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“…the joy of the LORD is your strength.” – Nehemiah 8:10 ESV
The world is full of calamity and heartbreak. Everyday, we bump up against sorrow, tragedy, and sickness. It can seem as though our world spins out of control. Yet, we do not have to lose hope, nor sight of the many blessings and beauty filling our lives each day. In the verse above, Nehemiah repeats three times for the people of Israel not to mourn and grieve, but to rejoice!
“They had just understood the words that were declared to them,” verse 12 reads. When we understand and know God’s word, we are able to see life through the filter of who God is. “God not only leads but protects, accepting responsibly for His people,” Candice Lucey writes. When truth reigns and rules in our lives, we take solace and hope that God is in sovereign control over every area of our lives and our world. “Sometimes we need to hear specific statements from God himself about his own authority,” Pastor John Piper explains, “We need God’s own words. It is the very words of God that have unusual power to settle our nerves, and make us stable, wise, and courageous.”
What a Christian Needs to Know about God’s Control
God so loved us, He sent His one and only Son to earth to die for us (John 3:16). It was God’s plan all along. Paul wrote to the Romans, “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.” (Romans 9:16) Mercy is part of God’s character. Just as he is faithful, holy, just, and sovereign, He is merciful. “Mercy, like grace, stands over against human worth and effort whenever salvation is concerned,” the Expositor’s Bible Commentary explains. “It is free, because God is not bound to show mercy to any.”
God forms us in the womb. He knows us and His purpose for us. Everything He does and allows is meant to draw us to Him. He wants a relationship with us, and made a way, through Christ, for that to happen, despite our sinful curse. “Salvation depends not on human will or exertion, but on God,” Pastor John Piper explains, “who has mercy.”

Timothy wrote that all Scripture was God-breathed. His Word is alive and active in our lives. When we open up the pages of our Bibles, we open access to the very wisdom and instruction of God. We do not exist out of coincidence but for the purpose in which God put in us to bring glory to Him. The prophecies of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection fulfilled were detailed! John wrote of Jesus’ crucifixion, “For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled – ‘Not one of his bones will be broken’” (John 19:36 NIV). God is in control. Our joy is in the Lord. “The joy of the LORD would sustain them,” the Expositor’s Bible Commentary explains of Nehemiah 8:10.
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40 Verses about God being in Control
Deuteronomy 31:8 – The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.
Joshua 1:9 – Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD you God will be with you wherever you go.
1 Samuel 2:6-7 – The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.

Job 34:18-19 – Is he not the One who says to kings, ‘You are worthless,’ and to nobles, ‘You are wicked,’ who shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands?
Job 34:24 – Without inquiry he shatters the mighty and sets up others in their place.
Job 42:2 – “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
Psalm 2:8 – Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.
Psalm 23:2-3 – He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
Psalm 31:15 – My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.
Psalm 33:10 – The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
Psalm 73:26 – My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Psalm 125:2 – As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people both now and forevermore.
Psalm 135:6 – The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.
Proverbs 16:33 – The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
Proverbs 21:1 – In the LORD’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that he channels toward all who please him.
Proverbs 21:30 – There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD.
Isaiah 14:24-25 – The LORD Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen. I will crush the Assyrian in my land; on my mountains I will trample him down. His yoke will be taken from people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”
Isaiah 43:13 – Yes, and from ancient days I am he. No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?
Isaiah 45:3 – I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
Isaiah 46:9-10 – Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, another is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’
Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 31:33 – “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be there God, and they will be my people.”
Daniel 2:20-21 – “Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
Matthew 28:18 – Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
Luke 1:33 – and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.
Luke 1:51-52 – He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
John 14:27 – Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
John 17:2 – For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given to him.
John 19:11 – Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”
Romans 13:1 – Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
1 Corinthians 15:27 – For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ.
Ephesians 1:11 – In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
Ephesians 1:19-22 – That power is the same might strength he exerted when he raised Christ form the dead and seated him at his right hand in the  heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,
Philippians 2:13 – for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Philippians 4:6-7 – Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
2 Thessalonians 2:6 – And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.
1 Timothy 2:4 – who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Hebrews 2:10 – In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.
1 Peter 3:22 – who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand- with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
2 Peter 3:8-9 – But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Sources:
Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Abridged Edition) – New Testament. Copyright 2004.
Plunge Your Mind into the Ocean of God’s Sovereignty
The Absolute Sovereignty of God
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Meg, freelance writer and blogger at Sunny&80, is the author of “Friends with Everyone, Friendship within the Love of Christ,” and “Surface, Unlocking the Gift of Sensitivity,” She writes about everyday life within the love of Christ. Meg earned a Marketing/PR degree from Ashland University, but stepped out of the business world to stay at home and raise her two daughters, which led her to pursue her passion to write. She has led a Bible Study for Women and serves as a Youth Ministry leader in her community. Meg, a Cleveland native and lifelong Browns fan, lives by the shore of Lake Erie in Northern Ohio with her husband, two daughters and golden doodle.
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Forgiveness. Even the word can make us bristle. Past wounds instinctively spring to mind, making forgiveness feel impossible (or at least unnatural). What feels natural is dwelling on the horrible things that others have done to us, rehearsing their wrongs and plotting our retaliation, if only in our imagination.
I know. I have nursed my anger as I have lingered over the ways people have hurt me. A close friend who ended our long-standing relationship over a misunderstanding. A woman whom I mentored for years who slandered me to others. My husband who unexpectedly left me for someone else. The doctor whose careless mistake ended my son’s life.

“We cannot hold on to bitterness and hold on to God.”

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I remember sitting in a counselor’s office, talking about a deep betrayal. When the counselor mentioned forgiveness, I was furious. It felt like he was suggesting I offer that person a “get out of jail free” card, which was unthinkable after all I had suffered. Just hearing the word made me angry. Why should I forgive? Especially when the person didn’t even seem sorry.
But as my counselor unpacked the biblical principles of forgiveness, I couldn’t ignore his words. I realized I had not fully understood what forgiveness was — and what it was not.
What Forgiveness Is and Is Not
There are many definitions of forgiveness, but a simple one is to surrender the right to hurt others in response to the way they’ve hurt us. Forgiveness means refusing to retaliate or hold bitterness against people for the ways they have wounded us. It is a unilateral act — not conditional on the person being repentant or even willing to acknowledge what they’ve done.
Forgiveness is not saying that sin doesn’t matter. It is not approving of what the other person has done, minimizing the offense, or denying we’ve been wronged. Forgiveness is acknowledging that the other person has sinned against us and may never be able to make it right. The apostle Paul writes, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). If God in Christ forgave us, then forgiving someone cannot mean diminishing the wrong they’ve done. God could never do that with sin and remain just.
Forgiveness doesn’t always mean reconciliation or restoration. And it does not require restoring trust or inviting the people who hurt us back into a relationship. Forgiveness is unconditional, but meaningful reconciliation and restoration are conditional (in the gospel and in human relationships) on the offender’s genuine repentance, humble willingness to accept the consequences of his actions, and a desire by both parties to work on the relationship.
Forgiving people also doesn’t mean they won’t experience consequences for their sin. When we forgive them, however, we leave those consequences to God, who says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19). This doesn’t mean we may not pursue legal action, if warranted, against someone who has hurt us. In certain circumstances, that may be vital for the rehabilitation of the offender or for protecting other potential victims.
Forgiveness is costly. In the Bible, it involves shedding blood (Hebrews 9:22). Sacrifice. Death. Honestly, the first step of forgiveness still often feels like death. I want to cling to my right to be angry and often resent being asked to give that up. It all seems so unfair. My flesh still demands some type of retribution.
My resistance shows me I need God’s help to understand forgiveness and to truly forgive.
Where Do We Begin?
I have often had to say, Lord, I don’t want to forgive now, but could you make me willing to forgive? You have forgiven all my sins and I know anything I forgive others is small by comparison (Matthew 18:21–35). But I cannot do this without you. Please help me.
Often, I have to repeat this prayer until God changes my heart. When he does, he usually helps me see the wounds of the person who has hurt me — wounds that do not diminish, justify, or excuse the offense, but that do soften my attitude toward the person.
Once I am engaged in wanting to forgive, I begin the process of forgiveness by naming what has happened and all the negative repercussions from the person’s actions and words. I include everything. What I’ve lost. What’s been hard. How it’s made me feel. I want to know what I’m letting go of before I forgive so I can move forward, knowing I have counted the cost.
For most offenses, forgiveness is both an initial decision to let go of bitterness as well as a long, ongoing process. When offenses come to mind and painful memories resurface, I must intentionally stop rehearsing them and ask the Lord to help me release those thoughts and practice forgiveness.
Why Forgiveness Is Vital to Joy
For years I didn’t realize the importance of forgiveness and somehow assumed it was optional; now I see it as a command. “As the Lord has forgiven you,” Colossians 3:13 says, “so you also must forgive.”
So to truly forgive those who have wronged us, we must first receive God’s forgiveness, acknowledging our need before him, which empowers us to forgive others. Christian forgiveness is vertical before it is horizontal. Throughout Scripture, our Lord intertwines his forgiveness of us with our forgiveness of others (Matthew 6:14–15). And like all of his commands, it is always for our good.

