Author: provref

Matthew 6:31-33

31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

We live in an anxious age. How many people do you know who are on antianxiety medication? How many are speaking with a therapist regarding anxiety? We have so many things that would bring us fear and worry.

Over the past few years, we have seen an increase in global causes of fear. The economy in the US is plummeting. Many were terrified in 2020 and 2021 for medical reasons. All we hear or read in the news related to the border crisis, the fall of Afghanistan, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine all cause a good deal of discomfort.

How great is it, then, that we see the Lord Jesus, in his teaching on living as a citizen of God’s kingdom, call on his people not to worry, not to be anxious? Specifically, Jesus tells his people, beginning in Matthew 6:25, not to worry about what we will eat, drink, or wear. Do not let yourself fret regarding the future and your provision. His reasoning is simple. God feeds the birds. God clothes the flowers in the fields. And we are worth far more to God than are they. Thus, if God cares for things as small as birds and flowers, he will surely care for his people.

God knows our needs. And God calls on us to seek not those needs, at least not first. We are to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. We are to have our lives and our hearts hungering for the Lord and for that which magnifies him. And when our hearts are set on God, we will not fear this world.

Consider the simplicity here. Just imagine that your heart truly hungers and thirsts after righteousness. You want Jesus. You want to be like Jesus. You want to act like Jesus. You want every step to magnify Jesus. You want to glorify Jesus. You want to love his word. You want to share his gospel. You want to see his glorious return. The more you want these things, the more you set your life toward these things, what will happen to your anxiety? If you know Jesus and therefore know that you who trust in Jesus are fully accepted by him, fully made part of his family, fully guaranteed eternity with him, you will not fear. What can this world take from you?

Jesus tells us that the gentiles, here meaning the lost and not merely an ethnic component, seek after food, drink, and clothing. They are terrified that they may not have the money they want, the clothing they want, the jobs they want, the vacations they want, the health they want. But Jesus says this is not the way of his followers. To follow Jesus is to love him, desire him, find satisfaction in him, trust him.

One beauty here is that this type of thinking is not a mere command to stop worrying. Yes, stopping worry is good and right. But we do not tend to kill anxiety with a direct thrust of willpower. We defeat anxiety best, according to Jesus here, when we have our focus changed. When we are deep in the gospel, turned toward the Lord, loving him and his kingdom, this is when our fears will be conquerable.

A response: Dear Lord, help me this day to desire you above all things. Help me to seek first you, your kingdom, and your righteousness. Give to me a true hunger for your ways. Let me trust in you totally. I know you provide for the flowers and the birds. Surely you will care for me and for my family. Please, Lord, show me your goodness that I might better rest in you. Please forgive me for allowing myself ever to be anxious about this life. My hope here is only in Jesus and in your great grace.

Matthew 3:16-18

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus is God. The Father is God. The Spirit is God. There is one God. This, in short, is the doctrine of the trinity. We worship the one God in three persons.

Among some believers, a belief system we call modalism has tried to redefine the doctrine of the trinity for centuries. The modalist believes that the persons of the holy trinity, the one true God, are simply different presentations of God, but not different persons. In simplest terms, these would suggest that God presented himself as the Father or Yahweh (Jehovah) in the Old Testament, but became Jesus in the New Testament. Once Jesus left, God presented as the Holy Spirit. But, to those who follow this belief system, there is no trinity, no single God who is these 3 persons all at once.

But take note of what we see happening in Matthew 3 as a simple prooftext that the doctrine of the trinity is actually biblically correct and the presentation of modalism is mistaken. At the baptism of Jesus, in one biblical picture, we see Jesus, God the Son, going into the water. We see the Spirit of God descending upon Jesus like a dove. We hear the voice of the Father. These are three persons in the frame of the picture at the very same time. There is only one God. These three persons are God. This is the trinity presented in a moment.

