Pastor's Ponderings: Old Testament bible study of Psalm 28 (August 28, 2025)

August 28, 2025:  Thursday Bible Study on Old Testament of Psalm 28

Good morning my dear friends, I write today with confidence in our Lord to be present with each family and their children who endured that mass shooting at the Catholic Church in Minneapolis yesterday. As I listened to the news in my van, parked at the boys’ school waiting for pickup, I wept. It will never stop until we have moral, ethical, and honest leadership in our country from the White House down to local governments. We all need to keep praying as we move to support common sense gun control in our nation. What was meant to be a one-shot rifle in the colonies, is now guaranteed access to rapid fire, high-power guns that place all who are innocent at very high risk. As a child, I remember the Cuban crises in the 60s, along with practices to get under our desks for nuclear attack, and yes, the rare tornado too. We know how naive this training really was, especially now when any of us could be target at any time, in any place, even our churches, synagogues, and mosques, places where safety has always been assumed and respected. But today there are no guarantees about such things. Only national, state, and local government action is going to help in this crisis and devaluation of life. Of course, we must pray for our Lord's guidance in all of this as well. Please pray for Sharyn. Her little dog was injured by a coyote this morning and had to be sent on her way to God's Heaven. I know you might question me about this, but even Martin Luther believed in a place in heaven for these loving house pets with whom we have been so close during their lives. I am confident in my babies, Honey, Big and Little, Macbeth, Molly, our own German short hair Gretchen, Brownie, Opal, Ruby, Pax our wonderful pit bull terrier, and today Chloe is in our home, a little Yorkie. It would be hard to believe that God didn't provide heavenly care for our perfect, devoted, protectors with bark or bite, or both, loving, intelligent, best friends and soul healers! Enough about these things. Pray too for Robert and Larry who are both recovering from surgery, for all who are battling cancer, Tricia, Kandice, and myself, and for Steve and Annette who are both headed to surgery in the not-too-distant future. This Sunday we have Gospel Music rehearsal after service, and tomorrow our out to lunch group will gather at Cheesecake Factory on the outside grounds of the Tucson Mall.

Today we are looking at the 28th Psalm of David. There are several God approaches to people who live in Israel. David's Psalm is about the difference between the way in which God responds to the faithful, and the unfaithful. Everyone in that time in Jerusalem was certainly not a faithful Jew. To many their possessions were their God, even though they might worship, pray, and believe, the One True God of their king David, and who is our God does not look favorably on the idea that HIs blessings will benefit us economically, with money and power.  I know that sometimes David is kind of full of himself, but he is a person of great faith, who knows that everything, the peace of Israel, crops growing in the fields, enough to feed the nation, and even his own reign as king is totally reliant on God's actions on behalf of David's people.  There have always been plenty of people who use their "faith" in God for self-benefit. They are really using God to convince others that if they will just be faithful to the individual, God will bless them with abundant wealth just like the profit maker who has the best of everything because that person was faithful first. Their Rolls Royce cars, private jets, $10,000 watches, and $8000 suits, and world travel too, are all because God just wants that preacher to be wealthy because of their faith. Many of these charlatans have been exposed, but there are still plenty of them out there, especially that now their message can be live streamed for the vulnerable to hear. David was a true servant of God, humbling himself before the Lord, thanking God for all things in the life the nation and in his personal life too. God's protection, peace, love, support in all things when the faithful people move to serve others with their time, talents, and resources, given not to get more for themselves, but out of thanksgiving to God for the blessing of our Savior and God's truth in our midst is what David, and all of us who follow, humbling ourselves before our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of life.  We must always remember that everything which we do in work, from the most mundane, to the most sophisticated, is really the Hands of God working His way through us into the world. Wealth is not really a problem, especially when we know with humility that it is meant to be used as a blessing for others.

Please remember that there will be no study on Labor Day.

With the Love of Christ, Pastor Kim