Advent 2021

If I would count them (God’s thoughts), they are more than the sand.
    When I awake, I am still with thee.

Today we think about verse 18 of Psalm 139

There are two thoughts in today’s verse, the first continues the theme of yesterday: God’s thoughts are countless and there for us to explore. In past TFG weekends we looked at The Lord’s Prayer, just a few verses of the Bible yet they are packed with the breadth of God’s thoughts. I’ve put together the teaching of those weekends and expanded it to form an eBook. If you would like to explore more of God’s thoughts through the Lord’s Prayer you can get the book here: https://lumin.gumroad.com/l/Kmioi

The second thought returns to the earlier theme of the Psalm, where can I go from your Spirit? When we wake up, God is there with us. He has been there through the night. He is always there. This vast God, whose thoughts are beyond us, is always with us. Not just us, but me.     When I awake, I am still with thee.

Spend some time meditating on that. How does it change your perception of what you face today?

How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!

Today we look at verse 17 of Psalm 139

Read that verse again. Is it something you can truly say?

What does it mean for God’s thoughts to be precious to a person? How would that person demonstrate the truth of that?

How do we discover God’s thoughts? How much time do you give to reading and absorbing them?

God’s thoughts are vast, you will never fathom the bottom of them or reach across the entire ocean of them. There is always more to explore. Even if you could quote the whole Bible verbatim you would not know all God’s thoughts, for each fresh reading of His word illuminates something you missed before.

Do you need to make changes in order to spend more time reading the Bible each day? If so, what changes and how will you keep to them?

If you are already reading the Bible daily, do you need to change how you do it to help it to remain a fresh experience each day?

Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance;
    in thy book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

Today we read verse 16 of Psalm 139

God knows our past, He also knows our times and our days. This is not saying it is all ‘kismet’, that we have a trajectory set by God which we cannot alter. Instead it is saying that the time n history we are born into is known, and perhaps too the potential length of our lives – though doubtless this can be cut short by our actions and folly.

It’s a bit like a diary. Have you got yours for next year yet? Whether you use it to fill in appointments to come or to write in things you did each day, at the moment it is blank. The days are allotted for the year, the way you use them is dependant on you.

(At least one of the people in this photo is now a church leader, who knew at the time?)

The important thing is that we dedicate our days to the Lord, and

Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your vindication as the light,
    and your right as the noonday.

(Psalm 37:4-6)

Spend time doing that today. Perhaps (if you have one) hold next year’s diary (or your Tablet with the Calendar open) and commit the year and each day to Jesus now.

Thou knowest me right well;
   my frame was not hidden from thee,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.

Today we look at verses 14b and15 of Psalm 139

We come from the ‘depths of the earth’, that is poetic language and means simply that our origins are deep, unknown. Only God knows and understands how we are truly formed. These days scientists can give fair account of DNA, biological and chemical processes but these cannot explain you; you are unique, you are unrepeatable. Nor can such processes explain intelligence; as God is fearful and wonderful so too are we fearfully and wonderfully made – as God is beyond fathoming so too are we (though we are much less complicated than God!)

Yet we are not unfathomable to God! There may be things you do not understand about yourself but God knows you right well.

Spend time in worship of the one who knows you through and through.

Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?
    Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
¹⁰ even there thy hand shall lead me,
    and thy right hand shall hold me.
¹¹ If I say, “Let only darkness cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
¹² even the darkness is not dark to thee,
    the night is bright as the day;
    for darkness is as light with thee.

¹³ For thou didst form my inward parts,
    thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful.
    Wonderful are thy works!

As usual on Sundays we re-read the verses from the past week.

Which verse has had the most significance for you in the week as you have read them?

Spend time thanking God for how He has spoken to you in the week

Make a note of something from this week’s readings that you want to change in your thinking, your actions or your worship in the coming year.

Here’s a piece of music of a style not normally associated with Twyford Fellowship Group!

I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful.
    Wonderful are thy works!

