The Grace of God in the Bible (By Dane Ortlund) (Repost From Dane's Blog) There is always a danger of squeezing the Bible into a mold we bring to it rather than letting the Bible mold us. And, there could hardly be more diversity within the Protestant canon--diverse genres, historical settings, authors, literary levels, ages of history.

But while the Bible is not uniform, it is unified. The many books of the one Bible are not like the many pennies in the one jar. The pennies in the jar look the same, yet are disconnected; the books of the Bible (like the organs of a body) look different, yet are interconnected. As the past two generations' recovery of biblical theology has shown time and again, certain motifs course through the Scripture from start to end, tying the whole thing together into a coherent tapestry--kingdom, temple, people of God, creation/new creation, and so on.

Yet underneath and undergirding all of these, it seems to me, is the motif of God's grace, his perplexing favor and love to the undeserving. Don't we see the grace of God in every book of the Bible? (NT books include the single verse that best crystallizes the point.)

Genesis shows God’s grace to a universally wicked world as he enters into relationship with a sinful family line (Abraham) and promises to bless the world through him.

Exodus shows God’s grace to his enslaved people in bringing them out of Egyptian bondage.

Leviticus shows God’s grace in providing his people with a sacrificial system to atone for their sins.

Numbers shows God’s grace in patiently sustaining his grumbling people in the wilderness and bringing them to the border of the promised land not because of them but in spite of them.

Deuteronomy shows God’s grace in giving the people the new land “not because of your righteousness” (ch. 9).

Joshua shows God’s grace in giving Israel victory after victory in their conquest of the land with neither superior numbers nor superior obedience on Israel’s part.

Judges shows God’s grace in taking sinful, weak Israelites as leaders and using them to purge the land, time and again, of foreign incursion and idolatry.

Ruth shows God’s grace in incorporating a poverty-stricken, desolate, foreign woman into the line of Christ.

1 and 2 Samuel show God’s grace in establishing the throne (forever—2 Sam 7) of an adulterous murderer.

1 and 2 Kings show God’s grace in repeatedly prolonging the exacting of justice and judgment for kingly sin “for the sake of” David. (And remember: by the ancient hermeneutical presupposition of corporate solidarity, by which the one stands for the many and the many for the one, the king represented the people; the people were in their king; as the king went, so went they.)

1 and 2 Chronicles show God’s grace by continually reassuring the returning exiles of God’s self-initiated promises to David and his sons.

Ezra shows God’s grace to Israel in working through the most powerful pagan ruler of the time (Cyrus) to bring his people back home to a rebuilt temple.

Nehemiah shows God’s grace in providing for the rebuilding of the walls of the city that represented the heart of God’s promises to his people.

Esther shows God’s grace in protecting his people from a Persian plot to eradicate them through a string of 'fortuitous' events.

Job shows God’s grace in vindicating the sufferer’s cry that his redeemer lives (19:25), who will put all things right in this world or the next.

Psalms shows God’s grace by reminding us of, and leading us in expressing, the hesed (relentless covenant love) God has for his people and the refuge that he is for them.

Proverbs shows us God’s grace by opening up to us a world of wisdom in leading a life of happy godliness.

Ecclesiastes shows God’s grace in its earthy reminder that the good things of life can never be pursued as the ultimate things of life and that it is God who in his mercy satisfies sinners (note 7:20; 8:11).

Song of Songs shows God’s grace and love for his bride by giving us a faint echo of it in the pleasures of faithful human sexuality.

Isaiah shows God’s grace by reassuring us of his presence with and restoration of contrite sinners.

Jeremiah shows God’s grace in promising a new and better covenant, one in which knowledge of God will be universally internalized.

Lamentations shows God’s grace in his unfailing faithfulness in the midst of sadness.

Ezekiel shows God’s grace in the divine heart surgery that cleansingly replaces stony hearts with fleshy ones.

Daniel shows God’s grace in its repeated miraculous preservation of his servants.

Hosea shows God’s grace in a real-live depiction of God’s unstoppable love toward his whoring wife.

Joel shows God’s grace in the promise to pour out his Spirit on all flesh.

