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Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. – Acts 17:16
Psalm 115:1 identifies the glory of God as the motivation of a true Christian’s heart and life. The Apostle Paul demonstrated this motivation throughout his post-conversion life, but it’s clearest in his trip to Athens (Acts 17:16-34). There we find that he was not merely disturbed by the cultural practices of the Athenians. He was grieved by the city’s many idols and the fact that the worship and glory due to the true God was being given to the false gods the idols represented. Paul, no doubt, knew Psalm 115:4-8. He knew the idols’ emptiness: they had mouths but could not speak, eyes but could not see, ears but could not hear, and hands but could not feel. They were the work of human hands, yet the Athenians worshipped them, nonetheless. The contrast between the true and living God and the idols couldn’t have been greater. The living God of the Bible is worthy of all glory and honor, while the idols are powerless substitutes who can neither save nor satisfy longing hearts.
Our culture may not fill its temples with statues in the same way the ancient Athenians did, but idolatry remains very much alive today. We can give ultimate value to money, success, pleasure, politics, possessions, reputation, relationships, and even ourselves. Anything that occupies God’s ultimate place in our lives becomes an idol. As we saw Sunday, Psalm 115 calls us to see the idols around us with both discernment and compassion. The goal is not merely to identify what is wrong with the world, but to proclaim the greatness of the living God who alone deserves our worship. Where idols receive glory that belongs to God, may our hearts be provoked toward faithful witness, prayer, and a renewed commitment to give God glory above all. That’s how Paul reacted in Athens. Will you follow suit today?
Suggested Scripture Readings
Questions for Reflection
Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness! – Psalm 115:1
Psalm 115:1 reminds us that the central aim of the Christian life is not our recognition, success, or reputation, but the glory of God: “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory.” The Psalmist deliberately turns our attention away from ourselves and toward our Lord. We are naturally tempted to seek credit for what we accomplish, praise for what we do, and recognition from others. Yet everything we have and everything we accomplish ultimately depends upon God’s grace and providence. To give God glory above all means that we learn to see our lives as instruments for displaying His greatness. Our work, worship, service, and suffering should point beyond ourselves to the One who deserves the praise.
This commitment to God’s glory requires a daily reorientation of our hearts. We should regularly ask not merely, “What do I want?” or “What will make me successful?” Rather, we should ask, “How can I honor the Lord in this endeavor?” Jesus teaches us to let our light shine so that others may see our good works and “give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). The Westminster Shorter Catechism captures this calling beautifully: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” When God’s glory becomes our highest pursuit, our lives find their proper direction. We become less concerned with being noticed and more concerned with making Christ known.
Suggested Scripture Readings
Questions for Reflection
“Why do you flee, O sea? Why do you turn back, O Jordan? Why do you skip like rams, O mountains, like lambs?” — Psalm 114:5–6
The psalmist displays his sense of humor as he describes creation reacting to the presence of God in Psalm 114:5-6. You can hear him chuckle as he asks the sea why it fled and the Jordan River why it turned back. Certainly, he knows why the sea flees, the Jordan turns back, and the mountains skip like startled animals. His point is not that creation is literally dancing and running away, but that everything in creation responds to our sovereign Lord. If even the mountains and seas must yield to God, how much more should we learn to rest in His sovereignty? We often live as though everything depends upon us — our plans, our decisions, our work, our ability to control circumstances. Psalm 114 reminds us that God is God, and we are not. Sometimes faithfulness means knowing when to work diligently and when simply to take a breath and trust the Lord.
Resting in God’s sovereignty is not laziness or indifference but expressed confidence in His providence. Because God reigns, we do not have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. We can faithfully fulfill the responsibilities He has given us while entrusting the results to Him. In a culture that constantly tells us to hurry, achieve, worry, and control, the Christian can live differently: work faithfully, pray earnestly, enjoy God’s good gifts, and rest confidently in His sovereign care.