Today we focus on verse 14a of Psalm 139

Praise is such an important part of our lives, yet we cannot ever out-praise God. We can only ever respond to what He has done. He is the Beginner, we respond. Just like in some churches the Choir or the leader call out the first line and the congregation responds, so too our worship is a response to what God has already begun. His works are wonderful.

Think of three things God has done:

1/ For the whole world

2/ For those who have given themselves to Him

3/ For you yourself

and praise Him for each of these things

Fearful and Wonderful

Other translations say “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. Our translation says God is fearful and wonderful. Both teach that God in His Person and His action is fearful and wonderful. We recognise God’s almighty power and that leads us to be fearful, rightly for we are standing next to something that is much much more powerful than we are. The word for wonderful is often translated as ‘set apart’ – something totally different from ourselves.

How often do you recognise God’s power as you approach Him? Have you let Him become too ‘chummy’? Spend time acknowledging God as the fearful and wonderful Creator.

For thou didst form my inward parts,
    thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Today we focus on verse 13 of Psalm 139

Before we were born, God was at work in our lives. Before we made choices to follow Him or to reject Him, God was involved with us intimately. Not only our physical bodies but also our souls and our spirits were being tended by Him as we grew in our mothers’ wombs.

None of that means you are perfect. For though God knit us together we are then subject to the Fall and to sin. There is a fallen side to our nature. The call of the Christian is to bring that fallen side to God, to aim to break it and reduce its prevalence and to allow the Holy Spirit to energise the person God created us to be.

What are you working on to see change in your life? Ask God to reveal what He wants to change, what He wants you to lay down and what He wants you to develop.

If I say, “Let only darkness cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to thee,
    the night is bright as the day;
    for darkness is as light with thee.

Today we focus on Psalm 139 verses 11, 12

The Psalmist reflects that even the greatest refusal to let God be part of his life is futile. Even if he wants to be completely hidden, even if there is only dark, even if he rejects all the light that there is, even then God can see him and watch him.

These verses have a ‘reverse truth’ too. We often feel too ashamed to speak to God about things we have done because we feel that we have failed Him and do not want to disappoint Him. Yet He knows completely all about it and wants us to simply come before Him and be honest.

If we do that, we are re-opening the door to close fellowship. If we choose to keep Him out of the dark places of our lives, even though He sees them clearly, we are putting up a barrier to fellowship.

David knew this when he prayed:

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
    therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
    wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Fill me with joy and gladness;
    let the bones which thou hast broken rejoice.
Hide thy face from my sins,
    and blot out all my iniquities. (Psalm 51:6-9)

Commit yourself to be honest with God about the dark places of your life from now on.

If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there thy hand shall lead me,
    and thy right hand shall hold me.

Psalm 139 verses 9 and 10 are our reflection for today

Mornings are quickly gone, beginning somewhere way out west even as the pass us by. Yet wherever morning is right now, God is there. Even in the midst of the ocean, there God is.

Jonah discovered that when he ‘took the wings of the morning’ and tried to escape to the west when God told him to go east.

 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. (Jonah 1:3,4)

Have you always been heading in the direction God wanted you to go in? IN this past year have you at any point tried to ignore God’s leading and ended up out of step with Him?

Is there something God is calling you to do in the next year or next season of your life? Use these words from Psalm 37:3-5 to form a prayer today:

Take delight in the Lord,
    and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
    trust in him, and he will act.
He will bring forth your vindication as the light,
    and your right as the noonday.

If I ascend to heaven, thou art there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there!

Today we look at verse 8 of our Psalm

We continue with yesterday’s theme of not being able to escape God’s presence. If we go up to heaven, God is there. If we go to Sheol (the world of the dead, the grave) God is there too. Even on a youth weekend, horrendous though it may be for the leaders, God is there.

You cannot escape from God – does that make you feel good or does it make you feel constrained or restricted?

Tell God how you feel about being unable to flee from Him.

During the last year, have there been times when you have felt God was missing? Have there been times when you felt abandoned?

What does this week’s verses so far tell you about those times?

Are we too ready to rely on how we feel about circumstances rather than absorb the Word of God in those difficult times?

Commit next year to God and resolve to spend more time reading the Bible and praying when things get tough rather than less.