Looking back–Remember, recall, recount:
December 31 is day of looking back over the past, especially the past year. I have chosen Psalm 78 as an example of a scripture that does that.
God Speaks
A psalm of Asaph.
1 O my people, listen to my instructions.
Open your ears to what I am saying,
2 for I will speak to you in a parable.
I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—
3 stories we have heard and known,
stories our ancestors handed down to us.
4 We will not hide these truths from our children;
we will tell the next generation
about the glorious deeds of the Lord,
about his power and his mighty wonders.
5 For he issued his laws to Jacob;
he gave his instructions to Israel.
He commanded our ancestors
to teach them to their children,
6 so the next generation might know them—
even the children not yet born—
and they in turn will teach their own children.
7 So each generation should set its hope anew on God,
not forgetting his glorious miracles
and obeying his commands.
8 Then they will not be like their ancestors—
stubborn, rebellious, and unfaithful,
refusing to give their hearts to God.
9 The warriors of Ephraim, though armed with bows,
turned their backs and fled on the day of battle.
10 They did not keep God’s covenant
and refused to live by his instructions.
11 They forgot what he had done—
the great wonders he had shown them,
12 the miracles he did for their ancestors
on the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
13 For he divided the sea and led them through,
making the water stand up like walls!
14 In the daytime he led them by a cloud,
and all night by a pillar of fire.
15 He split open the rocks in the wilderness
to give them water, as from a gushing spring.
16 He made streams pour from the rock,
making the waters flow down like a river!
17 Yet they kept on sinning against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18 They stubbornly tested God in their hearts,
demanding the foods they craved.
19 They even spoke against God himself, saying,
“God can’t give us food in the wilderness.
20 Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out,
but he can’t give his people bread and meat.”
21 When the Lord heard them, he was furious.
The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob.
Yes, his anger rose against Israel,
22 for they did not believe God
or trust him to care for them.
23 But he commanded the skies to open;
he opened the doors of heaven.
24 He rained down manna for them to eat;
he gave them bread from heaven.
25 They ate the food of angels!
God gave them all they could hold.
26 He released the east wind in the heavens
and guided the south wind by his mighty power.
27 He rained down meat as thick as dust—
birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore!
28 He caused the birds to fall within their camp
and all around their tents.
29 The people ate their fill.
He gave them what they craved.
30 But before they satisfied their craving,
while the meat was yet in their mouths,
31 the anger of God rose against them,
and he killed their strongest men.
He struck down the finest of Israel’s young men.
32 But in spite of this, the people kept sinning.
Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.
33 So he ended their lives in failure,
their years in terror.
34 When God began killing them,
they finally sought him.
They repented and took God seriously.
35 Then they remembered that God was their rock,
that God Most High was their redeemer.
36 But all they gave him was lip service;
they lied to him with their tongues.
37 Their hearts were not loyal to him.
They did not keep his covenant.
38 Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins
and did not destroy them all.
Many times he held back his anger
and did not unleash his fury!
39 For he remembered that they were merely mortal,
gone like a breath of wind that never returns.
40 Oh, how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland.
41 Again and again they tested God’s patience
and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power
and how he rescued them from their enemies.
43 They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt,
his wonders on the plain of Zoan.
44 For he turned their rivers into blood,
so no one could drink from the streams.
45 He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them
and hordes of frogs to ruin them.
46 He gave their crops to caterpillars;
their harvest was consumed by locusts.
47 He destroyed their grapevines with hail
and shattered their sycamore-figs with sleet.
48 He abandoned their cattle to the hail,
their livestock to bolts of lightning.
49 He loosed on them his fierce anger—
all his fury, rage, and hostility.
He dispatched against them
a band of destroying angels.
50 He turned his anger against them;
he did not spare the Egyptians’ lives
but ravaged them with the plague.
51 He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family,
the flower of youth throughout the land of Egypt.
52 But he led his own people like a flock of sheep,
guiding them safely through the wilderness.
53 He kept them safe so they were not afraid;
but the sea covered their enemies.
54 He brought them to the border of his holy land,
to this land of hills he had won for them.
55 He drove out the nations before them;
he gave them their inheritance by lot.
He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes.
56 But they kept testing and rebelling against God Most High.
They did not obey his laws.
57 They turned back and were as faithless as their parents.
They were as undependable as a crooked bow.