Additional Scripture Readings
Reflection Questions
When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. – Psalm 114:1-2
Psalm 114 celebrates the mighty acts God did to deliver His people from slavery in Egypt to a life of freedom in the Promised Land. The psalm pictures their exodus from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea and Jordan River, and God’s presence at Sinai. These events are so extraordinary that the Psalmist describes the sea as fleeing, the Jordan turning back, and the mountains trembling at the presence of our Lord. By reminding us of these events, the psalm calls us to remember that Israel’s salvation was not the work of human strength, cleverness, or ingenuity. No, it was the work of the living God who rules over creation and delivers His people in His grace. The same God who redeemed Israel has accomplished an even greater salvation for us in Jesus Christ. He defeated sin and death and secured our redemption at the cross and empty tomb. Psalm 114, therefore, teaches us to look backward with thankful hearts as we worship the God whose saving works reveal His power, faithfulness, and covenant love. At the same time, our backward gaze emboldens our hearts with confidence, assuring us that He will indeed fulfill all of His promises.
If you are like me, then this psalm is for you. Often, we are tempted to face our present difficulties and challenges as though our circumstances are greater than our God. But this psalm reminds us of what God has already done. He made the Red Sea flee and the Jordan River stand still. Likewise, He sustains His church, keeps His promises, and works all things according to His providence. When fear, uncertainty, suffering, or temptation confront us, we can look back upon God’s saving acts and trust Him with what lies ahead. Our Christian faith is strengthened by remembering that God has saved His people and continues to preserve us unto eternity.
Additional Scripture Readings
Questions for Reflection
“He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people.” — Psalm 113:7-8
Psalm 113 celebrates the astonishing grace of God toward those who have nothing to offer Him. The Lord stoops to lift the poor and needy from the dust and the ash heap—not merely to improve their circumstances, but to give them a place among His covenant people. This points us ultimately to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Spiritually, every one of us was helpless, dead in sin, and unable to save ourselves (Ephesians 2:1–5). Yet God, in His mercy, has raised us with Christ and given us an inheritance among His saints. What God has done for us by grace, He continues to do as the gospel is proclaimed and sinners are brought from death to life through faith in Christ.
Because God delights to exalt the humble, we should delight in making His saving grace known to others. Our Lord has ordained that the gospel of Christ be proclaimed to every nation. While doing this, we trust that He will draw His elect to Himself through the preaching of the gospel (Romans 10:14–17). Evangelism is not an attempt to persuade God to save, but a joyful participation in His redeeming work as we invite others to receive the mercy that has been freely given to us. As those who have been lifted from the ash heap of sin, let us gladly bear witness to Christ, praying that God would use our faithful words to raise many more into the joy and fellowship of His kingdom.
Additional Scripture Readings
Questions for Reflection
Universal Praise from a Catholic Church
“From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised.”
– Psalm 113:3
The Psalmist lifts our eyes beyond the borders of our own congregation, nation, or generation in Psalm 113. As the sun rises in one part of the world and sets in another, the praise of Yahweh is never meant to cease. This verse anticipates the worldwide kingdom of Christ, in which men and women “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9) gather to worship the one true God. The church is catholic—not Roman Catholic, but universal—united across continents, cultures, and centuries by a common faith in Jesus Christ. Every Lord’s Day we join our brothers and sisters in the chorus of praise that began long before our time and will continue until Christ returns.
This truth should enlarge both our worship and our prayers. We are not isolated believers but members of Christ’s one body, joined to faithful saints across the globe who confess the same gospel and gather around the same ordinary means of grace—the preaching of the Word, the sacraments, and prayer. As we praise God in our gatherings, we do so alongside brothers and sisters worshiping in different languages, under different circumstances, because we possess the same Savior and hope in faith. Let Psalm 113:3 remind us that our worship is part of a worldwide testimony to the glory of God, as the name of the Lord is exalted from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Additional Readings: Psalm 67
Ephesians 2:11-22
Questions for Reflection:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
— Philippians 2:3-4
How are we to strengthen the bonds of Christ within the Church and between other Christians and us? Paul said to do it humbly in Christ. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” This kind of humility is not natural to us — it flows from sharing in Christ’s love and being transformed by His grace. The example of such humility is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was in the form of God, emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant and humbling Himself to the point of death on a cross. The mind of Christ flows from His heart and is seen in His willingness to set aside status and rights for the sake of others, motivated by love and obedience to the Father.