You might think to yourself that you have never struggled to believe in the holy trinity, even if it is hard to explain. But you might be wise to consider if you have tried to explain the trinity and ended up in a form of modalism. For example, I once heard a dear Christian attempt to illustrate the trinity by saying that a man can, at the same time, be a husband, a father, and a son. That is a perfect picture of the unbiblical doctrine of modalism. You might hear another person try to explain the trinity by reminding us that ice, water, and steam are all water. Again, this is modalism, one water changing form. Honestly, there is no such thing as a good metaphor for the trinity. We are far more likely to present false doctrine through a metaphor than we are to accurately express the infinite in a finite picture. So, I recommend we ditch any metaphor and stick with the Scripture’s claims: God the Father is God; Jesus is God; the Holy Spirit is God; There is only one God.

Matthew 2:13-15

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

The wise men from the east came to worship Jesus while he and his family remained in Bethlehem. This was likely when Jesus was a toddler. Joseph and Mary seem to have set up house for a bit in Joseph’s family’s native town. Perhaps this was to give Mary time to recover from the birth. Perhaps Joseph and Mary wondered where they should raise the Son of God.

But God would move Joseph, Mary, and young Jesus exactly where he wanted them. When King Herod plotted to kill Jesus by slaughtering all the children in Bethlehem, God rescued the family by calling on them to flee to Egypt. Perhaps this destination was made ready for them by the Jewish community that grew up in Egypt around the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. The family would remain safely in Egypt until Herod’s death, which historians tell us took place in 4 BC. Then God would move the family back into the land of Israel and to the town of Nazareth.

We know this story pretty well. And many Christians are familiar with the end of verse 15, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’” But have you ever considered what is being said here?

Matthew cites Hosea 11:1. In context, Hosea is speaking about Israel, the nation, which god rescued from Egypt in the exodus. Now Matthew says that this is Jesus. Jesus is doing what Israel did. Israel is the type and Jesus the antitype. Israel and the exodus foreshadow the life and the work of Jesus.

In Genesis 12, God promised Abram that he would bless the entire world through Abram’s offspring. The reference is not to all the offspring of Abram, all the people born in his line, the nation, but simply to a singular offspring, through Christ. Matthew shows us that this offspring of Abram, the Israel of God, is fully bound up in the person and work of Jesus. What God promised Israel, God promised Jesus. When God is victorious in Jesus, God fulfills his promises to Israel.

While all this might seem a bit heady, there is application for the Christian of today. Are you saved? Are you in Christ? If so, then you are in the true Israel of God. What God promised his people is what God promised you. No, you and the church have not replaced Israel. But all who are in Christ, all who have blessing in Christ, have been counted in the true Israel.

National Israel in the Old Testament is the nation through which God promised to fulfill his glorious plan. And national Israel had a very conditional covenant. When national Israel obeyed, they would be blessed. When national Israel disobeyed, they would be judged. Within national Israel would be found members of the true, spiritual Israel, true believers in God who were under his grace. And it is certain, as Paul says in Romans 9, that not all who are Israel are Israel—not all in the nation are truly saved and under God’s grace. But God would always preserve a remnant of the nation out of love for Abraham, the other forefathers, and David. More importantly, God would preserve a remnant of the nation so that he could fulfill his promise to send the Christ out of that nation.

Now the Christ has come. He is now the representative head of the true Israel of God, the people under his grace. And we see that Jesus plays this role by being the true Son of God whom he called out of Egypt.

Jesus fulfills all of God’s promises. To be part of the true Israel of god has nothing at all to do with your ethnicity. It all has to do with this question, “Are you in Christ?” This gives hope to all who have seen themselves guilty of sin and have run to Jesus for mercy. And the offer of God’s mercy is available to all who will repent and believe.

Revelation 20:11–15

11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. 14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

As we draw near the end of the book of Revelation, we see the great white throne judgment. There all people who have not already been raised to life experience their resurrection and the confirmation of their eternal destination.* When the people are brought before the throne of Christ, we see a dichotomy. There are two ways a person can be judged. There are books and there is a book.

