Thought for Today
Psalm 62:7 On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God. 8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah
Mark 4:30 "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
Hebrews 6:17 In the same way, when God desired to show even more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it by an oath, 18 so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible that God would prove false, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to seize the hope set before us.
This morning, before we left for our semi-annual dental checkups, I read the devotional in These Days. For those who do not use this devotional guide, today’s passage reflected on Psalm 62:5-12 and especially vs. 8. The author wrote about a word we do not often hear these days, ‘refuge.’ Yet, we hear more and more in public discourse about those who have taken refuge, refugees. Interestingly, the word refuge appears in our Bible almost 100 times, but, except for Hebrews 6:18, all the usages are in the Old Testament.
I do not believe in coincidences; I do believe in the Bible. Having some limited knowledge of Biblical languages, I tried a search in the Bible of all the suggested English synonyms for refuge: asylum; shelter; retreat; protection; recourse. I found similar results, frequent usages in the Old Testament, almost no usages in the New Testament.
What happened? Did the need for people to seek shelter, to take refuge disappear in our world some time during the interval between Malachi and Matthew? Did the people during what we now think of as being between about 3 BC (or BCE) and 1 AD (or ACE) no longer have to seek refuge from hunger, privation or oppression? Was everything everywhere just ‘hunky dory’ when Jesus appeared on the pitch (playing field) of history? Does that lack of needing to seek refuge from hunger, privation or oppression still exist? Even the most cursory examination of the situation along our southern borders would dispel that illusion. The same is true for myriad national borders around the world. People still need to seek refuge from hunger, privation and oppression.
But this sort of seeking of refuge is not exactly what the Bible is all about. Certainly those sorts of conditions existed numerous times in history and in our Bible. Wars, famines, earthquakes and other calamities caused people to seek refuge. We see that truth play out in the story of Joseph, especially in the famine in Egypt and Canaan.
In a very real sense, however, Christians and Jews are all people seeking refuge. We are people seeking refuge from the ravages of sin and evil. We are people seeking refuge from the expulsion from Eden of the first family. We are people seeking refuge from the impossibility of rectifying our estrangement from our Creator God through our own devices. That is the hope and the promise in the Promised Kinsman Redeemer, in the Messiah, in Christ.
I’m not sure how many times I have referenced Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—” in either these Thoughts or in sermons . . . but, I know the number is large. That gift of our Creator God is the promise of those words of the psalmist “God is a refuge for us.” The only refuge from the estrangement of our disobedience; the only refuge from the separation we have caused through our sins.
The Kingdom of God so frequently mentioned by Jesus is the ultimate attainment in all Creation of everyone and everything seeking refuge in our Creator. I especially love that Kingdom Parable of the Mustard Seed. Each of us has the opportunity with the gift of each day to plant a Kingdom seed, knowing that “when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
Stay safe, plant your Kingdom seed today, trust God,
Pastor Ray