“Joy and sorrow often coexist, but joy and bitterness cannot.”

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Forgiving those who have hurt us sets us free. It keeps bitterness from taking root, bitterness that would defile us and everyone around us (Ephesians 4:31). When we cling to resentment, we unknowingly give our offender ongoing power over our hearts, which keeps us enslaved to our anger. This prison we have created pulls us away from our Lord because we cannot hold on to bitterness and hold on to God.
Correspondingly, forgiving those who have wronged us releases the hold of bitterness on us. God, who has forgiven our enormous debt, gives us the power to forgive others. It is his power, not ours. This is the miracle of Christian forgiveness: when we forgive, Christ does something profound in us and for us. Those wounds inflicted by others firmly graft us into Christ, the vine, and his life flows all the more powerfully through us. The process unleashes God’s power in our lives in an unparalleled way, making forgiveness one of the most life-changing steps we ever take.
Forgiveness, Freedom, and Peace
Joy and sorrow often coexist, but joy and bitterness cannot. Bitterness and unforgiveness rob our lives of vitality, peace, and the refreshing joy of God’s presence.
We see the power of forgiveness and grace in the lives of Joseph (Genesis 50:15–21) and Job (Job 42:7–10), who both forgave those who wronged them. And we see the hold of unforgiveness and rage on others like Joash, who murdered the priest who disagreed with him (2 Chronicles 24:20–22), and even on Jonah, who was angry at God’s compassion (Jonah 4:1–3). Being able to forgive not only changes our present; it changes our future. When we forgive, we can begin walking in freedom and joy.
I don’t know where you are in your journey of forgiveness. Perhaps the wound for you is still fresh, and you need time to process all that’s happened. Maybe you’ve been holding on to bitterness for a long time, and God is asking you to let go. If that’s you, I encourage you to pray. To trust God. To forgive your offender. You won’t regret it.
And after you have forgiven, after you’ve been released from the prison of bitterness, you may be amazed at how quickly God begins to flood your life with the joy and peace you lost. […]

ABSTRACT: The language of righteousness in the Psalms often surprises Christians, especially in light of the doctrine of justification by faith. Some interpreters have even suggested that the psalmists claim a form of self-righteousness similar to what the later Pharisees would display. A portrait of the righteous in the Psalms tells the true story: they find their refuge in God and, as a result, receive a righteousness from him that increasingly characterizes their lives. They also anticipate the coming of the Righteous One, in whose mouth the psalmists’ words find their ultimate fulfillment.
For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors, leaders, and teachers, we asked Christopher Ash, writer-in-residence at Tyndale House, to describe who “the righteous” are in the Psalms.
We meet “the congregation of the righteous” and are promised that “the Lord knows the way of the righteous” right at the start of the Psalter (Psalm 1:5–6). But who are the righteous? We shall never make friends with the Psalms, let alone begin to enjoy and appropriate them in our devotions, until we know. They appear again and again, especially in book 1 (Psalms 1–41), often in contrast to “the wicked.”
So many promises are attached to these people. Not only does the covenant Lord know (watch over) their way and guide their steps (Psalm 1:6), but he blesses and protects them (Psalm 5:12), he is with them and terrifies their enemies (Psalm 14:5), he surrounds them with steadfast love (Psalm 32:10–11), he watches them with his eyes and listens for their cry with his ears (Psalm 34:15, 17), he upholds them (Psalm 37:17), and he gives them the new creation, which is the fulfillment of the Promised Land (Psalm 37:29), so that they will flourish in his presence for ever (Psalm 92:12–13). These people — and it is important to remember that, in the Old Testament, these were real flesh-and-blood people — are showered with blessing.
It matters deeply to know who they are, not least so that you and I can make sure we belong among them, inherit their promises, and sing their psalms.1
Who Are the Righteous?
Two large and closely related problems raise their heads. First, we struggle to know what to make of it when psalmists claim to be righteous, sometimes in quite strong terms. For example, the prayer “judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me” (Psalm 7:8) rather alarms us. If I were to pray that, what if the Lord did judge me according to my righteousness and found it severely wanting, as he surely must — must he not? Dare I pray this?

“Who are the righteous? We shall never make friends with the Psalms until we know.”

