needs God’s help to get him out of the situation and environment in which he finds himself. But he also recognizes the ungodly state in which he dwells. He knows that he has lived far too long in a place that hates peace, and by extension, hates the Prince of Peace. He’s ready to start the journey to meet with God, to dwell with God and like-minded people.
I love that this is the first psalm of ascent! Do we take the time to think about where we are dwelling? Is it physically and spiritually far from God? Are we spending the majority of our time dwelling on the lies and deceit around us? Or are we taking steps to stop dwelling there, to dwell where there is peace?
Psalm 121 picks up this thought of looking to God for guidance and help: I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth!
We do this, right? We go to God for help and deliverance. Right?
Then psalm 123:2 focuses our vision a little more sharply:
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us.
It’s not about just saying a prayer for deliverance; it’s keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, not allowing your attention to be diverted towards anything else. So how does that work? What does that look like? I’m so grateful God gives us object lessons to help us understand. My object lesson in this instance is Pepper. Pepper watches me. If I get up from my desk and go into the kitchen, so does Pepper. If I go outside, he goes with me. If I go to bed, he’s got to be right there too. I have a living object lesson of what it means to keep your eyes on your master - until what? Until He has mercy upon us.
Think about that for just a minute. Why would we want to keep our eyes fixed on our Master? And secondly, why would we need mercy? Think about what Pepper does. He wants to know where I am so that he can be with me. He follows me. He is willing to try to eat whatever it is I’m eating. If someone scolds him because he’s underfoot, he leans up against me for protection.
So do I follow Jesus? Do I spend time in the Word so that I can be as close to Him and His ways as possible? Do I take in daily of the Bread of Life? If someone scolds me, do I press closer to Him? Do I rely completely on Him for provision, protection, and salvation?
Why does the psalmist need mercy? Oh, who doesn’t need mercy? We have all fallen short of perfection? We have all sinned. We need His mercy desperately. So here’s the psalmist encouraging us to keep our eyes on God, to follow Him, imitate Him, take Him into our very beings, until God has mercy upon us.
There are other incredible gems in the psalms of ascent, but the last one makes me rejoice every time I recite it - although who can really just recite it. You have to sing it!
Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord! Psalm 134:1-2
What an incredible contrast between Psalm 120 and Psalm 134! The psalmist started out in a deceitful, violent land far from God. Now he’s in God’s presence with fellow believers singing praise and thanksgiving to God. But it didn’t just happen; he had to take intentional steps to recognize where he was, ask for God’s deliverance, and keep his eyes focused on God as he undertook the pilgrimage to be in God’s presence always . . . because isn’t that what the Feast of Tabernacles pictures? Having God spread His tent over us and dwell with Him forever?
Fall Holy Day Schedule
Trumpets - Friday, October 8th - Gray Summit, 11 a.m;
potluck following service
Atonement - Sunday, October 17th - Saladins’, 11 a.m.
Opening Night of the Feast of Tabernacles -
Thursday, October 21st - 5 - 8 p.m.,
Rockwood Resort, Branson, MO
Ice Cream/Welcome/Bible Study
No local services October 23rd or 30th
Where Are You? by Cynthia Saladin
What are many of your conversations centered around these days? The mask mandates? The vaccine mandates? The crisis at the southern border? The fiasco in the Middle East? The wildfires and drought conditions out West? The unrest and disquiet? What about the lies we’re being fed? I was thinking about the morass of deceit, conflict, evilness, and anxiety all around us. What a terrible place to be!!
Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue. (Psalm 120:2)
Do you know where this verse is? It’s in the beginning psalm of ascent. This is the psalm which starts the journey towards fellowship with God for eight days during the Feast of Tabernacles. The psalmist says he’s in the tents of Kedar, in Meshech - places which are a fair distance from Jerusalem. He’s in a place physically far from Jerusalem, but that’s not the biggest problem; it’s also spiritually distant from God and His ways.
So what does the psalmist do? He asks for God’s deliverance. That’s a good place to start - to recognize that he needs God’s help to get him out of the situation and environment in which he finds himself. But he also recognizes the ungodly state in which he dwells. He knows that he has lived far too long in a place that hates peace, and by extension, hates the Prince of Peace. He’s ready to start the journey to meet with God, to dwell with God and like-minded people.
I love that this is the first psalm of ascent! Do we take the time to think about where we are dwelling? Is it physically and spiritually far from God? Are we spending the majority of our time dwelling on the lies and deceit around us? Or are we taking steps to stop dwelling there, to dwell where there is peace?
Psalm 121 picks up this thought of looking to God for guidance and help: I lift up my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth!
We do this, right? We go to God for help and deliverance. Right?
Then psalm 123:2 focuses our vision a little more sharply:
Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us.
It’s not about just saying a prayer for deliverance; it’s keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, not allowing your attention to be diverted towards anything else. So how does that work? What does that look like? I’m so grateful God gives us object lessons to help us understand. My object lesson in this instance is Pepper. Pepper watches me. If I get up from my desk and go into the kitchen, so does Pepper. If I go outside, he goes with me. If I go to bed, he’s got to be right there too. I have a living object lesson of what it means to keep your eyes on your master - until what? Until He has mercy upon us.
Think about that for just a minute. Why would we want to keep our eyes fixed on our Master? And secondly, why would we need mercy? Think about what Pepper does. He wants to know where I am so that he can be with me. He follows me. He is willing to try to eat whatever it is I’m eating. If someone scolds him because he’s underfoot, he leans up against me for protection.
So do I follow Jesus? Do I spend time in the Word so that I can be as close to Him and His ways as possible? Do I take in daily of the Bread of Life? If someone scolds me, do I press closer to Him? Do I rely completely on Him for provision, protection, and salvation?
Why does the psalmist need mercy? Oh, who doesn’t need mercy? We have all fallen short of perfection? We have all sinned. We need His mercy desperately. So here’s the psalmist encouraging us to keep our eyes on God, to follow Him, imitate Him, take Him into our very beings, until God has mercy upon us.
There are other incredible gems in the psalms of ascent, but the last one makes me rejoice every time I recite it - although who can really just recite it. You have to sing it!
Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord! Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord! Psalm 134:1-2
What an incredible contrast between Psalm 120 and Psalm 134! The psalmist started out in a deceitful, violent land far from God. Now he’s in God’s presence with fellow believers singing praise and thanksgiving to God. But it didn’t just happen; he had to take intentional steps to recognize where he was, ask for God’s deliverance, and keep his eyes focused on God as he undertook the pilgrimage to be in God’s presence always . . . because isn’t that what the Feast of Tabernacles pictures? Having God spread His tent over us and dwell with Him forever?
