https://esv.literalword.com/?q=Psalm+68%3B+Numbers+34
Observations from today’s readings and today’s S-WOD, Sunday, 20 April 2025:
Psalm 68:1-3 — God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him! As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God! But the righteous shall be glad; they shall exult before God; they shall be jubilant with joy!
Psalm 68:1–3 powerfully illustrates the diverging responses people have to the presence and authority of God—responses that are ultimately shaped by the condition of their hearts. Throughout the Bible, it is evident that God’s nearness is either a source of joy or terror depending on whether a person longs for Him or resists Him. Throughout the Bible we also see how God is graceful and gentle in how He reveals Himself to a sinful people, not overwhelming or destroying them with awesomeness of His presence, apart from times of wrath. In His grace God gives people the space they need or desire, yet inviting them to draw closer.
Throughout Scripture, we see that God, in His mercy and grace, often shields people from the full force of His presence—not because He is distant or uninterested, but because His holiness is so powerful that in our sinful condition, it would destroy us. After Adam and Eve sinned, God clothed them and expelled them from the Garden—not as punishment alone, but to protect them from the Tree of Life, which would have locked them in a fallen state forever. He covered their shame and created space for redemption. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God hid him in the cleft of a rock and only allowed him to see His back, because seeing His face in full holiness would have meant death. At Mount Sinai, when God descended in fire and thunder, the people were so terrified they begged Moses to speak on God’s behalf instead. God honored their fear, recognizing their limits and not forcing His presence on them.
These moments show us that God’s distance is often an expression of His grace. He does not force His overwhelming glory on us, knowing we could not endure it. Instead, He invites us to follow Him out of love and trust, not out of compulsion. If God’s presence was constantly overwhelming, we would have no real choice in obedience—it would be like trying to resist the force of a hurricane. But God desires that we choose Him freely, even when we cannot see or feel Him, and that we obey Him from the heart, not just in response to power. This is why faith is so precious—it is trust without coercion, love without manipulation, and obedience as an act of will rather than fear.
God’s invitation to draw near is always open, but He only allows us to come as close as we are able to handle, for our sake. Like electricity, fire, or the sun itself, His power is not something we approach casually or carelessly. We wear protective gear to handle electricity, use caution around open flames, and wear shielding to view an eclipse—and yet, God’s holiness far surpasses any of these. To fear the Lord is not to cower in terror, but to approach Him with the awe, reverence, and humility that His power and purity demand.
Yet, in all of this, God’s heart is relationship. He shields us not to keep us away, but to draw us near in safety, so that we can grow closer to Him without being destroyed in the process. As we grow in grace and maturity, He reveals more of Himself to us, gradually increasing our capacity to receive Him. His goal is not distance, but intimacy—a life of increasing love, joy, peace, and security in Him. We are not forced into His arms by fear, but invited into them by love, and slowly transformed until we are able to see Him face to face.
Just as smoke cannot withstand the wind and wax cannot stand before fire, the wicked—those who reject God’s rule—cannot stand in His presence. But the righteous, those who desire God above all, rejoice and find fullness of joy in Him. Heaven is not just a place of beauty or reward, but the unveiled presence of God where His will is perfectly done. For those who love Him, that is paradise. But for those who do not want God, who resist His authority and love, such a reality would feel unbearable. God does not force Himself on anyone now, but there will come a day when His glory fills all in all, and every heart will be laid bare.
As Jesus walked the earth and revealed Himself as the Messiah, people responded in a variety of ways—some were threatened, some rejected Him, some tried to use Him, and others surrendered to Him in faith. These reactions were not merely surface-level preferences but revealed deep truths about the desires of the heart. We were made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and apart from Him, human beings are restless and incomplete. In the end, there are only two postures toward God—love or hate, surrender or resistance. Our response to Jesus Christ is the ultimate reflection of our heart’s orientation, and it is the most important decision we will ever make. Our response is an ultimate decision, revealed and cultivated through daily decisions. How we respond to people and circumstances reveals what we have ultimately decided about Jesus but also where we are still struggling to live in accordance with that decision.
Psalm 68:4 – Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts; his name is the Lord; exult before him!
The Bible shows us that, throughout history, God has taken His servants through terribly dark times, and the Bible teaches us that, under terrible circumstances, we should turn to the LORD and not lose hope in Him. (Psalm 68) In the midst of trials and persecution, it is our knowledge of God and hope in Him that causes us to sing praises and remain joyful (though perhaps not always ‘happy’). For the “joy set before Him” Jesus endured the cross, and Hebrews tells us we must learn to have the same sort of joy (Hebrews 12:2) through our trials which have been ordained for us by our Father for His glory and our ultimate best.
Jesus did not endure the cross through sheer gritted determination alone, but because of a deep, powerful joy rooted in what was promised on the other side—our redemption, the glorification of the Father, and the restoration of all things. It was the joy of perfect obedience, perfect victory, and perfect love realized.
This same kind of joy is available to us as Christians. It is not a joy based on our circumstances, but one rooted in anticipation—a forward-looking confidence in God’s promises. Just as Jesus, in Gethsemane, asked that the cup be taken from Him but ultimately submitted to the Father’s will, we also may long for challenges to be removed. But our greater longing, like His, must be for the fulfillment of God’s perfect will. This is not blind optimism—it is anchored assurance. The kind of joy that sees past temporary pain because it treasures the eternal outcome.
Love, joy, and peace are not random fruits of the Spirit; they are deeply interconnected, attributes of one fruit. God’s perfect love, most fully displayed through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, assures us that we are fully known, fully forgiven, and fully secure. That kind of love births joy—not just happiness, but settled delight in who God is and what He has promised. And from that joy flows peace—not just the absence of conflict, but the deep, unshakable sense that all is well, even when it doesn’t feel like it, because we are in Christ.