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Second, we have to grapple with the apparent contradiction that the psalmists who claim to possess righteousness also admit that it is not possible to be righteous before God (e.g., Psalm 143:2). How can both be true at the same time? How can I possess righteousness if I have no righteousness?
There is a simple, superficially attractive, and yet deeply problematic “solution.” This is to conclude that claims to righteousness in the Psalms are actually professions of self-righteousness that anticipate the later self-righteousness of the Pharisees so roundly condemned by the Lord Jesus (e.g., Luke 18:9–14).2 This is unsatisfactory, first, because it supposes that some of the words of the psalmists are flawed expressions of merely human convictions. Many do hold this opinion, but we have no warrant to suppose that the Psalms contain a mixture of truth and error (unlike the speeches of Job’s three comforters, whose words God explicitly tells us are not entirely trustworthy, Job 42:7).
It is also unsatisfactory because it does not reflect the portrayal of the righteous in the Psalms themselves, to which we turn. While it would be possible to read back New Testament expositions of righteousness, especially in the apostle Paul, we shall focus on building up a picture from the Psalms themselves. I shall do this under seven heads, before considering how these people compare with those accounted righteous by grace under the new covenant.
These headlines are based on a fairly comprehensive study of the words righteous and righteousness in the Psalms. There are more than 120 verses in which one or more of these occur, in about 60 different psalms. A full study would consider each of these in context.
Who are these people? What do they look like, not in terms of their outward appearance, of course, but in their heart, their spirit? What gets them out of bed in the morning — what are their longings, their pleasures, their hopes, their fears?
As we consider them, it is worth remembering that a word study of righteous or righteousness3 will miss the parallel descriptions, in which these people are often referred to as “upright” or “upright of heart,” meaning straightforwardly moral in their lives (e.g., Psalm 11:7; 32:11; 33:1; 36:10; 37:37; 94:15; 97:11); as “blameless,” having integrity, the opposite of hypocrisy (e.g., Psalm 15:2; 18:25; 37:18, 37; 64:4; 101:2, 6; 119:1); and on one occasion as “the living” (Psalm 69:28) since they live in the sight of God. These are all the same people, whose prayers and praises are expressed in the Psalms and whose contours are there delineated.
1. Their Delight
At the heart of the question lies the heart of the righteous. In what, or in whom, do they most deeply delight? Had they been incipient Pharisees, the answer would have been, for each, “I delight in myself. I thank God that I am who I am. I praise myself, and I want others to praise me.”
That the praise and delight of the righteous is focused intensely on the covenant Lord gives perhaps the clearest indication that they belong to this covenant Lord by grace. Repeatedly, we are told that their joy and exultation is found in the Lord (e.g., Psalm 33:1; 64:10; 68:3; 97:12). It is — to put it in colloquial terms — the covenant Lord who puts a spring in their step, who gets them out of bed in the morning, who energizes them and delights their hearts.
2. Their Desire
Closely tied to the delight of the righteous is the question of their desire, their hope, their longing, their aspiration. For what do they hope? The answer, which follows necessarily, logically, and experientially from their delight, is that they desire to see the face of the covenant Lord God. Nothing is more precious to them than to have the face (the personal, beneficent presence) of the Lord turned toward them, both in this life (in part) and in eternity (in full). This is a most precious promise (e.g., Psalm 11:7). Not to have it is the most painful experience on earth (e.g., Psalm 13:1–2; 88:14). Him they seek (Psalm 24:6; 27:8–9), and for him they thirst (e.g., Psalm 42:1–2; 143:6–7). Far from being satisfied in themselves and with themselves, their desire is passionately and intensely directed upward to the Lord.
3. Their Repentance
The third facet of the righteous is of a rather different kind: their penitence. Far from being self-confident, the truly righteous person knows deeply his own sinfulness and urgent need of repentance. We see this most clearly in Psalm 32, in which David celebrates, and tells the story of, his rediscovery of the blessing of confession of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. At the end of the psalm, he exhorts all who walk this way of repentance, “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous” (Psalm 32:11). This congregation of the righteous (cf. Psalm 1:5) consists of men and women who have learned, and continue to learn, the necessity and the blessing of confession and repentance. Here in anticipation we see the tax collector, rather than the Pharisee, of Jesus’s parable (Luke 18:9–14).
We see this spirit again at the start of Psalm 143, in which David leads those who have no natural righteousness (v. 2) in pleading for covenant mercy (v. 1), that God in his righteousness will answer him, and them, with steadfast love (v. 8).
4. Their Refuge
The fourth facet is perhaps the one that most clearly indicates the presence of faith or trust. It asks and answers the question, Whither or to whom do the righteous flee when under pressure or threat?
Again and again, we hear and see the righteous fleeing to the covenant Lord as their refuge, the only safe place in the face of the assaults of their enemies and ultimately in the face of the righteous judgment of God. To him they cry for help in troubles, and he delivers them (Psalm 34:15, 17, 19, 21). They commit their way to him, trust in him, confident that he will bring into the open the righteousness (or vindication) that he will give them (Psalm 37:5–6). For him they wait and hope (e.g., Psalm 37:7), for “he is their stronghold in the time of trouble” (Psalm 37:39). They cast their burden upon him, trusting that “he will never permit the righteous to be moved” (Psalm 55:22). Repeatedly, they take refuge in him (e.g., Psalm 64:10). One of the psalms where we see this most intensely is Psalm 71 (e.g., vv. 2, 3, 15, 16, 19, 24).
5. Their Assurance and Covenant Head
We come now to consider the occasions when the psalmists speak about their own righteousness (e.g., Psalm 4:1; 7:8; 18:20–24). What do they mean by this? This is arguably the most significant part of our study, and most needful of careful thought. Two observations need to be made before we can make progress.

“No human being has righteousness by nature; this is the preserve of the covenant Lord.”

