In 1680, Puritan theologian Edmund Calamy expressed a similar sentiment when he wrote, “All that meditate in, and study God, cannot but love him.” Psalm 119 beautifully captures this. The psalmist knew God and treasured His commands. They were a fountain of comfort and encouragement in the midst of his suffering. After all, princes had plotted against him (Psalm 119:23). He was taunted and ridiculed (v.42,51), bound in the cords of the wicked (v.61), slandered (v.69), and persecuted (v.86).

In his suffering, he kept returning to God’s words for comfort and peace. He delighted in meditating on God’s words (v.16,35,70). He longed for them and put the full weight of his trust in them. He even said his afflictions were good because they kept him nearer to God (v.67,71). If I’m being honest, I’ve struggled to cling to God’s word in the face of afflictions. How about you?

Jesus said, “…everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled…the Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead the third day” (Luke 24:44,46).

The psalmist’s sufferings and love for God’s Word point to Jesus. Rulers plotted against Him. He was taunted and ridiculed by His own people. Though He was innocent, the wicked bound Him up, lied about Him, and persecuted Him to the fullest extent which led to His excruciating death on a cross.

On Calvary, Jesus even recited familiar words from a psalm in the midst of His torture! He fulfilled the psalms so that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47).

Here is good news! What keeps me (and you) close to God is not our imperfect efforts to obey Him but Christ’s perfect obedience. Jesus loved every word that came from the Father. He faced undeserved afflictions with perfect faithfulness. When we put our faith in Him, God treats us as though we lived His life.

As you continue reading through the psalms, remember the One through whom we receive God’s eternal peace and comfort. To know Him is to love and obey Him. May this be true of us in the coming days: “I have treasured your word in my heart so that I may not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

Church planting is both joyful and difficult. It pushes us outside of our comfort zone, stretches our patience, and builds perseverance. Many hesitate to join such work. Yet Acts 18 shows us that someone had to plant the first churches.

I’ve come to realize that if I love my Savior, I must also love what He loves. Jesus loves the Church. The Church is His body and His bride—the blood-bought people of God from every tribe, tongue, and nation who repent and believe. Jesus laid down His life to make His church holy, righteous, and pure before Him.

Paul, Priscilla, Aquila, Titius Justus, Crispus, Silas, Timothy, and so many others deeply understood this. They didn’t establish the Corinthian church for what the church could offer them but because of their great love for Jesus. You see, God’s saints share the gospel and make disciples wherever they go because they cherish what Christ has done for them, and they take His commands to heart.

It was God’s plan for His people to be involved in the expansion of His kingdom. And Jesus wanted His disciples to know that loving Him means loving those He loves. And boy does Jesus love His people.

In our passage today, God instructed Paul not to keep silent in the face of opposition. At the end of the day, it’s freeing to know that we can simply be faithful with His message and entrust the results to Him. The Corinthian church would go on to face divisions and strife, but God did not abandon them. He preserved them, disciplined them, and used them mightily to build His kingdom.

Thank God for those who planted the churches we are a part of today. Not all of us are called to plant a church like our Corinthian brothers and sisters did, but all of us have been called by God to love and build up His bride. Do you love the people of God because Christ loves them? Do you tend to think about the church for what it offers you, or do you think of the church as family members to love? What is the church’s place in your life? Our Savior adores His bride. If we love Him, He can help us love her too.

Jesus arrived in Bethany to find his dear friends, Martha and Mary, mourning the death of their brother Lazarus much like the father I saw in that hallway. When Lazarus became sick, they sent word to Jesus. They had believed he could heal Lazarus, but then, it was “too late.”

Many view death as just a natural part of life. But in John 11, we see that death angered Jesus. To him, death was unnatural because people were created for eternal fellowship with God. Sin put this world under a curse, and Jesus graciously came to reverse it.

Amid the mourning, Jesus makes this audacious claim: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live” (John 11:25). It’s one thing to say it, another to prove it. So he did. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, everyone was shocked. He had authority over death.

As miraculous as Lazarus’s resurrection was, this was just the beginning. Over a week later, Martha would be running to another cave tomb looking for Jesus’s body, only to find Him gone. Death could not hold Him.

