Coffee with the Pastor - 22 July 2013 Having been on holiday and just back, I would encourage you to pour up a cup of coffee and read the thoughts below. The following is excerpted from John Phillips’ commentary on Psalm 119: “My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word” (Psa. 119:25). “There can be little doubt that the psalmist was in the grip of deep depression. He was flat on his face in the dust. He had come to the end of himself and his own resources. At this point our society would advise us to see a psychiatrist, seek professional help. ... The psalmist makes a different suggestion. He says to the Lord, ‘Quicken Thou me.’ He was going to air his problems all right, but he was going to take them to the Lord. He was going to seek a counselor--the counsel of the Word of God. There are very few problems in this life that cannot be solved by a thorough-going, honest exposure of one’s life to the Scriptures. To do that is the greatest therapy in the world. The psalmist asked God to ‘quicken him,’ that is, to put new life into him. What he needed was a stiff dose of Scripture, taken with a mixture of faith, every day. Try it. Read your Bible consistently. Say with Samuel, ‘Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth.’ The Bible is a book of people and principles. Sooner or later, God will confront us in the pages of His Book with the basic cause of our problem and with His inspired, infallible solution to that problem. The psalmist had discovered the best way of all to handle depression. But we must be prepared. The Bible will not hedge or redefine sin. It will put its finger unerringly on the sin question, frequently at the root of other problems of life.” Praying for us, Pastor
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 20:54:18 +0000