Using the Psalms in Everyday Life: Psalm 52

Using the Psalms in everyday life:  Psalm 52

David was being conspired against by Saul and Saul was saying that David was conspiring against him.  Read 1 Samuel.  In chapter 22 Doeg goes along with Saul, and behind Doeg stands the one who goes along with us in our lies, Satan, the Devil.  In the end of chapter 22 it appears that Doeg and Satan have won a great victory in all of the bloodshed.

Is your life similar to this?  Does it appear that Satan is winning a victory in your life or in your family's life?  Let us look to how David responded in Psalm 52, which he wrote regarding this incident.

"Why do you boast of evil, o mighty man, the faithfulness of God is all day."

All Day is a basketball term.
When someone makes a three pointer and they say, "all day"  that means that they will make that shot all day.
When David sang this, he saw the evil that was done, and the lies that the evil was based on.  And he also saw the truth spoken by Ahimelech, and how Ahimelech was killed for it.

David responds, "all day."

You can kill all the priests, God will raise up prophets who will speak his truth

"all day"

kill all the prophets and God will send his Son who is the truth

"all day"

kill the Son and He will be raised up and will in turn raise others up who will speak the truth

"all day"

kill them and God will along with Jesus raise them from the dead and they will speak the truth of God

"all day"

and into all eternity.

Use Psalm 52 to show Satan how fruitless his kingdom is
and how eternal God's kingdom is

the discipline of reading Scripture out loud

Idea 1:  take a passage of Scripture, say, the sermon on the mount, Isaiah 53, or John 17, and read that Scripture out loud every day for one month.

Idea 2:  take a book and read out loud one chapter of that book every day until you have read through the whole book.

Idea 3.  Read the bible out loud three chapters at a time, you will go through the whole bible in 13 months.  You will have to budget more time when you are reading psalm 119.

Idea 4.  Read outloud a chapter, such as Psalm 103, Psalm 23, John 15, etc, out loud before your kids go to bed.  As your kids are in bed turn the lights off.  You would do a better job than me if you stop to answer kid's questions instead of getting frustrated at getting interrupted.

the discipline of fasting

the discipline of fasting is odd in these United States I live in.  Some of you live in areas where fasting is a reality, in that people go without food because there is no food.  The lack of food is unheard of in the United States, even among the homeless people I work with.  Jesus fasted for 40 days.  Moses fasted.  Elijah fasted.  Esther fasted.  Fasting is skipping a meal or meals in order to spend that time praying instead of eating.
Some of the things that fasting has done for me.
1.  showed me how weak I am, and how food oriented I am.
2.  given me no excuse not to pray.
3.  lead me, through my hunger, to hunger instead for the bread that comes down from heaven.
4.  think about those throughout the world, my brothers and my sisters, who literally are starving to death.
5.  to show how human and weak I am.
6.  did I mention that it shows my weakness, for I feel that this is so important, maybe the center of my Christianity, to know my weakness, so that I will rely on Christ's strength and not my own.

the discipline of tithing

my grandfather and my father after him, both taught their children the discipline of tithing, or giving 10 % of one's gross income to the church.  I have another post about Ron Sider's idea of a graduated tithe, but why is tithing so important, or important at all.  I do not believe that tithing is required for someone to be in Christ, or to live forever with God, or to escape hell, because Christ, not tithing, gives us redemption from and to.  The main reason for tithing is for us to remember that it is not our money.  Whether my income is $700,000 annually or $7,000 annually I must know that it is not my money.  If you disagree with me read Psalm 24.  If you disagree with Psalm 24, then you can argue with the Bible, which is often unfruitful.
100% of my money is God's.  Tithing is a lot like baptism, a symbol of a deeper reality.  My money is God's.    I do not pay the pastor's salary, and if I think I do, I am quite wrong.  God pays the pastor's salary.  The money is and always will be His.
The car is His.
The house is His.
The road bike is His.
The ice cream is His.
Stewardship means all of my money is God's money, and what I do with 100% of it is His decision, because it is His money.
The discipline of tithing helps us to remember that it is not our money.
If tithing makes me think that I am paying God and He owes me, my tithing has become a tool of the Enemy.

the discipline of silence

the bible says that God said, "Let there be light." and there was light, so it seems that God speaks.  I myself have heard God, though not audibly, but "heard" Him speak to me.  But it is not as common as I would like. I wonder, is it because the radio is on too much or because I cannot shut my mouth.

Idea 1.  go on a audio-fast, even a techno-fast, not listening or watching things but listening to silence, in order to tune myself more to the God who still speaks.

Idea 2.  speak no out loud words for one day.  i did this once in college and it was really hard, but i think now to do it would be almost impossible.  Maybe for three hours even.  Some of you reading this are those who speak few words and this would be easy, and others of you, like me, would find this very hard.

Idea 3.  During your prayer time, spend some time without praying out loud, but asking the question, "God, what do you want to say to me?" and then listening to what he may say, for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, etc.

cherry trees and a lilac hedge

This is my idea of late.  We recently tore down our garage in hopes of creating a backyard, and our backyard still has its challenges, between our dogs keeping the mud muddy and the various empty beer cans, cigarette packs and God only know what else scattered as litter as the wind blows it to and fro.  Our backyard would possibly be a challenge to a green thumb, and our thumbs are not green.
At first I thought I would grow blueberry bushes as a hedge, and I was uber excited about having enough blueberries to supply our family and the apartments behind our house.  But there was this thing that I learned about growing blueberry bushes:  the soil needed to be quite acidic, with a PH around 4 or 5.  So I did a PH test of our soil that I learned over the internet which was, 1.  collect a sample of said soil in two cups.  2.  pour vinegar in one cup and baking soda mixed with water in another cup.  3.  If the vinegar cup bubbles you have alkeline soil, and if the baking soda cup bubbles you have acidic soil.  Eventually, the vinegar cup bubbled.  So scrap the blueberry hedge.
When I went to college, there was a lilac bush outside of the library and smelling that bush was one of the best smells ever for me, and the more I read about lilacs, the more I wanted a hedge.  So now my idea is to plant two cherry trees as "fenceposts" on the ends and then along the fence to plant four or five lilac bushes.
Will this idea work?  I do not know, especially because in our house we love love love BING cherries, although I am not a fan of the bing web browser.  So will our bing cherries and our tartanian mix well and grow well and get enough water and not get to cold?  Maybe you can tell me.

Shutting my mouth as a parent

In the words of Maria from The Sound of Music, "I'm far too outspoken, it is one of my worst faults."  In my relationships with my kids I open my mouth quickly and shut it slowly.  I almost always react to my kids disrespect, anger, quarrels, etc.  Lord, show me how to keep a tight reign on my mouth. 

"Jesus, when you stood before Pontius Pilate, with so so much you could have said to the man you created in the greatest moment of history and yet you chose to keep your mouth closed - teach me the wisdom in shutting my mouth, and the peace of shutting my mouth, and the joy in shutting my mouth, and the control of shutting my mouth.  Would you Jesus be my mouth's guard and make the words that come out to only be the words you have specifically chosen.  Much damage can be done by one careless destructive word, and yet such good can be done by one careful creative word.  Be my words Lord.  May the Word be so in me that the only words that come out of my mouth are for you.  Amen, so let it be."