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First, it is abundantly clear in the Psalms that the source of all righteousness is the God who is righteous in himself (e.g., Psalm 11:7), whose law is righteous (e.g., Psalm 19:9), who does, or works, righteousness as the expression of his covenant faithfulness and love (e.g., Psalm 22:31; 36:6; 48:10; 103:6, 17), and who will judge the world in righteousness (Psalm 9:8; 96:13; 98:9). No human being has righteousness by nature; this is the preserve of the covenant Lord.
Second, the king in David’s line holds a unique position in the Psalms. When studying the Psalms, it is striking how often there is an interplay between a singular leading character (most often the king) and a plurality or congregation of the righteous. Because the Lord saves the king, the king’s people experience blessing in him (e.g., Psalm 3:8).
David calls the Lord the “God of my righteousness” (Psalm 4:1), which appears to mean the God from whom my righteousness, and my hope of vindication, proceeds. In both Psalms 17 and 18, the king professes a righteousness on which his hope is built. In the drama of Psalm 18, he is rescued because of this righteousness (see vv. 20–24). For David himself, this poses a problem, for we find ourselves asking about Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite (2 Samuel 11); how can the David who sinned (or would later sin) so grievously claim such righteousness? The answer, hinted at in the Psalms and blazing forth with the full light of day in the New Testament, is that his righteousness is given to him, ultimately because of the flawless righteousness of “great David’s greater Son” (cf. Romans 5:12–21). The Lord in his righteousness leads David, and all the little anticipatory “messiahs” in David’s line, “in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3), because there will be a true Messiah who will walk those paths without slipping or sliding into moral failure of any kind. Having said this, there is a real visible measure of actual lived righteousness of life evident in the life of any old-covenant believer who is truly justified by faith (see section 6 below).
The interplay between the righteousness of the covenant Lord and the righteousness of the king is clearly seen in Psalm 35:24–28. In verse 24, David the king pleads for God to vindicate him “according to your righteousness” (that is, in fulfillment of his covenant promises). In verse 27, there is reference to the assembly or congregation of the king’s people, “who delight in my [that is, the king’s] righteousness,” a righteousness given to the king and possessed by the king on behalf of his people. These people will be glad because their king is righteous and therefore they are blessed. And then in verse 28, the king’s tongue tells “of your [that is, God’s] righteousness.”
We see the movement from the righteousness of the king to the righteousness received by the people in Psalm 72. In verses 1–3, God is petitioned to give righteousness to his king. When this happens, the king’s people (ultimately all who are “in Christ”) will be called “righteous” and will “flourish” under the rule of their king (v. 7).
In the light of the New Testament, this focus on the righteousness possessed by the king may be understood to be fulfilled in the righteousness of Christ the King. When David (like Abraham or any Old Testament saint) spoke of his righteousness, he meant, first and foremost, a righteousness given to him by God. When old-covenant believers who were neither patriarchs nor Davidic kings echoed this language, their righteousness likewise was found ultimately in the king, their covenant head. This federal headship of the king is fulfilled when Christ lives a righteous life and dies a sin-bearing death as the representative head and substitute propitiatory sacrifice for his people.
6. Their Life
A pen portrait of the righteous in the Psalms would be woefully incomplete if it did not include a mention of their visible life. I have deliberately held over discussion of this until now, because their life is the fruit, and not the root, of their existence as believers in the covenant God. It would be a mistake to begin with a consideration of their lives of right living. Nevertheless, their lives are inseparable from their identity and closely tied to their blessing and assurance. The covenant Lord does not give to his king and people a righteousness of status simply that they may enjoy it while continuing to live evil lives, for he “is righteous” and “loves righteous deeds” (Psalm 11:7; cf. Psalm 33:5). It is very clear (e.g., in Psalms 15 and 24) that authentic righteousness of life is the necessary marker of the genuine Messiah and of his people. Jesus is the fulfillment of Psalms 15 and 24, as he is of all the descriptions of human righteousness in the Psalms.
Sometimes the righteousness claimed by a psalmist may focus particularly on innocence with respect to a particular accusation (e.g., Psalm 7:8). Under these circumstances, he not infrequently pleads with God for vindication. Often, however, this particular righteousness overflows into a broader whole-life righteousness that, albeit partial, is nevertheless real.
Those who are truly righteous, by virtue of their membership of the covenant people under the king, their covenant head, and who are genuinely righteous because they trust the covenant promises (fulfilled in Christ), will live upright, blameless, and righteous lives. Perhaps the clearest exposition of this in the Psalms is in Psalm 111 followed by Psalm 112. Psalm 111 celebrates the righteousness of the covenant Lord. Then Psalm 112 (with close echoes) declares a blessing on those who exhibit those same qualities in the generosity (cf. Psalm 37:21) and righteousness of their lives. These people act and speak (cf. Psalm 37:30) in ways that demonstrate the fruit of their hearts of faith. Paul will later call this “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5; 16:26), and the letter of James will expound it forcefully.
7. Their Enemies
The final facet is of a very different kind. The enemies of the righteous, by their polar contrast to the righteous, shine a paradoxical light on the identity of the righteous. Here is a brief pen portrait of who the righteous are not. Most often described as “the wicked” (but also, for example, as “evildoers”), I want to mention just two characteristics that are thematic of their portrait in the Psalms.
The first is their consistent, bitter, implacable hostility toward the righteous (e.g., Psalm 94:21). Here is the fruit of Cain’s unbelieving hatred of Abel, who was righteous by faith. We see this as a consistent theme in, for example, Psalm 37, and also in Psalms 9, 10, and 11.
The second facet of their portrait is that, in polar contrast to those who are righteous by faith, the wicked naturally trust in themselves and their own resources. We see this clearly in the portrait of Doeg, the Edomite, in Psalm 52:1–7. Especially in verse 7, he will not make God his refuge but trusts in his own riches and resources.
Nothing is more obnoxious to the hardened wicked, who trust in themselves, than the presence on earth of the Righteous One, who trusts his Father, and the people of the Righteous One, who share his faith.
Psalms and New-Covenant Righteousness
If we ask, “Are the righteous in the Psalms the same as those who are righteous by grace alone through faith alone under the new covenant?” the answer must be “yes and no.” Overwhelmingly, the answer is yes. We who are new-covenant believers, who belong to Christ, share with them their delight in God, their desire to see the face of God, their penitence, their fleeing to God for refuge from both troubles and judgment, their assurance of forgiveness because of their covenant head, the outworking of their faith in righteousness of life, and the presence in our world, as in theirs, of hostility to Christ and his people (cf. John 15:18–16:4).

“When we come across the righteous in the Psalms, we recognize in them people who trusted in the Christ to come.”

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But there is, I think, one significant difference between these righteous old-covenant believers and believers in Christ under the new covenant: under the new covenant, we enjoy a deeper assurance and the riches of a definitively cleansed conscience, and this is a blessing known only in anticipation and shadow under the old covenant (see Hebrews 8–10).4
So, when we come across the righteous in the Psalms, as we do in about 40 percent of the Psalms, we recognize in them people who trusted in the Christ to come. By believing and living in the obedience of faith in the covenant promises, they believed implicitly in the Christ who would fulfill those promises. They did not know as clearly as we do the fullness of that magnificent Christ nor the grandeur of those gospel promises. But that apart, we recognize in them people very like us today in Christ. This transforms the way we read the Psalms. […]