The passage above shows us that a person judged by the “books” is judged based on his own deeds. What did you do in your life? A person judged by the “book of life” is given life simply based on whether or not his name is present there. The bottom line is that, if God judges you based on what you do, your works, you die forever. If, however, you are under the grace of Jesus, the Lamb, you live eternally in glorious joy.

Think of some other popular pairs in Scripture, and this scene develops some greater clarity. In the garden, God pointed out two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was forbidden the tree of knowledge. If he chose to eat of that tree, he would die. God, in the garden, had a very simple test for Adam. If the man would obey God’s command, he would live. If he rebelled against that command, he would die.

Of course, the two trees also remind us of the two choices for humanity’s representative leadership, our federal head. Adam is the original representative of mankind before god. All who remain under Adam’s representation die. Adam sinned and brought guilt on all humanity as we see in Romans 5:12-19 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22. Under Adam, the command to live perfectly before God still applies, any failure still brings death, but there is no way to live well enough to earn life.

God sent Jesus into the world to be the second Adam, the better Adam, the true and perfect representative for mankind. If a person is found in Christ, even if that person has not lived up to God’s standard of perfection, he will live because of the perfection of Christ. Jesus, God in flesh, lived the perfection Adam never did. Jesus died a perfect sacrificial death. Jesus rose from the grave, defeated death, and proved that all who come to him are forgiven. Jesus is now the representative of all who come to him in faith. God actually grants to the saved the legal record of Jesus’ perfection.

Put the books, the trees, Adam, and Jesus all in one scene now and see how clearly the Bible has been telling one single story. You have a choice of trees. Will you have the tree of life or the tree of death? You have a choice; will you be represented by Adam or by Jesus? You have a choice; will you be judged by your own actions in the books, or will you be found forgiven by Jesus with your name in the book of life? There is no third option. Either you try to live as your own master and die, or you surrender to Jesus and receive all the grace he offers. Choose life. Choose the Christ. Choose the book of life.

* I view Revelation 20 from a historic pre-millennial position (not dispensationalism). Thus, I believe that two resurrections are being promised, the resurrection of the forgiven and the later resurrection of the lost.

Zechariah 2:10-12

10 Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. 11 And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. 12 And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

To the Jew of the sixth century BC, the return of Judah from Babylonian captivity was a major event. It must also have been loaded with questions. Now that God has judged us for our sin and returned us to our land, what should we expect? Will Messiah come and make us a political power? Is the promise still alive? What does it look like?

Here in Zechariah, we see some glorious truths of the promise of God that were made under the Old Covenant but which can only be fulfilled by the establishment of the New Covenant. Notice how God speaks of what will occur beyond the physical return of exiles to Jerusalem. It is cause for joy. God will dwell in the midst of his people. That is bigger and better than even the Old Testament experience of the Jews with the temple or the tabernacle. While those edifices symbolized the presence of God, their walls were there to tell the people that there must be a separation between the Lord and them, a boundary that the people cannot cross. This dwelling in their midst promised in Zechariah sounds bigger and better.

Verse 11 points to the fact that God will gather to himself more than the Jews. Yes, the Jews who trust in him will be included. But God is gathering for himself a people out of all the nations. Again and again, as God makes his ultimate promises, he points to the building of a new people of God, one not determined by ethnicity but by faith.

In verse 12, we see the Lord taking Judah and Jerusalem for himself. Something about this promise of God will include God in Jerusalem accomplishing his kingdom purposes. The place where the temple stood, the place where David ruled, that place will be the great launching point of the blessing of God.

If we put this all together, we see the gospel in sign form. On the surface, this looks like a major promise of blessing on Jerusalem—and it may be that. But well beyond blessing the city, God is going to accomplish his eternal purpose. Jesus, the Son of God, will come into Jerusalem declaring himself King. Jesus will bring to God a nation made up of people from all nations. There will be rejoicing and blessing for the people, as god will live in the midst of his people in a way never before experienced in Israel. The Spirit of God who came to his church in Acts 2 is the better fulfillment of the promise of God dwelling among his people. And, by grace, we also look forward to the day of Christ’s return when God will dwell in our midst both physically and spiritually forever.

