Psalm 90:9-12 – “For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?  So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

A father was talking to his son before he went off to college, and asked him if he knew what he was going to do at college.  His son replied, “yes, I’m going to get a pre-law degree.”  “What then?” asked his father.  His son replied, “Well then I’ll go to law school” What then?” asked his father.  His son replied, “Then I’ll go work for a law firm and try to make a lot of money”  “What then?” asked his father.  His son replied, “Well I’ll retire eventually”  “What then?” asked his father.  His son replied, “Well I’ll guess eventually, I’ll die”  “What then?” asked his father.  His son didn’t have an answer.

The son had clearly spent a large amount of time planning out how he should live his life based on how he was going to spend the next 60 years of his life, but had given no thought to what awaited him upon death, or the countless years beyond that point.  He could give details about what his life would be like for the next 60 years, but could not begin to give an answer about what his life would be like the 60 million years following that.  By the grace of God we are not in the same position as that son – we know what awaits us when we die.  Let’s each of us consider where God has us today, and make plans for our future – not merely the next 60, but the 60 million years beyond that.  This is what a heart of wisdom looks like, a heart the psalmist was seeking after; that when we look back on our lives when we are lying on our deathbeds (if we live so long), we can eagerly look forward in anticipation, knowing that our plans are coming to fruition, our greatest Treasure still awaits us.

Have a great Memorial Day. know you’re all prayed for, and please pray for me, as we’re all running this race together.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Psalm 27 is fast becoming my favorite psalm.  Today I was thinking about what my greatest struggle is personally, and I have to say it is impatience.  Psalm 27 ends with instruction to wait on the Lord – “¹³I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! ¹⁴ Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”

Again in Psalm 130 we are exhorted to wait on the Lord – “⁵I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;”

Isaiah 40:30-31 – “³⁰Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; ³¹but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Lamentations 3:25-26 “²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. ²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

Jude 1:21 – “²¹keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”

What is helpful aside from the abundance of scripture exhorting me to wait on God, are the many pictures of God’s faithfulness and goodness I see in the Word.  To Abraham, in his unbelief that God would bring him a son through his wife (who was well past child-bearing age) sought to take matters into his own hands, and slept with one of his household servants.  After that, God waited 13 years before fulfilling His promise to Abraham.  God gave him a son through his wife, Sarah.  God promise the people of Israel that He would rescue them from slavery in  Egypt after 400 years – God was faithful to do that very thing.  God promised the people of Israel a land of their own, and after 40 years wandering in the desert, God did that very thing.  Lastly God promised salvation, through Himself, and that was accomplished on the cross by Jesus – God absorbed the wrath due all our sin.

Some might say, well why couldn’t he have done all those things immediately!  Of course, these who go out and buy the newest and best electronics for 4x their normal price so they can brag that they are “cutting edge” to their friends. (for about 5 minutes until the next thing comes along).  God wants us to wait, because He loves us.  God’s greatest desire is that our faith be rooted in Him.  Situations where we wait on the Lord is primarily how He accomplishes this.

How does one get into good shape?  By working out consistently.  Can your desire to be in good shape make you that way overnight?  No, there is a process that you go through of eating right, and working out, even on the days you don’t feel like it.  Likewise God wants us to grow, which requires us to stretch our faithfulness and trust in the Lord.  Some of us look back on a life of sin and ask – “how could I be any different now”?  The answer of course is that Christ has made you into a new creation, that loves God, and trusts Him in all things.  What a blessing it would be to our assurance, if we could look back on periods in our life where we waited on God, only to see God’s faithfulness and goodness manifest itself (in God’s timing not our own).  So if God has you in a season where you are waiting on Him for something – pray earnestly and expectantly that God will show up, because He IS faithful, and He IS good, and you have a whole old and new testament of history to encourage yourself with.    Stay encouraged, surround yourself with Christian brothers and sisters, God is always with you.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Friends,

Happy Wednesday!  I hope that if you are not familiar with the scripture below, it will offer great encouragement to you, and if you are, that it will remind you again of the peace we have in Christ.