Friends, Jesus is the resurrection—not “sort of” or “maybe,” but truly and fully. His death and resurrection mean our sins have been paid for, the sting of death has been removed, and our future is secured. When we say, “The best is yet to come,” we’re not being optimistic—we’re speaking the truth. And this isn’t just a future hope; it’s a reality we can apply daily.

For example, as Paul suffered horrible trials, he said, “Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead…He will deliver us” (2Corinthians 1:9–10). We can also proactively trust God with our current suffering, persecution, and uncertainties because He is the one who raises the dead. We can also proactively live for God’s glory because the Bible says Jesus’s resurrection power is at work in us!

It’s amazing to think about, but Lazarus was the opening act. And He will raise us too. We all have a beginning, but in Jesus, we will have no end. Take heart, for the risen One will raise His beloved on that final day.

As his life drew to a close, Jacob acknowledged who is the ultimate driving force behind all that had happened—and it was not himself or Joseph. It was another, far better Shepherd. In his final earthly blessing of Joseph’s sons, Jacob says it was, “God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day….” (Genesis 48:15). 

We see the theme of the shepherd highlighted throughout the passage. Ironically, it was the Egyptians’ loathing of shepherds that guaranteed the settlement of Israel’s family in Goshen. God’s chosen people were willing to do the job that the Egyptians despised. While the Egyptians looked down on shepherds, Jacob declared that it was God, the true Shepherd, who had loved, led, and delivered His people throughout all generations.

From the start, God’s care for people who were deemed lowly in society was evident. In due time, God elevated this unlikely family and kept His promises by making them a great nation. This story reminds us that God loves the ones whom society might despise. He is delighted to associate with the humble and weak. We are proof of this! If we truly understand this, then let’s be eager to show the same love.

What is crystal clear is that God is the great rescuer and deliverer of His people. This Shepherd regards not the self-sufficient and exalted but those who fear and take refuge in Him. The gospel tells us that the same astonishing goodness and protection is available for those who put their full trust in Jesus, the Good Shepherd. The perfect candidate for God’s goodness is the one who knows their need for it. Let every day serve as an opportunity to acknowledge our need for Him.

Just as the Lord kept His promise of an inheritance to Jacob—that his people would one day return to their land—He will keep his promise to prepare a home for us as well. One where we will be reunited with Him in glory. Our eternal and unfading inheritance is not based on our merit or goodness but on Christ’s alone. All glory be to God, the One who shepherds us to this very day.

The truly good news is that God deals in the currency of grace and He prioritizes the grieved, weary, sinful, unimpressive, and broken. Who has come to beckon sinners to Himself? It is Jesus, the friend of sinners. Who has Jesus come to help? It is us. In Matthew 8, we catch a glimpse of this as Jesus heals a leper, the dying servant of a Roman centurion, a sick mother-in-law, people who were demon-possessed, and scared disciples.

If you were starting a church, would these folks be your top picks for the team? Probably not. Yet Jesus loved and chose the overlooked, the marginalized, the outcast, and the fearful to be the first followers. It tells a lot about what kind of kingdom Jesus is building and what kind of love Jesus has. Do you see yourself as an unsuitable choice to receive God’s grace? If you do, then tell others that this kind of love is available to them. When we love and approach others in the same way that Jesus has loved us, we tell the truth about what God is like.

Our dear friends from India recently told us about a Christian friend who’d been born into the highest caste in India. This man was visiting a church in another city when he met a brother who’d been born into the lowest class. When they met, this brother (the outcast) shrinked back, moving away because he was so used to others from higher castes ignoring or mistreating him. To his shock, the Christian from the higher caste instinctively pulled him in for a hug, saying, “You are my brother in Christ.” Our friends remarked, “Only the gospel can do that.”

Jesus’s love heals in every direction—spiritually, physically, and relationally. 

If you’re having a hard time recognizing the love of Christ towards you today, I invite you to remember the leper from our story. Recognizing that he was an undeserving sinner, he asked the Lord Jesus to cleanse him. Jesus’s response to him is no different than His response to us today, if only we would ask. Jesus answers, “I am willing; be made clean” (Matthew 8:3).

When I say “call on,” I mean the act of calling on the Lord. The psalms, Lamentations, and so many Old Testament stories demonstrate how God’s people call on Him.