Proverbs 31:26

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

Many of us have heard of the “Proverbs 31 woman.” Many ladies have gone through bible studies about her. Many ladies’ conferences have focused here. And now, many have pushed back, finding there to be a lot of law in many of those teachings without, perhaps, much grace.

Without jumping into that discussion, I think it is safe to say that we can see godly attributes, good characteristics, in Proverbs 31:10-31. The 22 verses each begin with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet—it’s an acrostic. This section offers us the A-B-Cs of a godly lady.

When reading through these things, verse 26 grabbed my attention. Honestly, it did not grab my attention as anything particularly feminine. Instead, it grabbed my attention as something particularly godly and something particularly needed today.

The woman of noble character speaks with the two attributes of wisdom and kindness. Wisdom indicates a lady with a right love of and fear of God. She speaks true things, applying the knowledge of God to daily living. She can look at a situation and bring the truth of God to bear in a way that is right, accurate, and helpful.

The noble woman also speaks with kindness. Please let us never forget that kindness is a fruit of the Spirit of God in our lives. While many on-line have mocked those who question a person’s tone when they speak about issues, the truth is that godly people have kindness as a fruit. And here, as we study the woman of noble character, kindness is an attribute of her speech and her application of godly wisdom.

As I already mentioned, I see nothing particularly feminine here. It is not as if the word of God does not wish for godly men to speak with wisdom and kindness. It just so happens that this particular piece of wisdom in godly character is found in our passage about the woman of noble character. I would suggest to you that all believers could benefit from a dose of both wisdom and kindness as we speak. This is not a call to softness or compromise. It is merely a call to believers to display the fruit of the Spirit in how we speak and how we write.

Dear friends, we need the grace of Jesus here. Who has not spoken unwisely? Who has not been guilty of unkind speech? Who has not laughed when sharp, even mean-spirited, snarky lines have put others in their place? May we lean on the Lord for mercy. May we ask Jesus for help and wisdom. May we seek that the Lord would fill us with his Spirit and that his Spirit would bear the fruit of kindness in us. May we never compromise. Kindness is not allowing sin to go unchecked. May we not tolerate evil. But may we not look like the world in our attitude. Instead, may our lives reflect this noble lady of Proverbs 31 in wisdom and kindness.

Revelation 14:12

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

What does it look like to live as a true believer in a hard world? God’s word calls us to endurance. And God’s word describes us as those who trust Jesus and follow his commands.

Revelation 13 and 14 paint for us a picture of a polarized, divided, embattled world. In chapter 13, the beast is marking out men as his own and persecuting all who refuse to be identified with him. Those who will not bow to his evil worship or take part in his wicked practices will be cut off from polite society. They will be attacked, mocked, ridiculed, ignored, persecuted, robbed, starved, exiled, and killed. Were a Christian to see that chapter alone, it would be powerfully disheartening in many ways.

But then, as the follow-up to the vision of the beast and false prophet, much like we see in other passages, our scene shifts. We see the Savior, standing strong, keeping his own. We see those bearing not the mark of the beast but of the Lamb. We see songs of worship and faithfulness among the people of God.

Then, as a transition, we read the verse that is above. What we see in chapters 13 and 14, I believe, come together, meet, and lead us to this conclusion. The beast is evil. The world will grow hostile toward those who love and follow the Lord. When the evil are in power, they will seek to ostracize those who love the Lord. But, in the midst of this all, Jesus has his own. Jesus keeps his own. Jesus loves his own. And the call for those who know Jesus is to endure. Stand strong. Do not give up. Do not be discouraged. Endure.

The call for endurance, as we see above, has a tie to marks of identity. The call is for saints, those saved by Jesus and set apart for God. All true believers are granted that label by God. All who know Jesus are set apart from the world to the glory of God. And the saints are to endure, not giving in to the temptation to compromise with the world and live like those who belong to the beast.