Amos shows God’s grace in the Lord's climactic promise of restoration in spite of rampant corruption.

Obadiah shows God’s grace by promising judgment on Edom, Israel’s oppressor, and restoration of Israel to the land in spite of current Babylonian captivity.

Jonah shows God’s grace toward both immoral Nineveh and moral Jonah, irreligious pagans and a religious prophet, both of whom need and both of whom receive the grace of God.

Micah shows God’s grace in the prophecy’s repeated wonder at God’s strange insistence on “pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression” (7:18).

Nahum shows God’s grace in assuring Israel of “good news” and “peace,” promising that the Assyrians have tormented them for the last time.

Habakkuk shows God’s grace that requires nothing but trusting faith amid insurmountable opposition, freeing us to rejoice in God even in desolation.

Zephaniah shows God’s grace in the Lord's exultant singing over his recalcitrant yet beloved people.

Haggai shows God’s grace in promising a wayward people that the latter glory of God’s (temple-ing) presence with them will far surpass its former glory.

Zechariah shows God’s grace in the divine pledge to open up a fountain for God’s people to 'cleanse them from sin and uncleanness' (13:1).

Malachi shows God’s grace by declaring the Lord’s no-strings-attached love for his people.

Matthew shows God’s grace in fulfilling the Old Testament promises of a coming king. (5:17)

Mark shows God’s grace as this coming king suffers the fate of a common criminal to buy back sinners. (10:45)

Luke shows that God’s grace extends to all the people one would not expect: hookers, the poor, tax collectors, sinners, Gentiles ('younger sons'). (19:10)

John shows God’s grace in becoming one of us, flesh and blood (1:14), and dying and rising again so that by believing we might have life in his name. (20:31)

Acts shows God’s grace flooding out to all the world--starting in Jerusalem, ending in Rome; starting with Peter, apostle to the Jews, ending with Paul, apostle to the Gentiles. (1:8)

Romans shows God’s grace in Christ to the ungodly (4:5) while they were still sinners (5:8) that washes over both Jew and Gentile.

1 Corinthians shows God’s grace in favoring what is lowly and foolish in the world. (1:27)

2 Corinthians shows God’s grace in channeling his power through weakness rather than strength. (12:9)

Galatians shows God’s grace in justifying both Jew and Gentile by Christ-directed faith rather than self-directed performance. (2:16)

Ephesians shows God’s grace in the divine resolution to unite us to his Son before time began. (1:4)

Philippians shows God’s grace in Christ’s humiliating death on an instrument of torture—for us. (2:8)

Colossians shows God’s grace in nailing to the cross the record of debt that stood against us. (2:14)

1 Thessalonians shows God’s grace in providing the hope-igniting guarantee that Christ will return again. (4:13)

2 Thessalonians shows God’s grace in choosing us before time, that we might withstand Christ’s greatest enemy. (2:13)

1 Timothy shows God’s grace in the radical mercy shown to 'the chief of sinners.' (1:15)

2 Timothy shows God’s grace to be that which began (1:9) and that which fuels (2:1) the Christian life.

Titus shows God’s grace in saving us by his own cleansing mercy when we were most mired in sinful passions. (3:5)

Philemon shows God’s grace in transcending socially hierarchical structures with the deeper bond of Christ-won Christian brotherhood. (v. 16)

Hebrews shows God’s grace in giving his Son to be both our sacrifice to atone for us once and for all as well as our high priest to intercede for us forever. (9:12)

James shows us God’s grace by giving to those who have been born again 'of his own will' (1:18) 'wisdom from above' for meaningful godly living. (3:17)

1 Peter shows God’s grace in securing for us an unfading, imperishable inheritance no matter what we suffer in this life. (1:4)

2 Peter shows God’s grace in guaranteeing the inevitability that one day all will be put right as the evil that has masqueraded as good will be unmasked at the coming Day of the Lord. (3:10)

1 John shows God’s grace in adopting us as his children. (3:1)

2 and 3 John show God’s grace in reminding specific individuals of 'the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.' (2 Jn 2)

Jude shows God’s grace in the Christ who presents us blameless before God in a world rife with moral chaos. (v. 24)

Revelation shows God’s grace in preserving his people through cataclysmic suffering, a preservation founded on the shed blood of the lamb. (12:11)

Malachi 1.1-5, LOVED

THE ORACLE OF THE WORD OF THE LORD: Malachi, among many things, is a book of rebuke and correction. There is much grace offered, but additionally, that grace is meant to produce repentance. As you prepare to study through this book it is important to understand the different ways you can respond to the Malachi’s message. After you read through the different approaches decide which response you are going to pray God grants you.