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”— Genesis 3:8-10
The first symptom of this “sin” thing is a warped view of God. Previously in Genesis, walking in the garden in the cool of the day is part of the normal routine for Adam and Eve. To them, God wasn’t a riddle to be solved or an existential question. God was a Being to know and be known by, a Being as real as any of the creatures of his own creation, and a Being altogether good, sheltering them while also looking them in the eye and listening — the protection of a father and the intimacy of a friend. Then suddenly, God is feared, resisted, misunderstood, hidden from. That wasn’t a momentary misconception; that was a new normal. It’s all we’ve ever known.
 In her book Leaving Church, Barbara Brown Taylor, herself a former Episcopalian priest with years of personal experience behind her thoughts, writes soberingly:
One thing that had always troubled me was the way people disappeared from the church when their lives were breaking down. Separation and divorce were the most common explanations for long absences, but so were depression, alcoholism, job loss, and mortal illness. One new widow told me that she could not come to church because she started crying the moment she sat down in a pew. A young man freshly diagnosed with AIDS said that he stayed away because he was too frightened to answer questions and too angry to sing hymns. I understood their reasoning, but I was sorry that church did not strike these wounded souls as a place they could bring the dark fruits of their equally dark nights.1
Sadly, I have watched a similar pattern as a pastor. It’s a theme that can be traced all the way back to the very beginning:
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.— Genesis 3:8
There was a time when God could be trusted, when the Creator was Father, Mother, Protector, Comforter, and Friend. But to our ears, that sounds like a fairy tale. A long, long time ago, that image of God got traded in for the God you’re more familiar with — distant, unknowable, untrustable. A God whose company many welcome in their best moments, but equally a God we instinctively keep a distance from in our worst.
ABBA
Jesus of Nazareth. He was a Jewish peasant from a rural family in a nothing town occupied by Roman soldiers who had long ago proved their domination and were just waiting for a reason to refresh everyone’s memory. He showed up at the temple, the one place the Romans didn’t touch, the one place the Jewish people could ask for help from a God who, although he seemed distant most of the time, had supposedly come through on a national scale in past dire circumstances. So the Pharisees, the priests of Jesus’ day, added rules to an absurdly long list of rules — 613 to be exact. Their plan was simple. Maybe we can live holy enough lives to get God’s attention again, because the God of our ancestors seems to be apathetic or uncaring or distracted or some combination of the three. Maybe we can follow his rules precisely enough to convince him to stretch out that strong right hand we’ve heard so much about. Jesus shows up to their temple and starts praying.
When Jesus prayed, He called God “Abba,” and that was a showstopper. It was scandalous. It was the sort of thing that didn’t belong anywhere in the temple, much less out of the mouth of a rabbi. You see, Israel already knew God’s name — it was Yahweh. That’s how it looks in English, at least. In Hebrew, a written language made up of only consonants, it’s YHWH. The way they arrived at that name shows the incomparable reverence they had for God.
When God identified Himself to Abraham (the man whom Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all trace their roots back to), He said, “I am El-Shaddai.”2 In a Canaanite world that believed in many gods over many nations, El meant “king of the gods.” El-Shaddai was the Canaanite way of saying, “I’m the king of all the gods, but I’m also so much more than what you conceive of when you hear that name.”
Later, God introduces himself to Moses (the guy who led Israel out of Egyptian slavery). In that famous burning-bush moment that changed Moses from a meek shepherd to a meek abolitionist, God called Himself, “I am who I am,” meaning, “I am the unchanging One, the one who has always been, the one who will always be.” Through a bunch of ancient language technicalities you’ll thank me not to go into detail about, YHWH is Hebrew shorthand for “I am who I am.” It’s a way of saying God is incomprehensibly constant. He is completely “other” from our humanness in all the best ways.3
Still, over time, for the serious Jew, even that name wasn’t reverent enough. After all, the Ten Commandments do include, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord [YHWH] thy God in vain.” If Old English is confusing, an updated translation reads, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord [YHWH] your God.”4 Attempting to be sure God’s people didn’t even get close to violating that command, they stopped calling God by His own name altogether, replacing His name with titles like Adonai, meaning, “Lord.” It’s the ancient equivalent of calling someone “sir.” Respectful, formal, and keeping the proper distance.
All that reverence, multiplied over many generations and hundreds of years, and then Jesus walked into their temple and called God Abba. But why is using a different name so scandalous?
The New Testament was written in ancient Greek, but Abba is an Aramaic term. The elite spoke Greek. The educated spoke Greek. Books were written in Greek. History was recorded in Greek, the language of the distinguished. Aramaic was the language that still stuck to Israel from seventy years exiled in Babylon, their previous conqueror. It was the language of the common peasants, the blue-collar, minimum-wage day laborers. It was also the language of Jesus, according to the majority of first-century scholarship.
The earliest manuscripts of the Gospels — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four biographical accounts of Jesus’ life — are written in Greek, with only a few exceptions, including Abba, the name Jesus gave God. Abba went untranslated because there is no direct translation. There is no equivalent Greek term. In Aramaic, Abba was the most intimate term one could possibly call a father. The closest thing we have in English is a toddler using the name “Dada,” but that doesn’t quite do it because Abba wasn’t a cheesy name you used as a kid and then grew out of with age. It wasn’t a name you’d be embarrassed to be caught saying to your father as a twentysomething. It was a term of endearment from a son to a father that was lost in translation because it was so rarely used, or maybe so rarely needed. The Greeks didn’t have a term like Abba because no one would address their father with that much intimacy. Jesus spoke to Yahweh with such familiarity we can’t even translate it.
German theologian Joachim Jeremias writes, “There is not a single example of the use of Abba… as an address to God in the whole of Jewish literature.”5 A new way of praying was born. No one else talked to God like that because that’s not how you speak to an authority whose name you can’t stomach saying out loud and whose favor you’re trying to coax through moral perfection. So where did Jesus get the idea He could talk to God like a kid whose dad had just come back from a business trip with souvenirs and presents? From God Himself.
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Jesus’ prayers showed us who He really believed God to be —  Abba. Your prayers do the same. It doesn’t matter if your prayers come out in communal liturgy, read aloud together in a sacred building or in the back of your head, never audible, and only after you’ve exhausted every other option. If you want to know what you really think of God, just pay attention to your prayers. Perhaps Nancy Mairs said it best, or at least most directly: “Who one believes God to be is most accurately revealed not in any credo but in the way one speaks to God when no one else is listening.”6
So here’s what Jesus’ prayers tell us He believes about God: “I am His Son, whom He loves; with me He is well pleased.”
We are wandering around the stage, not recognizing the voice of the director anymore, so God inserted Himself into the story and recovered the plot. That’s what Jesus’ prayers were all about.
Watch the video
[embedded content]
Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 147–48.
Genesis 17:1. The NIV text reads, “God Almighty”; the NIV text note reads, “El-Shaddai.”
See Exodus 3:1–22.
Exodus 20:7 KJV and NIV.
Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (London: SCM, 1967), 57.
Nancy Mairs, Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal (Boston: Beacon, 1993), 54.
Excerpted with permission from Searching for Enough: The High-Wire Walk Between Doubt and Faith by Tyler Staton, copyright Tyler Staton.
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Your Turn
How does Jesus’ perception of God alter the way you think about your own views & your own prayers? How can you move away from a performance-based faith? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! […]

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. — 1 Peter 1:8
[Jesus said] It would be better to have Jesus physically absent in order to have the Holy Spirit invisibly present. ~ Anne
Welcome to week two of the Jesus In Me Online Bible Study.
What has your experience with the Holy Spirit been? I grew up in a non-denominational church that was very open to the Holy Spirit and I’m so grateful that I was modeled having an active and growing relationship with Him from a young age.
Still, He was a mystery to me. I think the closest I felt to God the Holy Spirit was in worshipping in song. Maybe that was true for you. That’s probably why I pursued singing. I led worship in my home church with a wonderful team of spirit-filled believers for a couple of decades and it was life-changing to minister that way.
The Holy Spirit is a living, invisible Person. ~ Anne
Jesus showed us what God the Father is like. In the same way, He showed us what God the Holy Spirit is like.
All this coming and going… Now you see Me, now you don’t. I think what He was doing was teaching His disciples about the Holy Spirit. Whether they could see Jesus or not, He was invisible present with them 24/7 in the Person of the Holy Spirit. ~ Anne
The Holy Spirit is our Helper, Comforter, Counselor, Strengthener, and Standby. He intercedes for us. He helps us in everything we do if we lean on Him. He gives us the power to do what we cannot do in our own power. He gives us wisdom we can’t possibly have in our little brains. He is our closest, dearest Friend.
I want to love Him more. Don’t you?
This week in your study:
Study first! Grab your Bible and enjoy your personal study this week on pages 11-26.
Then, watch the video for session two of the Jesus In Me on our study home page and take notes in your study guide on pages 27-29 and stick around to go through the questions afterward!
Join the conversations about this week’s teaching and get to know our community in our private Facebook group.
Scriptures this Week
John 14:2-3John 14:5John 15:5John 15:18John 16: 5-8John 16:12-16Numbers 6:24-262 Corinthians 1:4John 14:16
Prayer for the Week
Holy Spirit, we love You and we want to love You even more every day! Help us to trust You and lean into Your presence. Help us to hear Your voice. Teach us to wait on You. Teach us to hear Your sweet voice, Your gentle whisper. We want to talk and talk in our prayers, but remind us to wait and listen. We need You, Lord. We need Your guidance and Your wisdom. We need Your comfort and Your friendship. We love You! […]