At this point, depending on the author of the article, a reader might expect one of two things. One might expect a bigtime gospel reminder, a doubling-down on grace and hope. Or, given another author, one might expect a passionate call to obedience to the word and ways of the Lord. In point of fact, God gives us both.

How do the saints endure? Faith and obedience are central. Let’s first talk obedience, as it is the lower-hanging fruit. To love Jesus, to stand strong, to remain faithful in this life in the face of hardship requires obedience to the word of God. What will make a believer stand out in this fallen world, especially in seasons of persecution and hardship, is the believer’s willingness to obey the Lord without compromise. When the world demands that all applaud or even experiment with forms of immorality, the believer refuses. When the world demands that families compromise their schedule to the world’s values, the believer treasures gathered worship. When the world says that worship is forbidden, the believer worships anyway. Believers obey. Understand, Christian, that obedience is part of endurance.

But never should we have a legalistic existence. WE do not earn our spot in heaven by doing what is right. No, true endurance is founded in the gospel. We endure in faith. No matter how much the world wants to make us doubt, we believe. The follower of Christ is first and foremost a believer. We are believers before we are doers. We are believers, resting in the person and the perfectly finished work of Jesus. Our hope is never in ourselves or in our ability to obey. Our hope is in Christ and in Christ alone.

In the first centuries, Christians lived in a hard world. The Roman government, from time to time, would demand compromise. Believers had to rest in their faith and choose to obey God instead of Caesar. This required endurance, bearing up under pressure. In the days of the Reformation, when the church had been so corrupted as to lose its hold on Scripture, when the church had become so tied to political powers that one could not see a line between the word of the king and the word of the Lord, Christians had to endure in faith and in obedience to the recovered Holy Scripture. And today, in a world of cancel culture, sexual perversion, and mocking of morality, we are still to endure. We are to be the saints of God. We are to keep the faith, totally trusting in Jesus alone as our hope. And we are to endure in obedience, loving the Lord who saved us by obeying his holy commands.

Amos 4:6

“I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,” declares the Lord.

Revelation 9:20-21

20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, 21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Yet you did not return. Yet you did not repent. These are the regular truths of lost humanity, even in the face of the true and holy judgment of God.

In Amos 4, five times we read, “’Yet you did not return to me,’ declares the LORD. Those lines, spoken to the people of the northern kingdom, all follow different judgments of God on the land. Multiple times and in various ways, God had chastened the people. The hardships they faced should have drawn the people back toward the Lord. After all, the people had agreed to terms with the Lord in the covenant at Sinai, and that covenant included provision for such judgments should the nation turn unfaithful.

In Revelation 9:20-21 as well as 16:9 and 11, we see something quite similar. When the judgments of God are poured out on the people of earth in this prophetic vision, mankind does not turn from his wickedness. Instead, the nature of the lost is to double-down on sin rather than learn from hardship. So, in the end, the people of the world store up for themselves the wrath of God to greater and greater degrees.

Do not underestimate the capacity of mankind to press forward with wickedness even in the light of true judgment and destruction. If God does not work to change our hearts, we will, worse than a recalcitrant child, stiffen our necks and shake our fists until the Lord takes from us our very lives. Even in hell, the wicked will not be truly repentant. While they will bow to Jesus and know that they justly deserve their fate, none will desire to turn from their wickedness to embrace the Lord.

When you see the nature of mankind to be stiff-necked and rebellious, thank Jesus if you have faith. Only through his sovereign power is a dead sinner made a living saint. And if you are made a child of God in Jesus, your relationship with your God is not based on your works or your goodness. Instead, your hope, my hope, our only hope is the love of Jesus and his perfect grace.

If you know Jesus, remember the nature of mankind. We never stop telling the truth to the world. WE never stop calling people to faith. But we must know that only the Lord can change a human heart. If mankind is left to himself, he fights against God and all that is good.