Ignore: Some may choose to ignore the message of Malachi. This can happen through dismissing too quickly God’s Word in this Book. Ignoring can also happen by drowning out its message by cluttering up your life with busyness or by medicating the message away through distraction.

• Do you believe you need the message of Malachi?
• Is your life too busy to sit and listen to this text? In what ways might you try to medicate and distract yourself from Malachi?

Worldly Grief: Read 2 Corinthians 7.8-11

• What is the result of worldly grief?
• How is worldly grief the product of a religious attitude?
• How does worldly grief produce confession without repentance?

Godly Grief: Read 2 Corinthians 7.8-11

• What are the results of godly grief?
• How does godly grief reflect a “gospeled” life?

WHO THE WORD IS TO: Like every book in the Bible, Malachi is written to a specific people in a specific time. Familiarity with the cultural setting of the book is helpful in understanding the message for us today. Many of the issues Malachi was addressing in his time are the same problems that plague the church today. Following is a brief list of the different “types” of people addressed in Malachi. As you look at each of these approaches to faith ask yourself where you see evidences of each of these “worldviews” in your life.

Practical Atheism (Live As If God Doesn’t Exist, Material And Temporary)

• How often do you consciously think about God throughout your day?
• How much of your day is spent focused on material and temporary things?

Functional Deism (Live As If God Doesn’t Care, Distant And Indifferent)

• What does your prayer life look like? Does it feel like anyone is listening?
• How often to do you talk with God about decisions and direction in your life?

Cynical Agnosticism (No Judgment, No Resurrection, No Relationship)

• How often do you think about the return of Jesus?
• How often do you think about eternity and heaven?

Religious Formalism (Spotted Leftovers, Minimum Offerings, And Rule Driven Routines. Obedience To Be Accepted)

• Is your faith more rule-oriented or relational?
• When you fail in your obedience do you believe God is going to leave you?
• Do you find yourself doing the very minimum you can so God “isn’t angry with you?”

Stoic Spirituality (Passionless Worship, Lukewarm Affections, And A Joyless Relationship)

• What is your passion?
• What do you spend most of your time talking about, thinking about, excited about?

Misdirected Hedonism (Immediate, Finite, Comfort Seeking And Control)

• In what ways do you pursue temporary pleasure in place of eternal satisfaction?
• What do you delight in?

GOD’S CONTRACONDITIONAL LOVE David Powlison asserts, “the Gospel is better than unconditional love. The Gospel says, “God accepts you just as Christ is. God has ‘contraconditional’ love for you.” Christ bears the curse you deserve. Christ is fully pleasing to the Father and gives you His own perfect goodness. Christ reigns in power, making you the Father’s child and coming close to you to begin to change what is unacceptable to God about you. God never accepts me “as I am.” He accepts me “as I am in Jesus Christ.” The center of gravity is different. The true Gospel does not allow God’s love to be sucked into the vortex of the soul’s LUST for acceptability and worth in and of itself. Rather, it radically decenters people—to look outside themselves.” The following questions attempt to unpack Powlison’s insights as applied to Malachi 1.2-5.

God Has Loved You

• In what way is God’s love the ground of the entire book of Malachi?
• Why are God’s words both unexpected and undeserved?
• Why did God love (choose) Jacob and hate (reject) Esau? (See Romans 9)
• How can a holy God love sinful people?
• Why is God’s contraconditional love such good news for sinners? How does God’s love for us “as we are in Christ Jesus” both comfort us and compel us to respond?