Phillippians 3:8-14 – “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upwardcall of God in Christ Jesus.”

This is probably my favorite verse/section of scripture in the Bible, because in one sweeping stroke of the pen, Paul encapsulates the whole of our Christian walk, and it’s grounding in the finished work of Christ on the cross.  Know that if you have trusted on Christ, if your heart delights in Jesus Himself, you are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17)

None of us were born Christians.  Many of us are only recent followers of Christ, maybe in the last few years, or even few months.  That means that we all have a mountain of sin in our past, but God is saying – “that’s not you anymore.  That was you for a time, but now you’re Mine, and I am yours.”  For those who may think that your sin is worse than others, know that there is no Biblical support for that, God never speaks about sin in that way.  God doesn’t care what type of sin you’re struggling with as much as He cares about if you are looking to Him, and holding fast to Him, amidst those struggles.

Your identity is no longer with the world, or your past sins.  Forget what lies behind you and push forward towards Christ.  As fallen creatures with lingering sin, each day we will fall in some way and need this renewal; to know that in Christ we can forget yesterday, to pursue Him today.  Do you wake up reminding yourself that today is a new day to grow your faith in the Lord?  Be comforted that the mercies and lovingkindness of God towards you are new each moment of every day.  (Lam 3:23)  He cannot love you more, and will not love you less – ever.  I’ll leave you with the exhortation of Hosea 6:3 – “Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

Grace and Peace,
Adam

There are some places in the Bible where you can be so close to the heart of God’s will for you, it can be both beautiful and daunting at the same time.  Beautiful in that God would love us enough to give us clear instruction in His Word – daunting because our own heart may not resemble the heart of the saint who penned God’s Word.  What propels us forward in our walk with Christ when we are confronted with difficult times, or when the deceitfulness of sin seems appealing?

Know that God came into the world to save sinners.  We have already conquered sin through Christ, who took all of our sin past, present, and future with Him to the cross.  We are now free to pursue joy the Lord, fully reconciled; that in obtaining more of Him, we would lose more of our old self, for our good and joy, and God’s glory.  Sin, though conquered, still remains in our bodies, but one does not put it to death through bodily discipline.  Sin is put to death as you are led by the Spirit to delight yourself in God.  My prayer is for our joy; that God would continually let us see our great need for Him, to question our hearts every motivation, that by God’s grace it would be molded to seek only after our great treasure – Christ Himself.

Psalm 27:4 – “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.”

King David, a man after God’s own heart, certainly could have asked for anything, and certainly with all the wealth he had, could have sought to do many things.  His one desire was to dwell with God – to see His beauty, to know Him more and more, to experience infinite joy in marveling at the glory of God.

Phillippians 3:8,13b-14 – “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”  

“forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul, described as a Pharisees among Pharisees, had a place of renown, and comfort before God called him.  His life after Christ included multiple imprisonments, beatings, stoning, and ultimately martyrdom for the gospel – the good news that he had gained Christ.  Everything he lost was as NOTHING in comparison the worth of knowing Christ.  He was propelled by the prize, that God in the person of Jesus Christ would call him home to be with Him for eternity.

Does your heart treasure Christ like this?  Do you see that our battle with sin must begin with our affections for Christ?  How will you say “no” to sin, unless you are saying “yes” to God?  Don’t allow your “yes” to God be based on morality, or religion; let it be to the praise and worth of Christ.  Let your actions be driven by a heart that seeks to draw closer to Him through obedience.  He is our source of joy, our treasure, and only in Him will we find rest for our souls.  Do any of you have a heart that burns to want more of Jesus like that all the time?  Mine doesn’t, but I take comfort in Paul’s words – forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.  May we all strain hard today, and draw closer by God’s grace.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

In John 5:2-9, Jesus asks an invalid man a very interesting question.  This guy’s been laying around near a pool of water that supposedly could heal people when the water was stirred up, but would only heal the first person into the pool.

“Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.”

Can you imagine asking someone that question?  This guy’s been hanging out outside in the hot sun for 38 years waiting to be healed, and Jesus asks him if he wants to be healed.  It’d be like talking to someone who’d been battling cancer for 10 years in chronic pain at a hospital, and saying “hey, you wanna get out of here?”.

No we know that Jesus was after more than just this man’s physical healing, there was a spiritual truth he wanted to portray.  We all have a sickness called sin, that separates us from God, that we need to be healed from.  The question we have to ask ourselves daily is “Do we want to be healed?”  Of course!  We might rush to say, but let’s stop and look at our lives, before we rush to answer.  How does your life manifest your desire to be healed?  How are we making war on sin by passionately pursuing Jesus?  Have you ever asked yourself how much God hates sin, or why there is so much violent imagery tied to the fight against sin in the Bible?

Matthew 18:8-9 –“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

Romans 8:12-13 – “So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

Jesus wants us to be well, and He is not suggesting we butcher our bodies, only giving us a picture of what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  He is eager to unleash all His power by the Spirit to overwhelmingly conquer sin in your life, yet we can still impede His work by clinging on to sin.  Again, the question is – “Do you want to be healed?”  Sometimes, when I stop to really take a look at my own life, I’ve deceived myself, and truthfully my actions have not matched up to my words.  If that’s where you are, know that that’s ok, God wanted to use today to awaken you to a new vigor in your fight for faith.

The freedom Jesus brings us is not merely an end to sin, it is much greater.  It is a replacement of the lies and pain that sin brings with truth and joy in enjoying God.  So our battle to be healed rests not in trying to “stop sinning” as much as it does delighting in God, and pursuing more delight in Him.  God may have different ways for each of us to battle sin, and different ways that stir your heart’s affections for him, but stay encouraged – God is with you and for you.

Psalm 37:4 encourages us – “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

Until we all attain the fullness of joy found in Christ alone; may His grace and mercy pour out exceedingly abundantly to us all, and we continue encourage one another daily in our struggle.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

I don’t know about you all, but there are times in my life when things come up, stuff keeps piling on in my life, and usually how I end up making time for everything is by cutting back on sleep.  Usually what happens is I’ll have a week or two where I’m up consistently late, and then I’ll just have a day where I crash at like 7 or 8 at night, and wake up the next morning at 7 or 8 (or if it’s a weekend 10 or 11).  That kind of happened to me yesterday, and it reminded me – yet again – of the importance of sleep.

Have you ever wondered why God made us so that we need sleep every night?  Certainly, His being all powerful, He could have made us without that need. Why does it say that God “rested” on the 7th day of creation?  God doesn’t get “tired” – He is the source of all life.  Why does God institute a sabaath, that we should set aside a day to the Lord?  Shouldn’t every day be a day to the Lord?  God loves us, and his greatest desire is not that we obtain 7.5 hours of sleep every night for it’s own sake or that we meet up together as a church on one day vs. another.  God is serious about this rest though – in Exodus 35:2 you see that God is not messing around –  “Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.”

There you go.  God said it, not me – You will rest or I will kill you!  So what does this mean?  What is the truth God is pointing us to?  Ask yourself this question, what happens when you’re resting?  You’re not working.  Yet, even as you’re not working plants still grow, God is always at work.  Jesus tells us this in Mark 4:26-27 – “And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.”