Finally, if you do not know Jesus, stop fighting. If you have any desire to stop fighting, know that this is a gift of God. Repent. Believe. Trust Jesus. Be saved.

Psalm 141:3-4

3 Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
keep watch over the door of my lips!
4 Do not let my heart incline to any evil,
to busy myself with wicked deeds
in company with men who work iniquity,
and let me not eat of their delicacies!

In the model prayer, Jesus taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” How needful this is. Our hope is not in our goodness. Yet we long to be changed, to be sanctified, to be done with sin. The promise of glory is before all who hope in Jesus. But the struggle of our day-to-day is real.

Where do I need to be delivered from evil? Where do you? We all face different temptations depending on our circumstances, our personalities, our unique gifts or weaknesses. For me, the words of the psalm above ring the bell of a place where I pray the Lord will guard and guide.

I see two temptations in verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 141. The first is so prominent in our day that I would have any believer pray it. We need the Lord to guard our mouths. One might also add the pen or the keyboard to that request. We are quick to sin with our lips. We are quick to hurt others with our words, to say things better left unsaid, to embellish our own goodness, to magnify the failure of others. This is my own need, and I surely pray that the Lord will set this guard in my own life.

In verse 4, we see a righteous prayer not to be taken in by the wicked. May we not fall in with their schemes. At first, this does not seem like something many of us are tempted toward. But look at the last line, “and let me not eat of their delicacies!” There is the danger. The wicked have delicacies, delightful things that we want. It is easy to envy the wealthy their wealth. It is easy to wish that we could have their seeming ease, their lack of worry, their worldly stability. Even if it is a lie, we can have our hearts tempted to wish for the goodies of those who seem to have it all. And that longing can become in us the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life.

May we learn to pray. May we rely on the Lord to guard our lives. May we never stop battling the temptations of our flesh. And may we have the joy and comfort of knowing that our hope is not in how well we win this fight; our hope is in Christ and his finished work alone.

Psalm 139:11-12

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

When we think of darkness as we study the Scripture, we tend to think of a moral metaphor—dark equals evil while light equals good. But this is not the only symbolic use of darkness. Darkness hides. Darkness obscures. Darkness is the refuge for the evil who wishes to hide his actions. Darkness is a threat against the safety of the innocent. Darkness is dangerous.

In Psalm 139, David has been rejoicing and marveling in the fact that God is all-present and all-knowing. God knows him inside and out. God knows David’s thoughts before he thinks them. God knows David’s words before he speaks them. God surrounds David, no matter where he goes.

Then, in verses 11-12, David speaks of darkness. The darkness cannot hide David. God sees right through it as if seeing in the noonday sun. And both negative applications of darkness can be applied here to help us to see the goodness of God.

Consider darkness as the shelter for the evil. When we want to do wrong, we want to hide. We want to say, “You can’t see me.” We want to avoid being known. But God sees. God knows. God is there. God is able to penetrate our deepest disguises and to do so without any effort at all.

We must let this fact impact how we think about our sin. We are not hidden from the Lord. No matter where we go or what we do, we are not hidden from his sight. We cannot do evil in a place where it is not visible to the God who made us.

Darkness is also dangerous, even depressing. Sometimes we feel hidden. Sometimes we feel like we fade away from being important to anybody. Sometimes we may wish to be known, but we feel like nobody sees us, nobody knows, nobody cares. But God sees. God sees through our darkness. Nothing can obscure his sight from us. He knows where we are. He knows what we need. He knows our hurts and hopes, our struggles and dreams. Even better, he, because he made us, knows exactly what we actually need and not merely our sin-warped desires.

God sees you in the dark. Let that call you to remember that darkness of any sort cannot hide your sin.

God sees you in the dark. Even more in keeping with the context of this psalm, let this comfort you if you know the Lord. You cannot be pulled away from his loving gaze. You cannot be dragged away to someplace he cannot find you. You cannot feel something he does not understand. You cannot melt into obscurity as if you do not matter to him. God sees you, and this is glorious.