58 They angered God by building shrines to other gods;
they made him jealous with their idols.
59 When God heard them, he was very angry,
and he completely rejected Israel.
60 Then he abandoned his dwelling at Shiloh,
the Tabernacle where he had lived among the people.
61 He allowed the Ark of his might to be captured;
he surrendered his glory into enemy hands.
62 He gave his people over to be butchered by the sword,
because he was so angry with his own people—his special possession.
63 Their young men were killed by fire;
their young women died before singing their wedding songs.
64 Their priests were slaughtered,
and their widows could not mourn their deaths.
65 Then the Lord rose up as though waking from sleep,
like a warrior aroused from a drunken stupor.
66 He routed his enemies
and sent them to eternal shame.
67 But he rejected Joseph’s descendants;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 He chose instead the tribe of Judah,
and Mount Zion, which he loved.
69 There he built his sanctuary as high as the heavens,
as solid and enduring as the earth.
70 He chose his servant David,
calling him from the sheep pens.
71 He took David from tending the ewes and lambs
and made him the shepherd of Jacob’s descendants—
God’s own people, Israel.
72 He cared for them with a true heart
and led them with skillful hands.
Source: New Living Translation: BibleGateway.com
We Respond
Reflection: This longer psalm is a partial summary of Jewish history. It may be a fulfillment of the psalmist’s commitment to remember the works of the LORD. It is interesting that this psalm stops with King David. This may be a clue to the (at least general) date it was composed. In verses 1-4 the psalmist, Asaph, gathers the people to recount the wonderful works the LORD has done in the past. Verses 5-8 begin with the command to fathers to instruct their children to put their confidence in God. Verses 9-16 say that they were unfaithful in spite of the many mighty miracles He did on their behalf. In verses 17-20 they continued to sin by speaking against God. Verses 21-29 report that although God was angry with His people for not trusting Him for their needs, He still provided them with “bread from heaven” in the morning and meat (quail) at evening; however, God disciplined His children’s lack of trust in Him (verses 30-33) by sending death, fear, and futility among them. After these severe consequences (verses 34-37), they did return to God, at least for a time. Verses 38-39 tell what a compassionate and forgiving God YHVH is. Verses 40-66 reveal how forgetful, ungrateful, unfaithful, rebellious, and traitorous human beings–-even God’s own special people-–are. Verses 67-72 tell that, in spite of all this, the great God, creator of the universe, opted to dwell among them and chose a special man (King David and later Messiah Jesus) to skillfully lead them.
Prayer: Dear awesome provider and protector, LORD God, thank You for guiding me as one of Your people. I praise You for all the wonderful works You have done. Please help me to pass Your loving instructions on to the next generation. I confess that I and my generation have not been faithful in doing that, allowing the evil one to use unbelievers to have more influence with our children than their own God-fearing parents. Please help us not just to impart knowledge but to model goodness properly as well. You gave us the Ten Commandments and other regulations to guide us into right living, but we have not followed them. Indeed, we could not. Neither did the Israelite generation You led out of slavery in Egypt. They witnessed the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud and fire, and water given from the rock in the desert. Still, they did not trust You. We have seen You guide this nation’s founding fathers and rescue many of us from serious illnesses and dangers, but we still have not trusted You. Apart from a special, powerful move of Your Holy Spirit, we will remain an ungrateful and rebellious people. We have turned away when we should have stood firm. Strangers are invading the territory our ancestors secured for us with Your assistance. I and my nation in general have not looked to You for our salvation or rescue, but to ourselves or our government to solve our problems. We have kept on sinning and rebelling against You in spite of all You have done for us. We even complain about the good food You have given us. You have every right to discipline Your children; instead, please help us to earnestly seek You, repent, and take You seriously. In Your mercy forgive us. Don’t destroy all of us, even though we have tested Your patience and provoked You, the Holy One of Israel. Just like people You led out of slavery in Egypt, we have forgotten, even despised, all the miraculous things You have done over the nearly two and a half centuries of American history. We have been unfaithful and rebellious, especially in the past half century. Rise up, O LORD, like a warrior and rout Your true enemies. Select and prepare a chosen man like King David to lead this nation for Your glory. Even so, come Lord Jesus. AMEN
Action: (Ask God, the Holy Spirit, if He wants you to work on one of the suggestions below or something else more personal that He points out.)