Paul furthers this teachign in 1 Corinthians 3:4-7 – “For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?  What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

God wants us to see that our efforts are not what will lead us to life, resting in Him, and the finished work of Jesus on the cross will.  If we continue to try to work our way to God, it will end in death.  In a culture where being “busy” is considered a virtue, this is always going to be a battle.  My exhortation to you is to unburden yourself at least 30 minutes a day, and one full day a week to refresh yourself in this Truth of God.  Know what it means that “His burden is easy and His yoke is light” for all who believe on Jesus.  Go to a park to remind yourself of the greatness of God through His creation, spend time in prayer in His Word, with no purpose other than to be renewed and refreshed by Him, get together with Christian friends and enjoy fellowship over a meal, whatever is helpful.  Remind yourself that just as you were dependent on God to give you physical life and to sustain you each day, you are dependent upon Him to give you Spiritual life and to sustain you; which He has promised and is faithful to do.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Friends,

I hope this finds you well.  Each of us, all day long make choices based upon expected results.  We go to work, expecting a paycheck.  We work hard, maybe putting in a lot of overtime, expecting to be promoted.  We buy tickets to a movie, expecting to be entertained.  We write emails/messages expecting that someone will read them (hopefully, ha ha).  But what do we do with God?  How do we engage a God, who has given us everything even life itself?  What do we have to exchange with Him to earn His favor?  What can we do for Him that He will be merciful to us?

We all tip our hair stylists, right?  Nobody wants a lightning bolt to “accidentally” be shaved into their head!  How much more do I desire that the One responsible for the air in my lungs be pleased w/ me?  I mean, did you see what He did to Sodom and Gomorrah?  We’re talking massive flaming sulfur just wiped 2 cities straight off the map… Not someone you want to have upset with you…

Obviously we’re left with the fact that we don’t have anything to offer God – everything comes from Him.

Acts 17:24-27a – “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God,”

We try to do this though right?!  Here God, I went to church this week – so we’re cool, right?!  I really wanted to talk about how funny that person looked at the party last week, but I didn’t, so I stored up 2 pts w/ God… can’t wait to cash’em in!  Everything else in life seems to work that way, shouldn’t God work in the same way?

Psalm 50:10-15 – “For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine.  “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?  Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Let’s say Bill Gates is walking down the street, and you stop him and say “Bill, Bill!  Wait up.  I just want you to have this, I think you’re gonna really be happy” – and you hand him some of your pocket change.  That’d be kinda funny, right?  If you ever do see Bill Gates, please do that, and get it on video, I want to see that on You Tube, ha ha.

That money you earn, came from God.  The air you breathe, that gives you life to work, and serve others, He gives you.  All things are His, we are only stewards of His gifts.  So, knowing that we have offended God as sinners, each of us going our own way, how do we gain the favor of God when we have nothing to offer?  We turn to God, Himself, in His Son, who reconciled us to God, making full payment where we could not.  God desires not to be served, but to be loved – for each of us to look to Jesus, see God’s beauty, and pursue joy in Him vs. his gifts to us.  God desires that we know Him, and recognizing our helplessness and dependence upon Him for… EVERYTHING, we respond not trying to earn His favor with money or works, but with thanksgiving for His doing what we could not.

For our good and God’s glory,
Adam

In the first half of the 15th chapter of John Jesus speaks to the disciples, ending by saying that what he has spoken is so their joy may be full.  What encouragement did Jesus bring? 

• In Ch. 14, the promise of the Holy Spirit as a Helper to bring the knowledge of God to the disciples after Jesus was raised up to be with the Father
• Again, looking to Ch. 14 – The cleansing of sin that comes with faith in the word of the gospel, and the truth of Jesus Christ – God in the flesh reconciling all who would believe on Him to God.
• That if we abide in God, He will abide in us
• If we abide in God, and his words abide in us, we may ask Him for whatever we wish and it will be done for us
• God desires for us to be fruitful
• God the Father’s infinite love for the son, is the same love with which believers are loved by God
• If we keep God’s commandments (Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself), we will abide in God’s love

