Daily Devotionals

Psalm 5:1–3

Some psalms are difficult to outline; others easily lend themselves to an organized layout. Psalm 5 falls in the latter category. It begins with a plea (vv. 1–3) directed to the Lord, whom David addresses,“O LORD ... my King ... my God ... O LORD.” It concludes with a promise (v. 12). Sandwiched between the plea and the promise are four descriptions.

I observe three things in David's introductory plea.

First, it was a "morning" prayer. Twice in verse 3 David mentions that it was "in the morning" that he met with his Lord.

Philippians 2:7

There once lived a farmer who became jaded about Christmas and all things “Christian.”

Late one raw winter night, he sat alone in the house, reading. In the quiet, he heard an irregular thumping against the back-porch door. He flipped on the light. To his surprise, the birds that had made their nests in a nearby tree were flying against the glass, almost as if knocking to come inside. The limb on which they had built their nest had fallen under the weight of the ice. His heart went out to them.

Matthew 2:11

What do you give a young king? The magi, after travelling more than five hundred miles away to see the child Jesus, brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh with them. Why those gifts? What did the gifts mean in relation to Jesus? And what did they mean for the men who gave them?

Matthew 1:23

On that still winter’s night, something was up ... something extraordinary ... something supernatural. The shepherds raced to the City of David and found their Saviour, just as the angel had said ... swaddled and lying in a feeding trough. This was the Promised One, the Messiah! God had finally come to dwell with His people, but in such an unexpected way.

Luke 2:6–7

When Mary and Joseph began their journey southward to Bethlehem, they probably thought they had time to make the trip, register for the census, and then return home to Nazareth before the baby would be born. The weather co-operated and a donkey carried their provisions, but the journey proved more lengthy than either of them had expected. Mary was soon to give birth.

Read Romans 8:28

That first Christmas, all eyes were on Augustus — the cynical Caesar who demanded a census so as to determine a measurement to enlarge taxes even further. At such a time, who was interested in a young couple making an eighty-mile trip south from Nazareth? What could possibly be more important than Caesar’s decisions in Rome ... or his puppet Herod’s edicts in Judea? Who cared about a tiny baby born to an unknown teenage Jewessin an obscure Bethlehem barn?

God did.

Read Luke 1:19

Take a trip out of time and space.

With the help of your imagination, let yourself be pulled from the gravity of this planet and move into the space beyond the earth’s dimension — that mysterious realm where angels dwell.

It’s easy to forget we live in two parallel worlds. One is our world ... tangible and visible — a world of roads and houses and barns and trees and lakes and seas and shores and dogs and cats and days and nights and nations and politicians.

Read Psalm 5:1–12

Songs are usually born out of surrounding circumstances that so affect the thinking of the composer, he cannot help but burst forth with a melody and an accompanying set of lyrics describing his plight. This is certainly the case with the blues and jazz of yesteryear as well as the old spirituals of days gone by and the romantic love songs of any era. The same has often been true of gospel songs and sacred hymns; their historical settings explain their message.

Psalm 1:1–6

The central lesson in Psalm 1 is this: there is not the slightest similarity between the spiritually accelerating life of the righteous and the slowly eroding life of the wicked. Take time to ponder the bold contrasts:

Read Psalm 1:4–6

A key observation in Psalm 1:4–6 is contrast. Don't miss the many things that are quite the opposite from the preceding verses. "The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away."

"Not so!" That is exactly how verse 4 begins in the Hebrew Bible. It is an emphatic negative assertion. Literally, it says, "Not so, the wicked!" It refers back to the three preceding verses describing the righteous, godly believer, who: