February 19, 2019
Psalm 50:21-23
When you did these things and I kept silent,
    you thought I was exactly like you.
But I now arraign you
    and set my accusations before you. “Consider this, you who forget God,
    or I will tear you to pieces, with no one to rescue you:
 Those who sacrifice thank offerings honor me,
    and to the blameless I will show my salvation.”
New International Version (NIV)
What is God really like?  Do you ever wonder?  One philosopher quipped, “God made man in his own image and man has been trying to return the favor ever since".

Praying the Psalms is teaching me to pray, one psalm a day. This Psalm paints a powerful portrait of God, summoning the earth to judgment.  He makes it clear that he is not waiting on us to do something for him.  God, alone, is self-sufficient. 

Later, as God takes his people to task for sins like stealing, adultery and slander he reveals the essential problem:  we sin because we wrongly think that God is just like us.  We would be wrong to think that God is really ok with the sins of his people.  God certainly knows our limitations, but he does not thereby endorse them as understandable. 

Hebrews 12:29 says our God is a consuming fire.  He is not to be trifled with or trivialized or domesticated to suit our purposes.  Instead, he is to be worshiped.  When we worship God in the “beauty of his holiness” (Psalm 96) we come to discover that he is not becoming like us, but he wants to make us like himself and restore the image which was distorted in the fall. 

God will never be “just like us” but he wants us to become like him.  So he sent his only Son to redeem us and his Spirit to restore us.  As we are transformed in his likeness, the sins common to our culture begin to fall away from us as we draw closer to him.  We are not “ok” with our sin, because he is not.  We receive his grace and turn from our sin to God.
Pray with me:    
Father, we worship you today in the beauty of your holiness.  We yield our lives, our whole walking, talking, breathing every day lives to your higher purpose.  Lord please don’t ever stop working your perfect will in us.  Conform us to the image of your Son so that more and more people see Jesus in us in all that we say and do.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.
This year our Every Day with Jesus readings will follow The Bible Project Read Scripture Plan.  Copies of this reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download 
the app at readscripture.org.  Read through the Bible with us in 2019!
Joyfully, 
Duane 
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