Psalm 114:2
S–Judah became God’s sanctuary; Israel His dominion.
H–As the author is remembering the mighty acts of God through the exodus and journey to the promise land this verse jumps out and grabs me this morning. I have never thought of God having a sanctuary; a place where God worships. So often I think of coming into the sanctuary to worship God; a sanctuary being that place where God dwells. In this verse the psalmist takes me into another dimension as if to say that God’s people and where they dwell are His sanctuary. What a fascinating thought this morning that God’s sanctuary is His people and where they dwell.
A–How would my life change today if I believed that I was God’s sanctuary? What if God is constantly trying to get the attention of His sanctuary? I wonder what it feels like for God to constantly cry out in His sanctuary only to be ignored by it? What if as we leave corporate worship we go into the world and as we go into the world during the week the sanctuary of God goes into the world? What if God’s purpose is for us to recognize we are His sanctuary and to allow this God to have our attention within His sanctuary? I am captivated at this thought and asking for grace today to live into this responsibility to be a sanctuary for God.
P–Lord, I’m not sure what all this means but I do believe that you look at your people as your sanctuary and where ever your people are there is your sanctuary….that place where you seek to lay your whole self exposed to move and direct. Just as we come and lay ourselves before you and you are our sanctuary so may you empower us to rise from that place to live into the responsibility of the psalmist to be your sanctuary within the world. Amen.
E–I have been freed through Jesus to become God’s sanctuary.
Peace, Pastor P
www.wedesiremore.com; chadpullins@connect2crossroads.com

t of despair; life is terrible; he’s ready to give up. Its easy to read this and also hear Paul situation in Acts 24-26. Job is experiencing a reality in life that sometimes life sucks and there is no other way to explain. The pressure of despair is weighing Job down and he’s ready to thrown in the towel. In the midst of his despair he asks these provoca tive questions of “where is hope” and “who can see his hope.” Its as i f Job is going to need some help from the outside to get out of this pit. He doesn’t doubt hope, but yet reaches out for the help of another to see his hope and point him to it. This is a huge lesson for all of us to learn about the difference between optimism and hope along with our need to travel with others in this journey of life.
spent with structures and organization that major in minors. So often, the church majors in minors; we focus on what divides us instead of what unites us. My own denominational book of law and resolutions is probably double the size of the bible just to clarify these rules and regulations. I wonder what would happen if we all took this to heart; if we just focused on the essentials. What are the essentials? Seems to me its pretty simple: “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.” My hunch is that if we majored in this that a lot of our other problems (if not all of them) would take care of themselves. My hope is that my life would reflect these essentials and that when my time has passed that the legacy I leave would be one of majoring in the essentials and not the minors.
blessing is a reward from God. We have the screwed up picture that God is this hairy old man that sits up on a cloud and constantly keeps tabs of our lives choosing to constantly reward or punish us based on our decisions. We make comments like, “God would never give you something you can’t handle.” Tell Job that and see if he doesn’t smac k that taste out your mouth. In our finite ignorance we are Bildad trying to put God in this tight little box and rewards and punish. Live this way and God will protect you; Live that way and God will destroy you. If that is what God is like I want nothing to do with that God. However, if this God is a God where I can cry out from the depths of my soul with raw, unbridled, and passionate prayer as a part of our relationship then this is something I’m interested in. My hope is not that we are able to understand the suffering of our lives but that we wouldn’t minimize the suffering or God to a simple punishment/reward paradigm.
The crazy thing about life is that we can get turned around in the wrong direction and don’t even realize how lost our lives are becoming. And then step after step, decision after decision we are turning ourselves around and heading away from Jesus in into the world. As this happens, the evil of the world preys upon our feelings and emotions as if to say, “it feels good keep doing it; its your life; you deserve it; don’t worry about anyone else; take care of yourself first.” And then one day we look around and we don’t even know who we are; we are lost; and don’t know where to turn.
Now, our youngest, Lexi, is the opposite. When she was born she was as “sweet” as she could be. She continues to be this quiet, sweet child with a soft sincerity that makes my heart melt. Its as if both of them are wired a certain way. I’m sure you have your own stories of your children or your own life of these unique characteristics that make you who you are.
Yep, that’s my life! I “fish” all night on my own and catch nothing and then through grace Jesus appears and says throw it on the other side and I am amazed at the catch of “fish.”
(Hold on a second, I’m getting ready to vomit…….”bluhhhhhhh”….ok, that’s better.)
The reality is, I punish my kids as an act of mercy (that’s the way it should work, I am ashamed to say that I am guilty of punishment out of anger too), I am able to see ahead the consequences to their action and I punish them because I don’t want them to continue down this road they cannot see is heading to great consequences.