The Bible Bloke

One of the books of the Bible I return to with joy on a regular basis is the Psalms. Here we find an openness and an honesty. Here is the human condition revealed, the highs and the lows. Here we see a man after God’s own heart struggling with the same thoughts and passions we struggle with each and every day. The Psalms guide us on our walk, giving us the road map, letting us know how to enter into and maintain our relationship with God, what one commentator called “His covenant instruction.” 1,2. Psalm 1 is the entry into the book of Psalms. It is the gateway. And from the very beginning there is a clear choice. Wickedness or God’s blessing. To be blessed this man must already be walking in the way of the Lord. To be blessed is to enjoy God’s favour. This blessed man, sets an example, someone we should look to and model ourselves after. But what is the alternative? Those who refuse to live in relationship with the Lord are lost in a gale of wickedness, of sin an...

Let me start with a quote:  "...without us knowing it, the world has shifted from a society of long-term relationships to a society of transactional relationships..." 1 It’s an interesting thought isn’t it? When we look at how we interact with each other on a day to day basis our relationships are very much transactional in nature. (I am speaking in general here.) A relationship matters to us only because we get something out of the transaction. There is no such thing as long haul. 2 If we look at how some social media platforms work then we can validate this idea can’t we? And yet, what if we apply this to our relationship with God? How does that look? Do we view this relationship like our brand loyalty, is it based purely on the transaction? We are in it only so long as we are happy with the product? Can we even call it a “relationship” if it’s about gratification only of what we want? What about what God wants? Take a moment and turn to Hosea chapter 6 ve...

This morning, sitting on the bus, with the first blush of sunrise melting up into the world, I was reading one of the Psalms: "Bend down, O Lord, and hear my prayer; answer me, for I need your help." (Ps 86:1) My heart is troubled Lord, for things beset me, How is it that I am going to work through this worry, or that problem, How am I going to be able to pay this bill, or afford new shoes for my child, or any of the other worries that might come to mind or heart at any single beat... Look to the Psalms again and these words leap out:  "Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall." (Psalm 55:22) and elsewhere...  "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you..." (1Peter 5:7) John Newton who wrote Amazing Grace gave us this:  "How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds In a believer's ear! It soothes his sorrow, heals his wounds, And drives away his fear ...."  Colossians 3:...

How am I encouraged in Christ? For that matter how am I encouraged at all? As I wake up each day and face a new set of challenges. What can I take with me as I step out through my front door? One of the things I can be certain of is God’s Word. I can be assured that if I soak myself deep in the Bible, then I have the Word of the Lord on my heart and I am so much closer to Him. And this is the essence of the beginning of the book of Hebrews. The writer tells his readers that God has spoken to His people in the past, in many ways, through the prophets who bore the message. Now however, in Jesus Christ we can see that the baton has been passed on to the Word Himself. In the past we are told that God has communicated with his people through the prophets. Today, with Jesus as our High Priest, it is through Him that we are assured of hearing from God, and through those things which Christ has spoken which we have in the form of the Bible. If we are serious about a relationship ...

Nehemiah 1:5 is the start of Nehemiah’s prayer. “O Lord God of Heaven,” he cries, “the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” His acknowledgement here is for the place of God, the power of God, the wonder of God, and absolute Sovereignty of God in his life, which brings us to the question, which we ask deep in our hearts, as the Psalmist does in Psalm 8:4, beholding the heavens, and all the work of God’s fingers, the moon and the stars which God has set in place, why is He is mindful of us, caring for us, being there for us?   At the start of his prayer Nehemiah reminds us, that regardless of our circumstances we should be actively seeking that covenant relationship with God. Because, as we read in James 4:8, if we draw near to God, he will draw near to us. That’s quite a thought isn’t it? Here I am reminded of Ruth, one of my favourite books in the Bible, where Ruth says to Naomi in chapter ...

In reading Nehemiah over the last several days it occurs to me that Nehemiah had no idea how it was all going to turn out. The only thing he was aware of was that he needed to do something. Psalm 37:5 tells us: “Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him and he will do it.” Nehemiah put his trust in the Lord. And yet, was he not doing what he was created to do? What God had planned for him to do all along? Ephesians 2:10 says: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” If God have given you something to do then there is very little you can do to work against it. Like Johah, we can resist what God tells us to do, we can back away from it, but we will always, but necessity return to it. We have to, it’s an imperative placed in us by God as we were knitted together in the womb. But how glorious is that? To have a purpose, a part of the plan God has laid down for His Kingdom. So the quest...

There is an old saying, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” What you had, who you knew, where you lived are things that remain close to your heart and vivid in your memories. It must have been like this for Nehemiah. Driven out of his homeland by the Babylonian invasion. He has to build for himself a new life. Interesting to use the word build here. When we move to a new town, or even a new country, we find somewhere to live, and we settle down, and we start to build ourselves a life. And yet, there is always an ache, isn’t there? For the longest time, we have that sense of not really belonging. The Psalmist laments “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” How indeed. It’s the question that rings in the opening verses of the book of Nehemiah. We can feel the deep ache in his heart when he hears of the condition of Jerusalem and those people, his countrymen, his kin, who were left behind. His sense of place...