Responding To God’s Love The rebukes throughout the book of Malachi are particularly strong in light of the initiatory, electing, contraconditional love of God for His people. This kind of love demands a response. God’s love will produce a response. Read the entire book of Malachi in one sitting asking these two questions:

• How has God loved His people?
• Have God’s people loved Him?

Psalm 125 (ESV)1Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. 2As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the LORD surrounds his people, from this time forth and forevermore. 3For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong. 4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, and to those who are upright in their hearts! 5But those who turn aside to their crooked ways the LORD will lead away with evildoers! Peace be upon Israel!

Backslider was a basic word in the religious vocabulary depicting people who had made a commitment of faith to our Lord, had been active in church, but had lost their footing on the ascents to Christ and backslid. This was a threat to all, at all times. You could at any moment fall victim to loosing your footing and slipping backwards. Another way to look at this action Christians are prone to is by examining scripture and seeking a different truth. In scripture there is a background of confidence, a leisured security, among people of faith.

Someone Else Built the Fortress: The emphasis of Psalm 125 is not the precariousness of the Christian life but on its solidity. Jerusalem was set in a saucer of hills. It was the safest of cities because of the protective fortress these hills provided. Just so, is the person of faith surrounded by the Lord.

People of faith have the same needs for protection and security as anyone else. What is different is that we don’t have to build our own. God provides our safe haven. He constructs the walls that secure us in his presence. At no time does a person of faith feel left out in the wilderness, but brought within the city gates to rest in the peace and shelter that God provides in Christ in the Gospel.

A Saw–Toothed History: The confident, robust faith that we desire and think is our destiny is qualified by recurrent insecurities. Singing psalm 125 is one way Christians have to develop confidence and banish insecurity. One threat to our security comes from feelings of depression and doubt. We can be moved by nearly anything: sadness, joy, success, failure.

Israel can be described as a having a saw–toothed–history. One day it’s up, and next it is down. But as we read about their history we realize something steady: they are always God’s people. We learn to live not by our feelings about God but by the facts of God. Our security should come from who God is, not from how we feel about him. Discipleship is a decision to live by what we know about God, not by what we feel. In other words, it’s not what we feel about God that makes us secure, its that God chooses to know us and Christ chooses to save us.

A Damoclean Sword: Another source of uncertainty is our pain and suffering. The daily conflicts that we face can be demoralizing. God tells us that danger and oppression are never too much for faith. That nothing counter to God’s justice has eternity to it. God will never let you down; he’ll never push you past your limits; he’ll always help you come through it.

A Nonnegotiable Contract: The third kind of threat to the confidence promised to the Christian is the fear of defection. However, once you are a Christian there is no getting out of it. We have our ups and downs, zealously believing one day and gloomily doubting the next, but God is faithful. You may choose the crooked way. You may choose to run from God. But if you are His, He will not lose you. If He has begun a good work He will bring it completion. Our confidence, our security, our perseverance is not due to our performance, our faithfulness, or our determination but to the LORD who surrounds His people, to the Spirit who seals His people, to the Shepherd who leads His people.

Mountain Climbers Roped Together: Psalm 125 says that being a Christian is like sitting in the middle of Jerusalem, fortified and secure. Neither our feelings nor the facts of suffering nor the fear of defection are evidence that God has abandoned us. Do not be anxious, our life with God is a sure thing, because He is sure and because He surrounds and because He saves and because He seeks.

Traveling the way of faith and climbing the ascent to Christ may be difficult, but it is not worrisome. The weather may be adverse, but it is never fatal. We may slip and stumble and fall, but the rope will hold us. God will always hold us.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 134 (ESV) 1 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side- let Israel now say- 2if it had not been the LORD who was on our side when people rose up against us, 3then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5then over us would have gone the raging waters.

6Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! 7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped!

8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 124 is a song of hazard and of help. Among the Songs of Ascents, this is the one that better describes the hazardous work of all discipleship and declares the help that is always experienced at the hand of God.

A Clerk in the Complaints Department of Humanity: The first lines of the psalm twice describes God as “for us.” The last line is “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” God is for us. God is our help.

