Tuesday: God's People Like Mount Zion

By James Boice

Theme: The Old Testament Pointing to Christ

In this week’s lessons, we see the results that trusting in the Lord brings.

Scripture: Psalm 125:1-5

We concluded yesterday's study with the truth that our security can never be in ourselves or in circumstances. It must always be in God. I think of the Apostle Peter as an illustration. At one point in his life, Peter took his eyes off Jesus, looked at the water on which he was walking and began to sink. He was an insecure man. But there was a later incident in his life in which Jesus taught him what it was to be rock solid. Jesus had asked who the disciples thought he was, and Peter had answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Monday: God's People Like Mount Zion

By James Boice

Theme: Our Security in the Lord

In this week’s lessons, we see the results that trusting in the Lord brings.

Scripture: Psalm 125:1-5

It is the sixth of the Songs of Ascents, and it is speaking of the security believers have in God, even in bad times. It compares them to Mount Zion on which Jerusalem is built. It is bedrock, high and secure. Moreover, it is surrounded by other mountains, which the writer compares to God who likewise surrounds his people. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Friday: If

By James Boice

Theme: Thanksgiving and Praise

In this week’s lessons, we are reminded of the many ways God shows his protective care, and of our privilege to praise him for his goodness.

Scripture: Psalm 124:1-8

Those cries of grateful thanksgiving to God lead to the second half of Psalm 124, which is a declaration of thanks to God for his deliverance. This is what the words “praise be to the LORD,” which begin the second stanza, mean. They mean “thank you." We praise God because we are thankful to him for his many spiritual and material deliverances. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Thursday: If

By James Boice

Theme: Examples of God’s Preservation

In this week’s lessons, we are reminded of the many ways God shows his protective care, and of our privilege to praise him for his goodness.

Scripture: Psalm 124:1-8

If the Lord had not been on our side, we should never have escaped the snares our enemies set for us. And those are only external, physical things! What about sin and its punishment? What if God had not intervened to save us from sin by the death of Jesus Christ? If Jesus had not died in our place, taking our punishment upon himself, we would be under God's just wrath and judgment and would surely suffer for our sins forever. Instead, we can say, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Wednesday: If

By James Boice

Theme: If God Were Not on Our Side

In this week’s lessons, we are reminded of the many ways God shows his protective care, and of our privilege to praise him for his goodness.

Scripture: Psalm 124:1-8

The chief reason for the beauty of this psalm is the power of the six images that occur here, one upon another, in answer to the question: "What if?" 

Sometimes our troubles are like that. It is not so much a question of being submerged by troubles, buried by them, as we might say. It is more like being hit by a truck, which crushes us by its great weight, leaving us mangled by the roadside while it disappears on down the highway. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Tuesday: If

By James Boice

Theme: Images of Trouble

In this week’s lessons, we are reminded of the many ways God shows his protective care, and of our privilege to praise him for his goodness.

Scripture: Psalm 124:1-8

Psalm 124 is a beautiful and moving psalm, and the chief reason is the power of the images that occur here one upon another. There are six of them. Most occur in the poem's first half, which asks the question: “What if?” What would our fate have been “if the LORD had not been on our side”? Indeed—let Israel say it—“What would our fate have been?”

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Monday: If

By James Boice

Theme: Praise for God’s Protecting Care

In this week’s lessons, we are reminded of the many ways God shows his protective care, and of our privilege to praise him for his goodness.

Scripture: Psalm 124:1-8

I am one of those people who love English poetry, and over the years I have tried to memorize a good bit of it. One of the poems I have tried to memorize but have not succeeded in memorizing completely is “If” by Rudyard Kipling. The first part begins like this:

This psalm is a wonderful praise statement of the Lord's protecting care of Israel when the people were faced by some great national calamity. But it is also for us. It is what we would call theologically a statement of God's wonderful perseverance with his saints. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Friday: Looking Up

By James Boice

Theme: Pressing on in Obedience

In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to lift our eyes to the Lord, remembering his mercy, and striving to please him in all things.

Scripture: Psalm 123:1-4

Let me suggest here that the only thing that will ever lift you out of your sin and complacency, put you on the pilgrim trail, and keep you there throughout life is a profound awareness of the mercy and grace of God. 

Let me suggest here that the only thing that will ever lift you out of your sin and complacency, put you on the pilgrim trail, and keep you there throughout life is a profound awareness of the mercy and grace of God. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Thursday: Looking Up

By James Boice

Theme: Our Need for God’s Mercy

In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to lift our eyes to the Lord, remembering his mercy, and striving to please him in all things.

Scripture: Psalm 123:1-4

Earlier in this study I pointed out that Psalm 123 might be called a psalm for the eyes because the word "eyes” occurs four times. It is the dominant word in the first of the psalm's two stanzas. At this point we can equally well call attention to the word “mercy.” It occurs three times (once in verse 2 and twice in verse 3), not four, as is the case with "eyes.” But it is the dominant word in the second stanza, just as “eyes” was the dominant word earlier. In fact, mercy is the most important word in the psalm, because it is the occasion for the psalm. It is that for which the psalmist is praying. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

Wednesday: Looking Up

By James Boice

Theme: When Opposition Comes

In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to lift our eyes to the Lord, remembering his mercy, and striving to please him in all things.

Scripture: Psalm 123:1-4

The account in Nehemiah 4 tells of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. The leaders of the surrounding people, however, had begun to oppose it. These hostile leaders were headed by Sanballat and Tobiah. Each of Sanballat's five rhetorical questions and Tobiah’s taunts strike at a legitimate sense of weakness that Nehemiah and the others must have had. 

Think and Act Biblically from James Boice is a devotional of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. It is supported only by its readers and gracious Christians like you. Please prayerfully consider supporting Think and Act Biblically and the mission of the Alliance.

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