Romans 8 reinforces this beautifully: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). That is the foundation of our joy and peace: the cross is proof of God’s commitment to our good. So even when the road is hard, the cross before us reminds us of the joy set ahead—eternal life, perfect union with God, and the fullness of all His promises fulfilled. And that joy enables us to endure anything with grace, just as Christ did.
Psalm 68:6 — God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
All have sinned, but through Jesus, Christians are not isolated prisoners of sin but rather are being led to prosperity. Little lamb, follow your Good Shepherd closely. “You ascended on high, leading a host of captives in your train.” (Psalm 68:18)
The rebellious dwell in a parched land. The contrast in Psalm 68:6 captures a deep spiritual truth: those who walk in alignment with God’s heart find belonging, freedom, and joy, while those who resist Him find themselves in spiritual dryness—parched, weary, and unfulfilled. The rebellious aren’t just in a hard place; they dwell in a land without water, symbolizing life apart from the living flow of God’s presence.
Throughout Scripture, water is a powerful symbol for the Holy Spirit. In John 7:38-39, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John explains that Jesus was speaking about the Spirit. Just as water is essential to physical life, the Spirit is essential to spiritual life. Without Him, our souls wither. In Jeremiah 2:13, God laments, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” This is humanity’s tragic pattern—turning from God to dig their own wells of purpose, pleasure, or meaning, only to find them leaking, dry, and empty.
This thirst isn’t accidental—it’s built into our design. We were created to live in the constant flow of the Holy Spirit. Our very nature reflects our Creator’s intent: to be filled with Him, to overflow with His presence, and to be channels of His life to the world around us. Just as a fish is made for water and dies when taken out of it, we were made to abide in the Spirit, and without Him, we are spiritually suffocating. Our constant craving, our dissatisfaction, our restlessness apart from God all point to this core truth: we were never meant to live self-sustained lives. We were meant to receive, continually, the abundance of God—His love, joy, peace, wisdom, and power.
When we reject that flow—when we rebel and try to live independently—we inevitably end up in a dry land, always thirsty but never quenched. But when we yield to the Spirit, our lives become like well-watered gardens (Isaiah 58:11), overflowing with life and blessing, not only for ourselves but for everyone around us. Abiding in the Spirit isn’t a spiritual bonus—it’s the very oxygen of our souls. Jesus is the Living Water, and only in Him do we find the satisfaction our hearts were made for.
We have all seen a fish out of water, struggling with all its might to survive, the more it struggles outside of water, the quicker it dies. Likewise, our activities apart from the Spirit are not only futile but destructive (see John 15). The fruit of a live abiding in the Spirit is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control, reasonableness, contentment, gratefulness, etc. If you find yourself out of this state in whatever you do, as a Christian, you are a fish out of water. Step 1: Get back in the Spirit before you do or say anything else.
Psalm 68:19, 20 — Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation.
Our God is a God of salvation, and to GOD, the Lord, belong deliverances from death. We still sin daily, but God “bears us up” as we are being delivered from death.
Psalm 68:35 – …he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.
It is God who empowers you to do His will, so how powerful does that make you? It is only when you attempt to operate outside of His will that you need to be concerned.
Numbers 34:1-2 — The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan as defined by its borders)….
Numbers 34 details the general boundary of the inheritance of Israel west of the Jordan, which in totality is a huge and abundant territory. However, the Israelites never actually possessed all the territory comprised within these boundaries, even when it was most extended by the conquests of David and Solomon. Though God gave them this entire expanse and empowered them to receive it, because of their sinfulness and compromise, they failed to receive what God had desired for them. They had God-given potential which was never realized because they didn’t want to stay holy, and they didn’t want to do the work God had given them, which comes with the blessing.
Throughout the Old Testament, we see a continuous cycle where God blesses the Israelites, they sin against God and ruin the blessings, God punishes them, they repent, God restores them (to a degree), and they sin again, repeating the pattern and never really getting past themselves. God shows incredible patience while His people show incredible impertinence. The lesson is this: Don’t do that! Don’t limit God’s best for you by refusing to remain holy and do the work. Don’t be lascivious and lazy. Be holy and do the work, all while rejoicing in God’s grace which He has bestowed upon you. Don’t wallow in the past and in your mistakes, learn from them, accept God’s discipline, mercy, and grace, and move on! However, perhaps most importantly, don’t repeat the cycle of bad habits which have plagued your past success.
How often do we see people around us spending their whole lives doing the same stupid things repeatedly, robbing them of their potential? Are you humble enough to see that pattern in yourself and committed enough to change it forever? If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and have chosen to follow Him, you have been empowered with the Holy Spirit, freed from the tyranny of sin in your life, and there is no limit to God’s blessings for you if you will follow Him wholeheartedly. Don’t quench the Spirit, grieve the Spirit, or get out of step with the Spirit, and be excellent in all things.
- Hebrews 12:1-2 — Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
“Cross” Fit S-WOD (Spiritual Workout of the Day) – 20 April 2025: See your circumstances from the perspective of God’s perfect Sovereignty and love for you and His promises to you – Don’t just begrudgingly obey Him, eagerly and enthusiastically glorify Him with whatever He has given you today, which is His will for you. Be holy and eager to do the work God has given you with enthusiasm, joy, contentment, and excellence, to God’s standard, not to merely to the norm. Walk in faith today, without need of ‘special revelation.’ Make pleasing God your primary goal today. Judge all your actions from God’s standards, not your standards or the world’s standards. Be controlled by the love of Christ, and regard no one or any situation from the human perspective but rather from Christ’s perspective. Surrender to the love of Christ and proclaim Him through the fruit of your life in Him.
Defenders Bible Reading Plan 