This PSALM was particularly convicting, and a blessing to me this morning. May it be the same for you.
Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart
TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID.
[139:1] O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
[2] You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
[3] You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
[4] Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.
[5] You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
[6] Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
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As we study all of the bible together as a whole, we realize that the Lord carefully prepared the way for His son. And He prepared that way for over a millennium. The Lord spent nearly 1,500 years on types and shadows, sacrifices, blood, prophets, priests, redemption’s, and temples, laying that foundation, so that when He did send His Son, we would understand His coming and interpret His Word correctly. He spent many years laying this immovable foundation in the Scriptures as He pointed to Christ. The base was laid so that His incarnation would be understood, in order that we may have a context in the Old Testament to properly understand it. As we look upon the Son who shed His blood at Calvary, we can understand and appreciate the fullness of Christ’s redeeming work, our need of that work, and the efficacy of the Sons work to meet our need. The context of Old Testament Scripture helps us understand what Messiah has truly accomplished.
What are we doing with the Gospel? We live in a Christian land. We have the Bible in our houses. We hear of the salvation of the Gospel frequently every year. But have we received it into our hearts? Have we really obeyed it in our lives? Have we, in short, laid hold on the hope set before us, taken up the cross, and followed Christ? If not, we are far worse than the heathen, who bow down to stocks and stones. We are far more guilty than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. They never heard the Gospel, and therefore never rejected it. But as for us, we hear the Gospel, and yet will not believe. May we search our own hearts, and take heed that we do not ruin our own souls!
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Regeneration: The Christian is Born Again
by Jason Moore on July 24, 2010
In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” JOHN 3:3
Regeneration is a New Testament concept that grew, it seems, out of a parabolic picture-phrase that Jesus used to show Nicodemus the inwardness and depth of the change that even religious Jews must undergo if they were ever to see and enter the kingdom of God, and so have eternal life (John 3:3-15). Jesus pictured the change as being “born again.”
The concept is of God renovating the heart, the core of a person’s being, by implanting a new principle of desire, purpose, and action, a dispositional dynamic that finds expression in positive response to the gospel and its Christ. Jesus’ phrase “born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5) harks back to Ezekiel 36:25-27, where God is pictured as symbolically cleansing persons from sin’s pollution (by water) and bestowing a “new heart” by putting his Spirit within them. Because this is so explicit, Jesus chides Nicodemus, “Israel’s teacher,” for not understanding how new birth happens (John 3:9-10). Jesus’ point throughout is that there is no exercise of faith in himself as the supernatural Savior, no repentance, and no true discipleship apart from this new birth.
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