These things are not merely “guidance” given by Jesus, they are promises that come with power, and authority, that God will do everything that He has said he will do.  What an encouragement it could be during a rough day, to call upon the name of the Lord asking that His grace be extended to you, so that you will not respond to others in frustration, but with the patience and love of Christ – KNOWING that because of John 15:7 you could ask for this, and would receive it, not 80% of the time, but 100% of the time.  What great peace comes from knowing that a God that loves perfectly, infinitely above whatever feeble definition of love man comes up with, dwells within us, and we can never lose Him?  What great understanding comes from knowing that obeying the commandments of God has nothing to do with “cleansing” us, and everything to do with God’s desire for us to be fruitful and joyful in a closer relationship with Him?

How then does God intend for His joy to become our joy in full?  The answer is given in vs 4 when it says to “abide in Him”, in vs 7 when it says that His words “abide in you”, and to “abide in His love” which is to abide in His commandments.  The answer is given in Psalm 1:1-2 – “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

We abide in God by rooting His Word into our heart.  We abide in God when we memorize scripture, and meditate and delight in the promises of God from His Word.  We abide in God when we behold His glory behind the words, to see the beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and delight in Him.  My exhortation today is to that end – root yourself in the Word of God intentionally, daily, to see savor and possess the fullness of joy found in God alone.

John 15 1-11 – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Grace, Peace, and Joy,
Adam

Have you all ever gotten those emails from someone in Nigeria claiming to want to send you millions of dollars, if you’ll send them back 20%?  Sometimes it’s different countries, and different stories, but the scam goes like this – you get a check in the mail, and cash it in your bank account.  You then wire the money only to find out 2-3 days later that the check was fake, and your bank is removing the full amount of the check from your account.  Thus you’re left with nothing, or rather less than nothing, your Nigerian friend has 20% of the check amount from your money.

We all laugh at those emails (hopefully none of us have actually been fooled by them), but what would you say of someone who actually fell for this scam?  Maybe you’d have some sympathy the first time, before they knew what would happen.  What if they kept falling for it over and over again?  What if they kept believing that they should send their Nigerian friend more and more money?  Don’t they realize they’re being robbed?

For us as Christians, God has given us eyes to see the lie of sin.  We know that sin doesn’t fulfill it’s promise of happiness, it will only rob, kill, and destroy us.  Before trusting Christ, we were held captive by sin, unable to break its bonds on our lives.  But what we were unable to do, Christ did on the cross for us.  In Him we are free from sin, and free to pursue joy in the Truth, Jesus.  Paul says it this way in Romans 6:20-23 – ” For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

My exhortation to you today, knowing that we are all struggling sinners; is for you to meditate on and deeply know that He who is in you, is greater than he who is in the world.  Christ overcame sin, and has freed you from it’s bonds.  Feed yourself from the truth of God’s Word, so that you will clearly see the lies of sin, and find a greater joy each day in knowing and delighting in your restored fellowship with God.  You will still face temptations each day, but you no longer have to bow to them.  Your checks from your Nigerian friend will keep coming in….stop paying him 20%.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

How can our God be just, and His love be unfailing, neverending, and steadfast?  Surely, our sin of years past, yesterday, even today are enough to demand his judgement against us – yet we live.  Why?  What love has overcome the legal demand of our sin – death and separation from God?

The cross is the ground by which God’s love flows to each of us, who have trusted Him.  It’s because of the cross that each of us daily can approach God without fear, knowing that all our sin is paid for.  God’s love is manifested by His doing everything that needed to be done to make a way for us to be reconciled to Him, at great cost to Himself, so that we would know, love, and enjoy Him forever.  I hope that is good news to you today, that your ears never tire of hearing it, and your heart yearns to meditate pursue the depth of God’s love, which is better than life.

Psalm 63:

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.
My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,
and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,
when I remember you upon my bed,
and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life
shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword;
they shall be a portion for jackals.
But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by him shall exult,
for the mouths of liars will be stopped.”

Grace and Peace,
Adam