https://esv.literalword.com/?q=psalm+65%3B+Numbers+13
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Sunday, 30 March 2025:
Psalm 65:4 – Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!
God chose you before you chose Him. Godliness is, in no small part, being completely satisfied with God Himself, regardless of external circumstances.
You are blessed by God when you go to church. However, if you are a Christian, your body is also the temple of God, and you are always in His presence; so why wouldn’t you rejoice always?
“We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house….” Do you know anyone who is never satisfied with church? Criticism reveals more about the critic than it does the critiqued. Do you know anyone who is never satisfied with their situation, even though the Sovereign Lord has allowed it to happen out of His perfect love for His purposes, His glory, and for the very best for His children? Again, criticism only exposes an ungodly heart. As Proverbs 13:25 describes, the righteous are always satisfied with what God has provided, but the unrighteous are never satisfied.
Psalm 65:5 — By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation.
Our God is a righteous God who reigns in perfect righteousness. In our gratitude for His mercy and grace, we must not make light of His righteousness. Ahab considered it a “light thing” to walk in sin and “did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:33) We must never consider sin to be a “light thing” and in so doing mock, test, and dishonor our God. God will always deal with unrighteousness. David says (in next Sunday’s Psalm readings), “Come and hear, all you who fear God and I will tell what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me! (Psalm 66:16-20) If you are cherishing sin in your heart, deal with it today through humble repentance.
- Hebrews 10:26-31 — For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Psalm 65:6-13 – You crown the year with your bounty….
Consider how God has richly and perfectly provided for mankind. How could we not praise Him? While Adam and Eve stood in the middle of perfect paradise and abundance, Satan got them to focus on the one tree among the multitude from which they couldn’t partake, and he tempted to believe God’s prohibition was a as a withheld blessing rather than a divine protection. He got them to doubt the goodness of God and His perfect providence. He convinced them they had to sin to be satisfied. Likewise, Satan will tempt you to focus on lack, to stare at what you don’t have rather than the overwhelming blessings you do have; He will tempt you to doubt God’s goodness and perfect providence in your circumstances, and He will try to convince you to sin to get what you want or protect what you have. Don’t be fooled. God only gives His children what is best, though we can’t always appreciate the things God knows we need but don’t want. What does the Bible say? “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
Numbers 13:1, 9 — Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites….. Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.
God gives us challenges as part of His blessings to mature and strengthen us, to teach us to trust and rely upon Him, to reveal Himself to others as He works miraculously through our lives, to develop our character and competence, and to prepare us for greater things in the future. For God’s children, challenges are not curses but blessings – “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” (Romans 8:28-29)
In the beginning, God didn’t place Adam and Eve in a self-sufficient, self-sustaining garden with nothing to do but relax and enjoy it; rather, He gave them a garden which needed to be worked. Hard work was part of the blessing. It was Adam and Eve’s sin which turned the blessing of work into fruitless toil and bitterness – “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him. …cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 2:18; Genesis 3:17-19) God intends for us to rejoice in all circumstance, radiating love, joy, and peace, knowing He is only providing us what is very best for us, whether comfort or hardship – “The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.” (Proverbs 10:22) The Lord will “test” us with trials, not so He can see what we are made of (He already knows), but rather so we will see what we are still lacking and draw closer to Him as we grow up in areas of our lives where we are still weak and immature. God never tempts us; the world the flesh and the devil are what turn tests into temptations to distrust our perfectly loving and Sovereign Lord and to take matters into our own hands from a self-centered perspective for selfish purposes.
God promised to miraculously give the Israelites the choices land in the region after their 40 years of wandering in the desert, but the promised land included challenges as part of the blessing. Only through challenges can individuals or groups of people grow into noble character and culture. As someone once said, “A life of ease will ruin a person.”
When the spies observed the giant people of the land, all but two “rebelled against the Lord” and turned the test into temptation, adding sorrow which God didn’t desire for them. Today, see your challenges as part of the blessing, and respond to them with love, joy, peace, contentment, and enthusiasm, resting on God’s promises and truths such as Romans 8:28. Don’t rebel against the Lord in ingratitude, bitterness, and self-centeredness. And don’t be like the rebellious spies who discouraged everyone around them with their doom and gloom spirits. Rejoice in all things and bring joy to others around you.
Here are several verses about remaining thankful through trials: https://www.openbible.info/topics/being_thankful_for_our_trials
God had given the Israelites the land of Canaan so His people would dominate and control the most strategic piece of terrain in the region for His glory. However, the people sinned and rebelled by failing to trust God and face the enemy. They failed to act because they were afraid. Due to their lack of faith and lack of action, the Canaanites would control the crossroads of international trade and cultural influence for another 40+ years, and the Jews would continue to wander the desert. Arguably, we have largely ceded control of society’s major institutions of influence (schools, media, government, art, entertainment, science, etc) to unbelievers due to fear and rebellion against the King who called His people to be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth — to make disciples among all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey. “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?”
Numbers 13:2 – Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.
God made the promise before He demanded a commitment. Trust in God’s promises, accept His tasks, and obey Him in all things with not only steadfastness but also with confidence, joy, peace, and enthusiasm. Be known for your relentlessly positive spirit, and when others ask how you do it, introduce them to Jesus.
Numbers 13:1-2, 21, 25 – The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”… So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath…. At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land.
God’s people follow God’s instructions. God protects His faithful servants.
Numbers 13:30-33 – But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Carrying out God’s mission is not enough if you do not learn faith in it.
God wants you to focus on what He can do and is doing, not on what the enemy can do and tries to do in futility. Is your God not God? How you view your enemy reveals much about what you really think of God.
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 30 March 2025: Today, be thankful and confident in all circumstances, resting in the assurance of your Sovereign Lord’s perfect providence.
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 