- I will take specific time to confess and repent of my own sins and the sins of my loved ones and nation.
- I will join with other believers to do the same.
- I will work with others to be sure that the next generation learns Bible history as well as the faith history of our families and nation (good and bad).
- I will take a specific time to thank the LORD for the ways He has led and blessed me, my loved ones, my faith community, and my nation.
Share: I plan to share what I’ve learned with __________.
Looking forward–Prophecy, wait or waiting, planning or anticipating
December 31 is also a time to look head, to make corrections, to plan for the future. I have chosen 1 Thessalonians 4 as an example of a scripture that does that.
God Speaks
1-2 Let me add this, dear brothers: You already know how to please God in your daily living, for you know the commands we gave you from the Lord Jesus himself. Now we beg you—yes, we demand of you in the name of the Lord Jesus—that you live more and more closely to that ideal. 3-4 For God wants you to be holy and pure and to keep clear of all sexual sin so that each of you will marry in holiness and honor— 5 not in lustful passion as the heathen do, in their ignorance of God and his ways.
6 And this also is God’s will: that you never cheat in this matter by taking another man’s wife because the Lord will punish you terribly for this, as we have solemnly told you before. 7 For God has not called us to be dirty-minded and full of lust but to be holy and clean. 8 If anyone refuses to live by these rules, he is not disobeying the rules of men but of God who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
9 But concerning the pure brotherly love that there should be among God’s people, I don’t need to say very much, I’m sure! For God himself is teaching you to love one another. 10 Indeed, your love is already strong toward all the Christian brothers throughout your whole nation. Even so, dear friends, we beg you to love them more and more. 11 This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life, minding your own business and doing your own work, just as we told you before. 12 As a result, people who are not Christians will trust and respect you, and you will not need to depend on others for enough money to pay your bills.
13 And now, dear brothers, I want you to know what happens to a Christian when he dies so that when it happens, you will not be full of sorrow, as those are who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and then came back to life again, we can also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him all the Christians who have died.
15 I can tell you this directly from the Lord: that we who are still living when the Lord returns will not rise to meet him ahead of those who are in their graves. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a mighty shout and with the soul-stirring cry of the archangel and the great trumpet-call of God. And the believers who are dead will be the first to rise to meet the Lord. 17 Then we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and remain with him forever. 18 So comfort and encourage each other with this news.
Source: The Living Bible: BibleGateway.com
We Respond
Reflection: The first thirteen verses of 1 Thessalonians chapter four are about everyday Christian living, especially the area of sexual purity. The rest of the chapter discusses the death of believers, especially regarding Christ’s return. Paul urges the Thessalonians (and all believers) to live increasingly to please God–not themselves. How we need that in our day! How different our society would be if people would ask themselves every morning, “How could I please God and/or another person today?” We cannot, however, live out the holiness God wants for us apart from Christ and the Holy Spirit working us. As we cooperate with Him, we will be able to resist temptations to sin, such as acting on inappropriate sexual urges. Then we will be able to live the pure lives God wants us to have. In regard to physical death and Christ’s return, those who belong to God and have died will not be abandoned in the grave. When Jesus returns, they will be raised first; then we who are alive and remain on the earth will join them and Jesus forever. Believing this fact should give us all hope.
Prayer: Dear loving Father God, thank You that You come alongside Your children to help us live righteously, including in sexual purity. Please help me to appreciate and take good care of this body You have given me. Please also teach me and other believers to improve continually in how we demonstrate Your love to people. I’m learning from Your Word how to stay calm, mind my own business, and do a good job at whatever I do. Hopefully, this will gain the respect of those around me, and they will want to follow You, too. I want to be dependable, not reliant on others or the government. Thank you that if I should physically die before You return, Jesus, I won’t be abandoned in the grave. My body and those of other believers will be raised first; then come the Christ-followers who are still alive. We will all get to be with You forever. Help me to encourage others with these words. AMEN
Action: (Ask God, the Holy Spirit, which one of these He wants you to work on or something else more personal that He points out.)
- I will daily ask God how I can please Him, then watch how things come about.
- I will seek the Holy Spirit’s help in avoiding any kind of sexual sin.
- I will thank God for the body He has given me and honor Him by taking good care of it.
- I will use the concepts of this chapter to encourage someone today who may be grieving a death or considering their own demise.
Share: I plan to share what I’ve learned with __________.