The proper work for a Christian is witness, not apology, and Psalm124 is an excellent model. It does not argue God’s help; it does not explain God’s help; it is a testimony of God’s help in the form of a song. The witness becomes vivid and contagious. God’s help is not a private experience; it is a corporate reality—not an exception that occurs among isolated strangers, but the norm among the people of God.

There is no other literature in all the world that is more true to life and more honest than the Psalms, for here we have warts-and-all religion. Psalm 124 is not a selected witness, inserted like a commercial into our lives to testify that life goes better with God. The people who know this psalm best and who have tested it out and used it often tell us that it is credible, that it fits into what we know of life lived in faith.

Hazardous Work: Christian discipleship is hazardous work. There are no easy tasks on the Christian way; there are only task that can be done faithfully or erratically, with joy or with resentment. Throughout your work you need to remember that God will accomplish his will, and you get to cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus.

The psalm, though, is not about hazards but about help. The hazardous work of discipleship is not the subject of the psalm but only its setting. The subject is help. During this time God wants us to not be fussy. To not become moralist who cluck their tongues over a world going to hell; Christians are people who praise the God who is on our side.

Enlarged Photographs of Ordinary Objects: The final sentence, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth,” links the God who created heaven and earth to the God who helps us personally.

Psalm 124 is a magnification of the items of life that are thought to be unpleasant, best kept under cover, best surrounded with silence lest they clutter our lives with unpleasantness. Psalm 124 is an instance of a person who digs deeply into the trouble and finds there the presence of the God who is on our side. Our faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence, not the easiest.

The assumption by outsiders that Christians are naïve or protected is the opposite of the truth: Christians know more about the deep struggles of life than others, more about the ugliness of sin. This psalm looks into the troubles of history, the anxiety of personal conflict and emotional trauma. And it sees there the God who is on our side, God is our help.

We speak our words of praise in a world that is hellish; we sing our songs of victory in a world where things get messy; we live our joy among people who neither understand nor encourage us. But the content of our lives is God, not humanity. We are not scavenging in the dark alleys of the world, poking in its garbage cans for a bare subsistence. We are traveling in the light, toward God who is rich in mercy and strong to save. It is Christ, not culture, who defines our lives. It is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shape our days.

If the LORD was not on our side we would have been swallowed alive. But our help is in the name of The LORD, the one who made heaven and earth.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 123 (ESV)1To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens! 2Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he has mercy upon us.

3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. 4Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

As a person grows and matures in the Christian way, it is necessary to acquire certain skills. One is service. Psalm 123 is an instance of service. In this, as so often in the Psalms, we are not instructed in what to do, we are provided an instance of what is done. In Psalm 123 we observe that aspect of the life of discipleship that takes place under the form of servanthood.

If God Is God At All: Service begins with an upward look to God. We need to place him in the appropriate role. God is over us or above us not beside us or below us. God is not a servant to be called into action when we are too tired to do something ourselves, not an expert to be called on when we find we are ill equipped to handle a specialized problem in living. God did not become a servant so that we could order him around but so that we could join him in a redemptive life.

If God is God at all, he must know more about our need than we do; he must be more in touch with the reality of our thoughts, our emotions, our bodies than we are; he must have a more comprehensive grasp of the interrelations in our families and communities and nations than we do.

If we want to understand God, we must do it on his terms. If we want to see God the way he really is, we must look to the place of authority—to Scripture and to Jesus Christ. The moment we look up to God (and not over him, or down on him) we are in the posture of servitude.

Mercy, God, Mercy! A second element in service in has to do with our expectation. What we expect is mercy. Three times this expectation is voiced in Psalm 123.  The basic conviction of a Christian is that God intends good for us and that he will get his way in us. He is a potter working with the clay of our lives, forming and reforming until, he has shaped a redeemed life, a vessel fit for the kingdom.

The word mercy means that the upward look to God in the heavens does not expect God to stay in the heavens but to come down, to enter our condition, to accomplish the vast enterprise of redemption, to fashion in us his eternal salvation. Servitude is specific in its expectation, and what it expects is mercy.

