Below are the chapters to read this week if you’re following along in my Bible in a year schedule, divided into morning and evening readings. Follow along any way you want: you can just do the evening reading, flip the morning and evening, or read it all. Whatever works for you and your schedule! It doesn’t have to be Bible in a Year for everyone.
This week, we have 2 chapters of 2 Chronicles on Monday, to make up for only reading Psalm 119 this morning. We also begin the “Songs of Ascent.” This refers to Psalms 120-134, which were sung or recited by Jews while journeying to the Temple for annual festivals. In a modern context, I see these Psalms as a call to prepare for worship, to rejoice in the Sabbath, and to answer a call to serve God’s church on earth.
There are many reasons to praise God, many ways that He blesses us. One of these is given in Psalm 111:5, and it’s something we shouldn’t take for granted:
“He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever.”
While this may be a reference specifically to God providing manna and quail to the Israelites when they wandered in the wilderness, it applies more broadly to any food provided to anyone at any time. Therefore, we should praise Him whenever we have something to eat.
But He doesn’t just deliver food from the grocery store to us. He provides everything required for food to exist in the first place. He designed everything involved in the growth of what we eat. Sunlight, rain, soil conditions and nutrients, all have a role in the growth of fruits and vegetables. All of these roles act the way they need to be by design. Food doesn’t exist by change and is not an accident of a blind nature.
Then add what’s needed to produce the meat we may eat. First, those plants need to contain what animals need to eat and grow. The animals need to be able to not only digest those things, but then to turn them into something edible for us. Again, all ordained by God, the intelligent creator of our universe, who “provides food for those who fear him.”
Also, He is not only a God who designs and provides, but a God of mercy, “For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”[1] He provides food even for those who do not praise Him and give thanks to Him, so they might come to know Him by His mercy towards them.
Those who fear God, praise and thank Him for the food He provides, the complexity of the world He designed, and His mercy toward all His people. But also, to reflect His character, provide food for those in need, showing them the mercy and love of the God who puts food on our tables.
“He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever“
In his classic book Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton wrote: “Nature is not our mother; Nature is our sister.”[1] Psalm 19 has an amazing contemplation of the relationships between, God, nature, and us. Verses 1-6 show that the heavens, in their orderly patterns, “declare the glory of God,” in a language that anyone in any time and place can understand. In verse 5, the sun “comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.” In other words, nature obeys God’s will for it with eager expectation and joy, not reluctant obedience or dutiful drudgery, and God has endowed nature with all the strength needed for its tasks.
Then follows the Psalm’s middle section, verses 7-11, which declare that God has declared His will for human relationships as well, in His law:
“The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”[2]
Just as the heavens declare the glory of God by obeying His will with absolute regularity, His law shows His people how to declare His glory as well. Verse 7 says “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul.” As the sun metaphorically gets joy from its God-given task in verse 5, following God’s law is its own reward, to be desired even more than “much fine gold.” As nature has all it needs for its tasks, God’s word has all we need for strength, wisdom, joy, enlightenment, and righteousness. What an endowment of riches!
More on nature’s example for us comes later, in Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus uses the regularity of nature as an example of how people should love one another, and especially their enemies: “For [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” This verse suggests that Nature is better than man at self-sacrificing (agape) love and faithfulness to God’s will, but also provides an example of how to love, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”[3] As rain is for all; so love is for all.
Therefore, on this Earth Day, celebrate the earth God has endowed us with, but also remember: “Nature is not our mother; Nature is our sister.” As God’s people are His sons, nature is also His beloved creation, perhaps His daughter. Our constant, eternal, loving God cares about the needs of both.
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”[4]
[1] Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy (1908). P. 169. [2] Psalm 19:7-11 [3] Matthew 5:45 [4] Psalm 19:14
Below are the chapters to read this week if you’re following along in my Bible in a year schedule, divided into morning and evening readings. Follow along any way you want: you can just do the evening reading, flip the morning and evening, or read it all. Whatever works for you and your schedule! It doesn’t have to be Bible in a Year for everyone.
This week, we finish Leviticus and begin Numbers. Also, Psalm 119, at 176 verses, is by far the longest chapter in the Bible, and is scheduled for Sunday of next week. To make space for it, I’ve moved the two chapters of 2 Chronicles that would ordinarily be read on that day to this Friday and the following Monday.
When the Temple in Jerusalem was built under King Solomon, he dedicated it first with a lengthy prayer, followed by a massive number of sacrifices:
“King Solomon offered as a sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. So the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.” – 2 Chronicles 7:5
There is no record of Solomon and the people considering the loss of all this livestock as a burden or an economic catastrophe. The Bible simply records that they made the sacrifices. In dedicating the Temple, the people were marking it as a place to be only used in the worship of their God, and in offering such a massive sacrifice they were acknowledging that they should dedicate all they have to their God as well.
What does this mean for us today? In the middle of 1 Corinthians 6:16, Paul wrote that “we are the temple of the living God.” Therefore, our temple – our bodies and all we have – should be dedicated to the worship of God. We probably don’t have 22,000 oxen or 120,000 sheep to offer Him, but what do we have to offer?
In each day, there are 1,440 minutes (or 86,400 seconds). Are we willing to sacrifice them all to God without considering it a burden? I know I don’t, but I pray each day to get closer to the goal of complete dedication to God. I pray each of you will grow closer to Him as well.
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 