Imagine if Jesus stood before you with a golden envelope. The envelope contains an invitation to know and experience Jesus like never before. To discover Christ in His breathtaking beauty, His staggering strength, His wondrous power, and the depths of His relentless love for you.
Would you take the envelope?
Or would you say, Eh, I’m good. I don’t like the packaging. Not for me.
To be honest, for most of my life, that’s how I’ve thought of Revelation.
Maybe you have, too.
For me, my aversion comes from childhood. I was raised by free-spirited parents who became believers during the Jesus movement of the 1970s.
Around that time an author by the name of Hal Lindsey wrote a book called The Late Great Planet Earth that talked about the end of the world. And the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the US was heating up.
My parents, who owned a mom and pop surf shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida, decided to buy a remote piece of property outside of Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
They built it completely off the grid — we had our vegetable gardens. Fruit trees. Solar panels. Water sources. Beehives. Even a bomb shelter… you know, just in case the end of the world came.
My parents were doomsday preppers long before prepping or preparing for the worst became popular television shows or podcasts.
Well, needless to say… the end of the world did not come.
After 5 years, my parents sold the property and that was the end of that phase.
But it’s always made me a little hesitant when it comes to Revelation.
With its bloody dragons, flying creatures, mark of the beast, I’ve thought, Eh, I’m good. Not loving the packaging. That’s not for me.
 Yet, I’ve had to reconsider.
Do you really think God gives us the Scriptures, this love letter, in which He reveals the lengths He’s gone to rescue us, then in the closing chapters, delivers a Big Cosmic Boo! where He scares the heebie-jeebies out of us?
That’s not consistent with the nature of God, the character of God, or the redemptive work of God throughout history.
During the last year, as I’ve dug into Revelation, I’ve started to wonder, what if, through the book of Revelation, God is saving the best for last?
What if, through Revelation, we’re being invited to discover the extravagant hope of Jesus no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in?
What if we don’t have to be scared of imagery like the four horses of the apocalypse. And instead, we can discover how they’re meant to awaken and empower us as followers of Christ?
What I’ve been learning is that in order to lay hold of the golden invitation Jesus has for us, that we’ve got to push aside our fears, our preconceived ideas, any spiritual baggage we might have picked up along the way because of our upbringing or past. And decide to accept the golden invitation of Christ, and say, “Jesus, I want all of You!”
That’s a message that we must embrace not just when we’re reading Revelation, but amid everyday life. We live in a world of increasing toxicity, polarization, and downright cray cray. Like the dark chapters of Revelation, it’s tempting to think that all is lost, there’s no way forward, we might as well give up.
Yet it’s in the darkest moments that a shaft of Heaven’s radiance breaks through. The storm peels back and we’re invited to once again center ourselves on the One who sits on the throne.
From the throne, God radiates unspeakable beauty — sights and sounds beyond description. Crackles of thunder. Flashes of lightning. Colors and hues that leave us wonderstruck.
 In front of the throne sits a sea of glass, bright and clear as crystal, believed to represent a kind of baptism font. A callback to the Red Sea and Jordan River. That place when you pass through, you leave your old life behind. In the crossing, you’re cleansed, healed, and set free in the presence of God.
Around the throne, are four mysterious creatures covered in eyes.
Maybe you’re thinking like me. W-e-i-r-d.
But would it truly be God’s throneroom, if the Mysterious Creator was separated from His Mysterious Creation?
It would be like walking into an artist studio, and there’s no art.
Or walking into an optometrist’s office and there’s no equipment or eye chart. You’d think, what is going on here?
These four creatures represent the breadth of creation. These creatures soar and see everything, just like their Creator who sits on the throne.
All those eyes watch, observe, and perceive from every angle and vantage point without limitation.
Affirming, God’s sees all things!
That’s why you can trust that Jesus always has perspective, even when you don’t.
Even when…
the world has gone wonky.logic doesn’t make sense.everything feels shaky.and tomorrow keeps bringing the unknown.
No matter what you’re fearing or feeling, sizing up or sensing, God remains on the throne today. And He’s inviting you to take the golden invitation to know and experience Jesus like never before.
Written for Devotionals Daily by Margaret Feinberg, author of Revelation: Extravagant Hope.
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Your Turn
How do you feel about the book of Revelation? Is it kind of Eh, I’m good for you, too? If so, then let’s reconsider and open up to the final book of God’s Word and see it as the exclamation point on His love letter to us! ~ Devotionals Daily […]

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” – Matthew 19:24 (NASB)
This impossible illustration comes from Jesus himself and leaves us with questions. Is it really impossible? Why? What must a rich man do to be saved? Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave us without answers or hope.
Is it Really Impossible for the Rich to Go to Heaven?
Without God’s supernatural intervention, the answer is yes. Jesus tells us later in the same passage, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 NASB)
Man is incapable of saving himself. It is impossible for anyone—rich or poor—to go to heaven on their own. If we could, we wouldn’t need a savior. Jesus Christ is our source of salvation, and utter dependency on Him is the only way to enter heaven. This is the heart of Jesus’s message.
Unfortunately, the rich are at a greater risk of misplaced dependency and thus less likely to enter Heaven.

Photo Credit: © Getty Images

Who Are the Rich and Why Is it Harder?
If you are in the category of living comfortably—able to pay bills, buy groceries and clothes, and have extra—you are who Jesus is speaking to in particular. Though not perhaps rich by the world’s standards, we are in great danger of forgetting from Whom these blessing come.
“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3:27 NASB)
When we struggle to meet basic needs, dependence on God tends to be forefront in our minds. Every provision is attributed to Him and not anything we’ve done. We see it as a gift, and generally share more willingly from the little we have.
However, when we live a comfortable lifestyle, it is easy to lose sight of that dependency and give the credit to our hard work instead. Wealth becomes viewed as earned and deserved. Self-reliance takes over our thoughts and actions. If we want an enjoyable retirement, it is up to us to save for it. If we want the newest and the greatest, we must work hard, and since we work hard, we deserve to enjoy life in our free time. Our schedules become too busy to invest in others’ lives. Self-reliance and self-absorption become stumbling blocks to our salvation.

Jesus provides several illustrations of this.
In Luke 12:16-21, Jesus tells a parable of a rich man whose land was very productive. He decided to store it all for himself so that he might enjoy a life of ease and entertainment. Nowhere does the rich man recognize that abundance as a gift from God, nor is there any mention of him giving any portion of it for God’s use. The rich man was selfish and thought himself in control of his future. Yet God would ruin those plans and demand the rich man’s life before his plans could come to fruition. Greed and a lack of recognizing who was truly was in control prevented the rich man from entering heaven.
Another famous story is often called “The Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31). In this parable, the rich man enjoys his life and takes no note of the poor man at his door. He is selfish and hard-hearted. Lazarus begged every day, and suffered because the rich man refused to notice him or share the wealth bestowed upon him. The rich man showed no dependency on God until he died. His focus during life was inward, not outward to those in need, or upward to the God who blessed him.
Being rich doesn’t keep you from salvation, but it does have the potential to blind you to the favor God has shown you, and your absolute need to depend on Him. So is it bad to be rich?
Photo Credit: © Unsplash/Josh Appel
Is it Bad to Be Rich?
No—every gift from God is good. If He has blessed you with wealth, it is for a reason, and we have examples in the Bible to prove this.
Joseph of the Old Testament was one of the wealthiest men of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. However, that wealth did not diminish his dependency on God. He knew God’s provision of riches and vision were favored gifts which he in turn used to save multiple nations. Joseph was a rich man, but first and foremost, he was a humble servant of God.
In the book of Acts, we read about several members of the early church who were wealthy and helped to support others. Barnabas sold a field and donated the money so it could be used to serve the needy (Acts 4:36-37), Dorcas made clothes for the widows (Acts 9:36-43), and a Roman Centurion named Cornelius “did many charitable deeds for the Jewish people and always prayed to God” (Acts 10:1-8).
Though they were wealthy, God was the one they depended upon, and by His example they used their riches to freely serve others. When our identity, security, and hope are tied into accumulating and maintaining wealth, our fists tighten and our hearts harden against the one who provided that gift and those He calls us to help.
If we are to guard against this, we must evaluate our hearts.

