The Small Branch

  This summer, some friends and I are looking at the Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134; our packet uses the Legacy Standard Bible ).   This is the packet of study we are using - here . First, a few notes I made about worship to get started with these Psalms.  Worship is an act of homage or reverence to God; it is sinful to render worship to any created being (I got this from the BLB app).  We worship God because of who He is and what He has done.  We worship God by our obedience and submission to Him.  Worship involves praise, thanksgiving, and a true heart.  We worship Him in spirit and in truth (see John 4:23-24). Today, I’m going to share some of my notes for Psalm 120: 120 (Biblical text in italics) In my distress I called to Yahweh, (This is the first place we need to go when we are distress, straight to God.  Jeremiah shows us a great example of this with the book of Lamentations.  You can find a free mini-study from BSF on Je...

  I don’t know that I truly appreciated the sunshine until I   moved to the Black Hills of South Dakota.   I spent the first 37 years of my life in the southeastern United States where it is often cloudy and always humid.   Here in western South Dakota, not only is it drier, the sky just seems bigger and bluer and the sun brighter.   Some of that is because there are less trees and the trees we do have are shorter than the very tall pines of Georgia.   Some of my appreciation of sunshine is because it does get a little cold here in the winter and I am grateful for the warmth.   Today, we went on our second hike of the season.  My daughter and I try to hike most weeks May-September (although we haven’t been good about sticking with it in previous years).  The Black Hills have many great places to hike, although I am partial to Custer State Park.  I am amazed at the difference in how I feel when we are being consistent with hiking....

  Proverbs 1:7 says,   “The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; Ignorant fools despise wisdom and discipline.” (LSB) Let’s break this verse down (I’m using the BLB App and the dictionary as references.  You can also find this at www.blueletterbible.org ). “The fear” - fear of God, reverence, piety (the quality of being religious or reverent); respect; fear, terror, awesome or terrifying thing; revered “of Yahweh” - Jehovah - the existing One; self-existent or eternal One; “I am Who I am”; the personal name of God “is the beginning” - first, best, beginning, chief; the first in place, time, order or rank, first fruits; principal thing “of knowledge” - knowledge, perception, skill, discernment, understanding, wisdom, cunning; in highest sense, knowledge of God (including obedience) “Ignorant fools” - one who despises wisdom; of one who mocks when guilty; of one who is quarrelsome; of one who is licentious (promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matte...

 This morning I was listening to Owen Strachan speak on Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God from February's G3 conference.  I've also been reading the Old Testament (as you can see from other posts).  The two combined to get me thinking about idol worship.  If you are a student of history and of the Bible, you know that idol worship centuries ago involved sacrifices (from which everyone got their meat), temple prostitutes, human sacrifices, etc.  We always talk about how horrible idol worship was then, how pagan.  But are we really any better today?  Today, we are just as pagan, just as sin sick, just as much into idol worship as people have always been.  With the media today, we don't even look at it as a bad thing, but something to boast about endlessly.  We even worship using the same methods that the ancients did.  We have food everywhere and with everything.  We eat and drink to excess all in the name of entertainment.  ...

 Acts 16 tells of Paul and Silas' missionary journey.  At one point, they are put in prison after being beaten with rods.  Their feet are even put in stocks.  But look at verse 25: "But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them;"  You know they were probably in too much pain to sleep, but they aren't complaining.  They are worshipping.  Their eyes are fixed on Jesus, not themselves or their circumstances (Hebrews 12:1-2).  This is lesson enough for us, but did you catch the last part of the verse?  I must admit, as many times as I have read that verse, the last part didn't really strike me until this morning. The last part of Acts 16:25 says, "and the prisoners were listening to them;"  Their fellow prisoners, criminals, were  listening.   They weren't mocking or ignoring or even sleeping.  They were listening.   How many times in our lives ...

 I think I have recommended this before, but I feel the need to recommend it again.  If you don't spend some time in the Psalms often, it is a great place for prayer and worship.  Today, I will just share with you one of my favorites: Psalm 130 Out of the depths I have cried to You, O  Lord .   Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.   If You,  Lord , should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?   But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.   I wait for the  Lord , my soul does wait, And in His word do I hope.   My soul  waits  for the Lord More than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more than  the watchmen for the morning.   O Israel, hope in the  Lord ; For with the  Lord  there is lovingkindness, And with Him is abundant redemption.   And He will redeem Isra...

 What does it mean for something to be "first?"  When we run a race, we know that someone is "first" because they crossed the finish line before anyone else.  When we complete a list of tasks, the one that is "first" is the one completed before the others.  Is it safe to say that "first" means before everything else?  Lauren Daigle has a song called "First."     The song talks about seeking God first.  Above and before everything else.  First.  Before our coffee in the morning.  Before we watch the news.  Before we finish that best seller.  Before we work.  Before we play.  First.   Mary sought God first.  Mark 14:3 says, "While He (Jesus) was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the the table, there came a woman (John identifies her as Mary) with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over His head."  This perfume was wort...

 In Habakkuk chapter 3, the prophet is praying to the Lord because he has been given a vision of the Babylonian invasion of Judah and is in awe and distress.  He has spent the first two chapters of this book conversing with God and getting some of his questions answered.  He doesn't understand why God is allowing evil men to run over the people of Israel, although he does know Judah deserves to be punished.  But Habakkuk ends his book of prophecy with hope and praise: Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.  The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places. Habakkuk 3:17-19 Habakkuk knows that destruction is coming, but he also knows that he...

"Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker." Psalm 95:6      This summer, on a recommendation from my BSF substitute teaching leader, I have been studying Psalms.  God led me to a group working through Beth Moore's Stepping Up , which is a study of the Psalms of Ascent, so I folded that in to my summer study.  In the beginning of that study, Beth challenged us to actually take the posture of bowing down on our faces before the Lord to begin each day - giving it to Him and recognizing Him as the King He is.  I had also read recently a book called Follow Me  by David Platt, which said something like this about salvation:  we are not asking Jesus to be Lord of our lives, we are acknowledging that He IS  Lord.  All that to say, what a difference physical posture can make in our spirits.      It amazes me the difference in my day when I actually take the posture of being on my face, in physi...