December 20, 2024 -Too Lofty for Me

HAGGAI 1:1-2:23

REVELATION 11:1-19

PSALM 139:1-24

PROVERBS 30:15-16

One Year Bible Audio & Daily Reading (oneyearbibleonline.com)

Psalm 139:1 You have searched me, Lord,

    and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;

    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;

    you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue

    you, Lord, know it completely.

5 You hem me in behind and before,

    and you lay your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too lofty for me to attain.

This is the second time this week for this Psalm in my life. At our small group on Monday my friend Laurie brought cheesecake with candles to celebrate my birthday and she read this Psalm to me. We call it the birthday Psalm. But today I read this the day after doing some reading of the Westminster Confession about "God's Eternal Decrees" and "Providence". These include concepts like predestination and foreordination which are difficult to understand. The Westminster Confession is the standard of doctrine for the EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian Church). I am reading it as an elder candidate because I need to affirm that my beliefs align with the EPC. These are things that are difficult to understand because we don't have heavenly perspective. I think that only from God's perspective can it make total sense. Just as this Psalm says that He has searched me and knows me. He knows where I am what I am doing and what I am going to do and what I am going to say.

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

He created everything including me and He knew me before my body was even formed, And had already ordained every day of my life. That is mind blowing to me. For many people these ideas may just cause more questions and I get that because when I try to examine them and "understand" them they're just "too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." But when I listen to the Spirit inside of me and look at them through the eyes of faith I no longer need to understand them. The bible tells us that all of these things are true so I do believe them. I have to trust that God's incomprehensible attributes are just that, incomprehensible and instead of trying to understand them I just believe them. I look forward to one day sitting down under the tutelage of Jesus and listen to His teaching on it. I think that is the only way it may even begin to make sense.

If you would like to dig into some of the deeper concepts of faith and would like to see what scriptures they site for support of these concepts give the Westminster confession a read. Here is a link for a PDF version of it for your light reading please lol.

Microsoft Word - WCFC-2009.doc