A Heart Check for the Rich
God judges a man before he can enter heaven, and He does not judge as the world judges. Someone could be the richest, most influential person on the planet, and still not enter. No amount of possessions or influence can sway God. He looks past worldly standards and into the heart of a man (1 Samuel 16:7). He knows where your dependency lies. Do you?
I encourage you to use these verses and the following questions as a “heart check.”
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, … But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” (Matthew 6:19-20)
“…Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15 NASB)
What are you storing up? How are you using the wealth God has given you? Are you satisfied with what you have, or are you always striving for more? Is your focus on the gift instead of the Giver? If you lost all your wealth and your health, would you still trust in God?
If you found the answers to some of those questions distasteful, you might be depending on your wealth for identity, security, and hope. The only way to fix that is to go straight to Jesus.
Photo Credit: © Getty Images
How Can a Rich Person Be Saved?
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10 NASB)
If you aren’t sure how to call on the name of Jesus, please read over The Sinner’s Prayer – 4 Examples for Salvation. There is no magic formulaic prayer, just heartfelt confession between you and your Savior.
Although it may be more difficult for a rich man to be saved, by the grace of God, it is not impossible. Whether rich or poor, He will save you. All you have to do is call out, and He will teach you to depend on Him.
Crystal Caudill is a wife, caregiver, mom of teen boys, historical romance author, and prayer warrior. She isn’t perfect but she strives to grow in God and encourage others in their faith journeys every day. Learn more about her and her writing at http://www.crystalcaudill.com. […]

Rebelliousness is such a touchy subject because often Christians don’t want to consider the possibility that some of their thoughts, attitudes, and actions may be rooted in disobedience towards God.
Yet many Christians are enjoying worldly behaviors and pleasing their own desires over yielding to God. Instead of submitting to His word and ways, they are justifying and rationalizing their choices, unwilling to bring them under the light of God’s truth.
Still 1 Peter 1:14, 15 urges, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.”
10. Entertaining Sexual Immorality
Unfortunately a growing number of Christians are comfortable with sexual immorality, despite Ephesians 5:3 warning to not even have a hint of it in our lives.
Many Christians enjoy viewing inappropriate sexual relationships, overlooking its sinfulness and justifying their indulgence of it because they love the characters and storylines, more than they love God.
But 1 John 2:16 clarifies its origin, “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Watching sexual immorality deeply affects our hearts and minds in adverse ways. If we think as believers we can watch it and remain unaffected, we are deceived. It affects how we think, live, make decisions, view sin, and most importantly, our relationship with God.
Psalm 101:3 offers direction for our eyes. “I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.”
When addressing “eye issues” related to sexual immorality, Jesus said, “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29)
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/Gearstd

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV. […]

Our church begins each Sunday gathering with a strange word of welcome: to the burdened, to the mourning, to the weak. Worship isn’t just for the cheerful and hope-filled, but also for the down and despondent. You haven’t been forgotten, we say in effect. And we believe worship can be a critical means to genuine healing.
However, as the pandemic has dragged on and on, the number of us feeling weak, burdened, and discouraged has swelled, and the cheerful and hope-filled have begun to feel more like the exceptions — especially in an increasingly cynical society. Might we now need a particular word of welcome for them as well?

And if you’re generally joyful this morning, we welcome you too, unusual as you are. You need not feign despondency to sing together with this poor, burdened lot of worshipers. Jesus welcomes those teeming with hope, and so do we. It’s okay to have hope — in fact, that’s our prayer. We have gathered here to have our hope renewed and strengthened in Christ.

We should expect secularism to produce cynicism. Such unbelief, as sophisticated as it may seem, cannot but eventually generate ever thickening skepticism, criticism, disappointment, and complaint. Christians, however, have a countercultural calling: hope. Christ calls us to be hopeful, subjectively, because we have real hope, objectively. In Christ, we have hope in us, because we have Hope in him — “Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1).
Grieving with Hope
None of that means that Christians pretend to have only hope. We all know life in this age to be complex. We weep over our own lives, and we weep with those who weep. Yet we also offer them what we have in Christ (and what they desperately want): real hope. In the Hope we have in Jesus — a real, solid, stable, energizing hope — we are able to face up to the real sin and pain and disappointment and deep hurt in our world, and in us.

“Christ calls us to be hopeful, subjectively, because we have real hope, objectively.”

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We grieve still, but not “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Nor do we lament, criticize, and rage as the hopeless. If Christ can give hope even as we stare at a loved one’s headstone, surely he can give hope no matter what else erupts in our lives or sightlines.
For now, even as we grieve, we cling to hope. Grieving, yet always hopeful.
What Hope Is and Does
For the Christian, hope is no thin wish. We often use the word hope far more casually than the New Testament. I hope it’s warm tomorrow. I hope our team wins. I hope the pandemic is over soon. In everyday talk, we say hope for thin wishes about an uncertain, even unlikely, future.
Not so for the apostles and the early church. Their hope was not flimsy, fleeting, or uncertain. Rather, they spoke of a well-founded faith with a future orientation. Their hope, rooted in faith, was “knowledge of the truth,” looking forward (Titus 1:1–2). And what is remarkable, and perhaps regularly overlooked, is how powerful, how catalytic, how transformative such true hope will prove to be.
It is no accident that the two New Testament letters that may be most manifestly concerned with prompting Christian good deeds — 1 Peter and Titus — are also fed explicitly by the power of hope. Not simply faith, but hope in particular.
Again and again, 1 Peter rings the bell for doing good (2:12, 14, 15, 20; 3:6, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17; 4:19), stemming from hope (1:3, 13, 21; 3:5, 15). Hope in God leads to doing good in the world (1 Peter 3:5–6). Unbelievers see the good Christians do and ask about what? “The hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:13–17). Have you ever paused to consider how the lives of others benefit as a result of your hope? Or conversely, what good does not happen in the world as hope runs thin and cynicism rises?
Blessed, Energizing Hope
So also in Titus. The refrain is striking. Do not be “unfit for any good work” (Titus 1:16), but rather “be a model of good works” (2:7), “zealous for good works” (2:14), “ready for every good work” (3:1), devoting yourselves to good works (3:8, 14) — which does not mean to put one’s own righteousness on display but rather “to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful” (3:14). In other words, tangible actions motivated by love. There’s the strong emphasis in Titus on doing good.
And yet, as immediately as the letter’s first sentence, Paul speaks of godliness birthed “in hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:1–2). First is faith, and this faith gives rise to “godliness, in hope of eternal life.” In other words, hope is the critical link between faith in Christ and doing good to others. Faith in Christ’s person and work produces hope of eternal life which frees God’s people from the barriers and attachments of this present age to love and do good for others. And this hope is a blessed hope (Titus 2:13). Hope in the coming of Christ, and the bliss he will bring, gives us joy even now in the present, joy enough to free us from seeking our own, to love others and seek to meet their needs.
Paul’s structure of thought is similar in Colossians 1:4–5: “we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” The people of faith did good for others (love) because of their hope. Faith in Christ fed hope in a certain promised future which released God’s people from earthly fears and entanglements and laziness, to dream about, and make good on, doing good for others.
God Never Lies
Why is it that Christian hope — and not hope in general — has such a catalytic effect in and through our lives? Paul answers that in the opening lines of Titus. When he mentions “hope of eternal life,” he adds, “which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2). Why would he say that here? Of course God never lies, but why say that now?

“Hope produced the greatest labor of love the world has ever known.”