Urgent Service: A third element in the servant life is urgency. The Psalms is part of a vast literature of outcry, a longing for deliverance from oppression. The Christian is a person who recognizes that our real problem is not in achieving freedom but in learning service under a better master. The Christian realizes that every relationship that excludes God becomes oppressive. For this reason all Christian service involves urgency. The urgency of trading a master that kills us for the Master that died for us.

Reasonable Service: The service we offer to God (in worship) is extended into specific acts that serve others. We learn a relationship—an attitude toward life, a stance of servitude before God, and then we are available to be of use to others in acts of service. The Psalm has nothing in it about serving others. It concentrates on being a servant to God. Its position is that if the attitude of servanthood is learned, by attending to God as Lord, then serving others will develop as a very natural way of life.

The Freest Person On Earth: For freedom is the freedom to live as persons in love for the sake of God and neighbor, not a license to grab and push. It is the opportunity to live at our best, not as unruly beasts. The work of liberation must therefore be accompanied by instruction in the use of liberty as children of God who “walk by the Spirit.”

As Psalm 123 prays the transition from oppression, to freedom, to a new servitude, it puts us in the way of learning how to use our freedom most appropriately, under the lordship of a merciful God. A servant Christian is the freest person on earth.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)

Psalm 122 (ESV)1I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!" 2Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!

3Jerusalem-built as a city that is bound firmly together, 4to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD. 5There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! “May they be secure who love you! 7Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” 8For my brothers and companions’ sake I will say, “Peace be within you!” 9For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.

Psalm 122 is the song of a person who decided to go to church and worship God. It is a psalm of worship and a demonstration of what people of faith everywhere, always do: gather to an assigned place and worship their God. As Christians we must decide to worship God, faithfully and devoutly. It is one of the important acts in a life of discipleship.

An Instance of the Average: A great deal of what we call Christian behavior has become part of our legal system and is embedded in our social expectations, both of which have strong and coercive powers. But worship is not forced. Everyone who worships does so because they want to. Worship is the single most popular act among Christians.

A Framework: The psalm singles out three items: worship gives us a workable structure for life; worship nurtures our need to be in relationship with God; worship centers our attention on the decisions of God.

Jerusalem was the Hebrew word for the place of worship. When you went to Jerusalem, you encountered the great foundational realities: God created you, God redeemed you, God provided for you. The city itself was a kind of architectural metaphor for what worship is: All the pieces of masonry fit compactly, all the building stones fit harmoniously. There were no loose stones, no leftover pieces, no awkward gaps in the walls or the towers.

In worship all the different people who went to Jerusalem functioned as a single people in harmonious relationships. With all of are different backgrounds, economic status, ethnic heritage, we are still one people and we worship gather together as one whole. When we go to worship we get a working definition for our life: the way God created us, the way he leads us. We know where we stand.

A Command: Worship is the place where we obey the command to praise God: “To give thanks to the name of the LORD—this is what it means to be Israel.” This command is a word telling us what we ought to do, and what we ought to do is praise. When we praise we are functioning at the center, we are in touch with the basic, core reality of our being.

Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But, they do not always worship because they feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshipped only when they felt like it, there would be very little worship. We live in an “age of sensation.” We think that if we don’t feel something then there can be no authenticity in doing it. But God says that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationship with God is nurtured.

A Word of God: When we worship our attention is centered on the decisions of God. Every time we worship our minds are informed, our memories refreshed with the judgments of God, we are familiarized with what God says, what he has decided, the way he is working out our salvation. We want to hear what God says and what he says to us: worship is the place where our attention is centered on these personal and decisive words of God.

Peace and Security: Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God—it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship—it deepens. Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God: peace and security. Shalom, or peace, is one of the richest words in the Bible. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God’s will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Shalvah, or prosperity, is the foundation of security. It is the feeling that everything is going to be all right. Worship initiates an extended, daily participation in peace and prosperity so that we share in our daily rounds what God initiates and continues in Jesus Christ.

(This post is a summary and partial abridgement of Eugene Peterson’s book “A Long Obedience In The Same Direction.” It is based solely on Peterson’s work and any help that this content gives should be credited to God’s grace through Peterson’s effort. In other words, give God glory, thank Eugene Peterson and consider buying the book.)