We are to adopt this same posture in our daily lives as we follow Him. We examine the motives for everything we do. Do we seek recognition or serve without concern for the praise of others? Do we listen to other people instead of insisting on our own way? Do we seek others’ good even if it costs the enjoyment of our own good? Are we gentle and patient with other people? Humility causes us to remember the grace we have received in Christ and rely on the Spirit to reconfigure our attitudes. Walking in Christ’s self-giving love glorifies God in our relationships and actions.
Prayer: Providential Lord, You saved me to reflect Your glory on the earth. However, I do not do it because I am concerned with my recognition while insisting on my own way. Forgive me and give me Your grace to walk humbly as Christ walked.
Reflection Questions:
Weekly Memory Verse: Trust the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. — Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. — Proverbs 3:5-6
Solomon instructed his sons to rely upon God wholeheartedly when he told them to “Trust the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” This wise statement confronts our instinct to depend on our limited perspective on life. To trust God with all our heart means placing full confidence in His character when circumstances are unclear. He is wise; He is good; and He is faithful. We must rely upon Him to be all those things because we are not. Love for God grows as we humbly learn to surrender our need for control and to rest in His perfect guidance, rather than leaning on our own limited understanding.
Verse 6 is as challenging as its predecessor — “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Our trust is not passive. We express it through active dependence in every area of life. This means that we seek God through prayer, ground our decisions in Scripture, and submit our plans to His revealed will. It also involves choosing obedience when His way seems difficult or counterintuitive. As we acknowledge Him daily, God faithfully directs our steps, one at a time. A life of trust becomes a daily walk of faith, shaped by confidence in the Lord rather than reliance on ourselves.
Prayer: Unchangeable Father, instead of trusting You with all my heart, I lean on my own understanding. Forgive me in Your grace. Teach me to walk in Your paths and enable me to lead others in them as well.
Reflection Questions:
Weekly Memory Verse: Trust the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. — Proverbs 3:5-6
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. — Galatians 5:22
The fruit of faith in the Bible is always equated with the character traits of Christians. In Galatians 5:22, Paul listed the nine most familiar of those character traits in the New Testament. He said that the Holy Spirit works love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. By definition, then, these are not traits that we manufacture through sheer effort. Rather, they are naturally produced in our lives by the Holy Spirit and come from a living connection to Jesus. They are proof that God is at work within us, transforming us from the inside out.
Daily surrender to Christ and attentiveness to the Spirit’s leading are essential to cultivating these nine traits. We saturate our lives with God’s Word, responding quickly in repentance when we sin, and choosing obedience in the small, ordinary moments of life. This means we have to be patient with the process, for fruit takes time to grow. As we yield to the Spirit, He reshapes our desires and empowers us to live in ways that honor God and bless others, allowing us to display consistent character that points beyond ourselves to Christ. In this way, the fruit of the Spirit becomes a testimony of God’s grace and a means of reflecting His love in the world.
Prayer: Kind Savior, thank You for transforming my life in Your grace. Work Your grace in my life to enable me to bear the fruits of the Spirit so others will see Your love in me. Bring them to Yourself.
Reflection Questions:
Weekly Memory Verse: As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? — Psalm 42:1-2
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another… — Colossians 2:12-13a
Chapter 3 provides a transition in Paul’s letter to the Colossians as he shifts from a theological discussion of the centrality of Jesus’s death for the salvation of sinners to the proper application of our new life in His resurrection. Verse 1 reads, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” For Paul, this new life is like new clothes we should “put on.” They are stitched with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. These virtues are not natural dispositions, but the outworking of a heart transformed by grace. At the center of them all is love, “which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” Our identity in Christ becomes the foundation for how we live.
Putting on the qualities of Christ is like clothing ourselves each morning; we have to consciously choose to do it in daily practice. Each morning, we begin by remembering who we are in Christ and ask him to shape us accordingly. We bear with others. We extend forgiveness as we have been forgiven. We respond to others gently rather than harshly. To do this, we look for opportunities to serve and encourage others, even when it is inconvenient. As we do this consistently, our love for God grows and governs our attitudes and interactions. In this way, the love of Christ is increasingly displayed through us.
Prayer: Life-transforming Spirit, I don’t put on the new life I have in Christ every day. Forgive me, and help me learn to be comfortable in the new life of love You gave me so that I may be compassionate, kind, and patient.
Reflection Question:
Weekly Memory Verse: As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? — Psalm 42:1-2