I called on your name, LORD, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea. Do not ignore my cry for relief. You came near whenever I called you; you said, “Do not be afraid.” 
—Lamentations 3:55–57

It’s more than a simple prayer. It carries a deep sense of urgency—like a baby spontaneously crying out for milk. Infants have no restraint when it comes to making their needs known. Likewise, we must direct our cries for help and comfort toward our Father because He knows our needs.

Even on the cross, Jesus cried out to the Father to forgive the guilty sinners who put Him there. Whether it was for daily needs amidst intrusive anxiety or in the fight against temptations, Jesus taught that these were the occasions to cry out. And while earthly dads may sometimes be too tired, busy, or impatient to deal with all our requests, God eagerly awaits our cries and anticipates our needs.

Scripture also links calling on God with recalling about God. What does the writer say? 

Because of the LORD’s faithful love, we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! 
—Lamentations 3:22–23

Recalling God’s faithful love and salvation is our safeguard against spiritually going off the rails. I’ve had seasons where I questioned God and thought He failed to act. Then I remembered that I don’t have the whole story, but He does. He has met our greatest need for a Savior; won’t He also deal with our present troubles? 

He has initiated the ultimate rescue plan for us through His Son. He is mindful of us. As sure as the Father joyfully responds to His perfect Son, He does so for those united to Him by faith. We can call on and recall Him because God always remembers us.

These are the intricacies and details in the physician Luke’s Gospel: We see a young Mary who wrapped Jesus “tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them” (Luke 2:7). When the angel told the shepherds to look for the Messiah, he said, “This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). And in Luke 23, after Jesus died on the cross, they took His body down and “wrapped it in fine linen and placed it in a tomb cut into the rock, where no one had ever been placed” (Luke 23:53). There was the Redeemer, wrapped in cloth, laying in stone, where no one had ever been placed.

In Scripture, God is present in all of human history as He cares for each and every detail. Jesus’s time on earth ended the same way it began, wrapped in cloth, laying in stone—a manger and a tomb, two unlikely places for God’s begotten Son.

Laying in that stable manger in the city of David over two thousand years ago, the Lamb of God was “born that man no more may die.” He was born to be sacrificed so that even the vilest of sinners could receive adoption as children of God, if they would repent and put their trust in Him. And if “He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him grant us everything?” (Romans 8:32).

When life doesn’t make sense or things seem random, remember there are no “oops” with God. The nativity story in Luke 2 reminds us that every detail of human history is under God’s sovereign care for our good and His glory. Even when we can’t see the full picture, we can trace His handiwork and trust His heart for us—fulfilled in the person of Jesus, our Savior and Redeemer. 

As we celebrate Christ’s birth today, let’s join the shepherds, “glorifying and praising God for all the things they had seen and heard, which were just as they had been told” (Luke 2:20). Merry Christmas!

Our family lived in the Middle East, sharing life with people from all over the world. We’ve witnessed brothers and sisters follow Jesus even as it leads them into persecution. Some have had to flee from their own families and countries to obey Jesus Christ. The loss was so profound, and the wounds were deep. Yet their resolve resembled David’s: our God is bigger than the threats that chase us.

I haven’t suffered persecution like these friends, but I’ve experienced the loneliness that accompanies doing hard things for the Lord. A friend and I recently looked at Psalm 142 to process the harm we’ve experienced at the hands of others for doing what was right in the Lord’s sight. It’s true, the Lord does deal generously. He hears our cries and rescues us.

David’s only option was to trust and wait on the Lord. Truthfully, I want more options. I want to “control” what happens. Can you relate? It feels easier to run to work, relationships, doom scrolling, entertainment, shopping, and checking accounts to gain a sense of comfort and stability in uncertain times.

David lost his home, reputation, and possessions, but his reflex was to cry out loud to the Lord. He cried out complaints and pleas for mercy. He confessed his own weakness and ran to the only refuge He had. (Hint hint: it’s not the cave he’s hiding in.)

Do we shelter in the Lord as David did? If God is our portion and greatest treasure, our prayer life will reflect this. Prosperity can sometimes numb our need for God. Pastor Charles Spurgeon said about Psalm 142, “Had David prayed as much in his palace as he did in his cave, he might never have fallen into the act which brought such misery upon his later days.” 

True faith confesses sorrows and troubles to the Father. True faith pleads with Him first for help. True faith despises self-reliance and hopes in the Lord who saves. Sisters, let’s take time today to shelter in the Lord, our portion and shield. Let us pray.