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Because the never-lying, certain promises of God, about the future, have everything to do with our hope. Our hope, which catalyzes faith in Christ into actions of love for the good of others, is based on the words of the God “who never lies.” God’s truthfulness is absolutely critical to our hope. And our hope, in Christ, is as good as God’s word. Our hope is not what we wish or dream; our hope is what God has promised — and he never lies.
Man of Hope
This dynamic — faith producing hope which inspires loving risk and sacrifice for others — also shows up again and again in Hebrews, and particularly in Christ himself. How was it that the consummate man of faith, God himself in human flesh, the founder and perfecter of our faith, did the single greatest good that has ever been done? What propelled him, against the greatest of obstacles, to go to the cross? In a word, hope.
Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). By faith, he looked to the promises of God and saw his reward. This was not wishful thinking about the future, but the eyes of faith looking to the future and realizing, and tasting, that this outcome is as sure as the promises of God. Faith fed hope. And hope produced the greatest labor of love the world has ever known.
In Christ, we don’t let the growing hopelessness around us dampen our hope. And in him, we don’t apologize for having real hope, and being hopeful; we don’t give in to the pressure to stoop and be as cynical as our surroundings. Rather, we take God at his word. He never lies. And he promises us a stunning hope in Christ, one that unleashes us, with joy, to do good. […]

Of all the misconceptions we have about heaven, which is the most destructive? That’s a difficult and important question to tackle.
Once, while preaching about the new earth, I cited passages about feasting together in our resurrection bodies. Afterward, a veteran Bible student asked if I really believed we would eat and drink in the afterlife. I told him yes, since Jesus said so. Visibly shaken, he replied, “Engaging in physical activities in heaven sounds terribly unspiritual.” Standing there with a body God promised to raise, he was repulsed by the thought of living forever as a physical being in a material world.
And he’s not alone. Many Bible-believing Christians would die before denying the doctrine of the resurrection — and yet they don’t fully believe it.
I’ve dialogued with lifelong evangelicals who don’t understand what resurrection means. They really believe they will spend eternity as disembodied spirits. God’s revelation concerning the resurrection and the new earth — our forever home — eludes them. A Christian university professor wrote, “I was floored and dismayed to discover the vast majority of my students don’t believe in the bodily resurrection.” Some evangelicals even believe we become angels when we die.
If I could eliminate one belief about heaven, it would be the heresy that the physical world is an enemy of God’s redemptive plan rather than a central part of it.
Dangers of Christoplatonism
I coined the term “Christoplatonism” to capture how Plato’s notion of a good spirit realm and an evil material world hijacked the church’s understanding of heaven. From a Christoplatonic perspective, our souls occupy our bodies like a hermit crab inhabits a seashell.

“We will never be all God intended until body and spirit are reunited.”

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Plato’s statement Soma sema, “a body, a tomb,” reflected his belief that the spirit’s ideal state is freedom from the body. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo tried to integrate Plato’s view with Judaism. In the second and third centuries, some church fathers — including Clement and Origen — followed Philo and reinterpreted Scripture.
But the Bible contradicts Christoplatonism from beginning (Genesis 1, God created the heavens and earth) to end (Revelation 21, God will remake the heavens and earth). The gospel itself centers on the resurrected Jesus who, as part of his redemptive work, will resurrect his people and the world he made for them.
Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Adam became alive when God joined his body and spirit together. Your body doesn’t merely house you; in concert with your spirit, it is you.
Jesus redeems our whole person. When believers die, our spirits go to the present heaven while our bodies go to the grave, awaiting resurrection. We will never be all God intended until body and spirit are reunited in heaven. And just as our new bodies won’t be non-bodies, but real bodies, so the new earth will be a real earth, not a non-earth.
Disembodied Gospel
If we believe, even subconsciously, that the material world is inherently unspiritual, we will ignore or spiritualize the resurrection. Some speak of spiritual resurrection, but as the sunrise requires a sun, resurrection requires a physical body. That’s what resurrection means.
The risen Jesus reassured his disciples, “Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have” (Luke 24:39 CSB). Yet some evangelicals imagine an afterlife in which we become ghosts — the very thing Jesus reassured his followers he wasn’t.
Satan wants us to believe eternal life will be unearthly and boring. Then people focus on bucket lists, thinking here and now is their only chance at real human life. Who wants to be a ghost? Why invite others to spend eternity in a heaven we don’t look forward to ourselves? Our joy, hope, and motivation to evangelize diminish. Trying to develop an appetite for an eternity of disembodied existence is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel.
The only good news about this view of heaven is that it’s absolutely false.
The Bible’s actual teaching should thrill us. Eternity in a redeemed body living in a Jesus-centered culture on a new earth, capital planet of the new universe? That’s incredibly good news.
What About the Present Heaven?
God never changes, but heaven will change. The Bible indicates that after our resurrection, God will relocate his central dwelling place to the new earth:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. . . . I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. . . . I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Revelation 21:1–3)

We’re told “the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it [the new earth], and his servants will worship him” (Revelation 22:3). Heaven is where God’s throne is, where he dwells with his people. Hence, the new earth will be heaven on earth. When Christians die, we go to live with God in his place. That’s the present heaven. But after the resurrection, God will come down to live with us in our place. The future heaven, on the new earth, will not be “us with God” but “God with us.”
We err when we confuse the present pre-resurrection heaven with the future post-resurrection heaven that God will bring down to the new earth. The present heaven is “far better” (Philippians 1:23) than our lives under the curse of sin and suffering. Upon death, we will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). But my point is, wonderful though it will be, we shouldn’t think of the present heaven as if it were our ultimate home. The best is yet to come — eternal and delightful life worshiping and serving the forever-incarnate Jesus on the new earth.
World Worth Anticipating
Spirits without bodies fit Platonism and Eastern mysticism. They do not fit Christianity. Paul says if there’s no resurrection, we should “be pitied” (1 Corinthians 15:19).

“We shouldn’t think of the present heaven as if it were our ultimate home.”

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New bodies and the new earth aren’t our inventions; they’re God’s. He created us to live on and rule the earth, and Jesus became man to redeem his creation (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22). God’s people should look forward to living forever in a redeemed cosmos (2 Peter 3:13). That is a life-changing perspective.
The present earth, even under sin and curse, teems with clues about the new earth: mountains, water, trees, people, and cities. Along with other passages, Revelation 21–22 depicts life on the new earth in familiar ways. We will eat, drink, work, play, worship, discover, invent, and travel in a sinless world like — yet even better than — the one God made for Adam and Eve. The word nations suggests resurrected civilizations, cultures with distinctive ethnic traits (Revelation 21:24, 26). Multiple new earth passages mention animals (Isaiah 11:6–9; 65:25). What can the rest of “the whole creation” in Romans 8:19–22 be but animals, which along with humans groan and await the resurrection when the earth that fell on our coattails will rise on them?
Settling for Less Than a Redeemed Earth
Jesus promised his disciples a “renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28 NIV), which the ESV renders “the new world.” Peter preached that Christ won’t return “until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets” (Acts 3:21). With the Lord we love, believers will embark on the ultimate adventure. A magnificent new earth awaits our exploration and governance, to God’s glory. Jesus will be the cosmic center; joy will be the air we breathe.
Christians are vulnerable to attractive false teachings. Ironically, the true biblical teachings about the new body and new earth are far more robust and appealing than the false Christoplatonic view of heaven. Let’s teach our children and our churches what is absolutely true and profoundly attractive.
Does the thought of experiencing a resurrected world appeal to you? Does it ignite your imagination to realize we will live happily ever after on a planet without sin and suffering? Is this part of the good news you share with others? Let’s never settle for less than the full breadth of God’s promised salvation — eternal life with God’s people on a redeemed earth governed by the King of kings, whom we will joyfully worship and serve forever. […]