Intro to my blog

Welcome to the blog of Elizabeth Deviney! If you know me, welcome; if you don’t, feel free to get to know me. Most of the posts on this blog will have to do with Christian life, theology, church practice, etc. A few of my posts will focus on happenings in my life or fun stuff like movie reviews.

Meditation on Psalm 89 or The Grief of Holy Saturday

My daily bible reading today took me to Psalm 89. Today is Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday, when Jesus died, and Easter Sunday, when Jesus was resurrected. It is fitting that my psalm today concerns God’s faithfulness to the Davidic covenant even when the current king seems to be rejected by God.

The Psalm begins by recalling God’s love and faithfulness to the line of David. As Christians, we believe that this faithfulness was fulfilled in Christ. The psalm says

Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said:
 “I have granted help to one who is mighty;
 I have exalted one chosen from the people.
 I have found David, my servant;
 with my holy oil I have anointed him,
 so that my hand shall be established with him;
 my arm also shall strengthen him.
 The enemy shall not outwit him;
 the wicked shall not humble him.
 I will crush his foes before him
 and strike down those who hate him.
 My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him,
 and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
 I will set his hand on the sea
 and his right hand on the rivers.
 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father,
 my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’
 And I will make him the firstborn,
 the highest of the kings of the earth.
 My steadfast love I will keep for him forever,
 and my covenant will stand firm for him.
 I will establish his offspring forever
 and his throne as the days of the heavens. (Psalm 89:19-29, ESV)

This is what Jesus’ followers wanted. They wanted to make Jesus the highest king on earth. As their Messiah, they also saw him as part of the Davidic covenant. But they forgot something.


If his children forsake my law
 and do not walk according to my rules,
 if they violate my statutes
 and do not keep my commandments,
 then I will punish their transgression with the rod
 and their iniquity with stripes. (Psalm 89:30-32, ESV)

Jesus did no wrong, but the people had forsaken God. Time and time again, God’s chosen people did not choose him. So Jesus chose to take the punishment.

The Psalm continues


But I will not remove from him my steadfast love
 or be false to my faithfulness.
 I will not violate my covenant
 or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
 Once for all I have sworn by my holiness;
 I will not lie to David.
 His offspring shall endure forever,
 his throne as long as the sun before me.
 Like the moon it shall be established forever,
 a faithful witness in the skies.” (Psalm 89:33-37, ESV)

The psalmist knows that punishment won’t be the end. But in the present time, it is easy to forget. And so he continues

But now you have cast off and rejected;
 you are full of wrath against your anointed.
 You have renounced the covenant with your servant;
 you have defiled his crown in the dust.
 You have breached all his walls;
 you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
 All who pass by plunder him;
 he has become the scorn of his neighbors.
 You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
 you have made all his enemies rejoice.
 You have also turned back the edge of his sword,
 and you have not made him stand in battle.
 You have made his splendor to cease
 and cast his throne to the ground.
 You have cut short the days of his youth;
 you have covered him with shame. How long, O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever?
 How long will your wrath burn like fire?
 Remember how short my time is!
 For what vanity you have created all the children of man!
 What man can live and never see death?
 Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Lord, where is your steadfast love of old,
 which by your faithfulness you swore to David?
 Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked,
 and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations,
 with which your enemies mock, O Lord,
 with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. (Psalm 89:38-51, ESV)

This must have been how the disciples felt. God, why have you forsaken your chosen one? Was he not your anointed? They did not understand that God had not violated his covenant. Jesus would rise again. But on that Saturday, they did not see that. Like the psalmist of old, their grief over the present overwhelmed the promises of God.

We know the outcome. We know that God did fulfill all his promises by raising Jesus from the dead and establishing his offspring, the church, forever. But today, on Holy Saturday, when we anticipate the Resurrection, it is good to remember the grief of the first Holy Saturday before the outcome was certain or the path sure. 


Knowing God

It is very rare that I find people that actually know God. I don’t mean knowing about God or having experienced God. I mean knowing him as a person, an actual living person, like you know a friend or family member or lover.

Even among believers, it’s terribly difficult to find someone who knows God. Plenty of people know about God and they believe what they know, but they don’t know him. Plenty of people have spiritual experiences where they encounter God, but these experiences haven’t transferred into true relationship.

Part of the problem is that people seem to think that knowing about a person means that you know them. But it doesn’t. Facts don’t equal friendship. The essence of a person cannot be quantified or defined. You can only discover that by knowing them face to face, spending time with them. You can only know God by spending time with him daily.

I don’t mean your typical “daily devotions.” I mean talking to God like a real person. Telling him what you really want to say, good and bad, and letting him talk back. Getting to know him the same way you would get to know anyone else, by having conversations of all types, even arguments and disagreements.

Ultimately, knowing God is what being a Christian is all about. It’s not about theology, apologetics, worldview, social justice, politics, morality, spiritual experiences, miracles or even getting into heaven. You can have all these things and never know God. I’m not saying these things are not involved, but they must flow out of knowing God or they will be in vain. He is the center and the source of everything else in the Christian life. Knowing him is the purpose of our existence and the reason for our creation.

As a Christian body, we need to get back to knowing God. Letting our witness, fellowship, doctrine, and practice flow out of knowing him and out of who he is. Only in this way can we get back to what God has made us to do. Only in this way can we break the chains of all the human traditions, all the things we think we are suppossed to be and do but that we can never seem to live up to. We must know God and him alone if we are to understand anything else.

The Unity of God and the Church

So today I was reading about the attributes of God for my Christian Theology class and something in the reading got my brain ticking. The author of our text, Wayne Grudem was discussing the unity of God, which he defined as this: “God is not divided into parts, yet we see different attributes of God emphasized at different times.” (Grudem, Wayne. Bible Doctrine.) He then went on to discuss how we can’t, as limited humans, see all God’s attributes at once and how certain actions of God seem to display certain attributes more than other actions. However, we should never think that all of God’s attributes are not involved in all of his actions. He is still just when he forgives and still merciful when he punishes.

In some ways, God’s unity teaches us about the Church’s unity. The Church, the living body of Christ, also has many different attributes to its nature and many battles have been fought over which of these attributes are the most needed. Yet all of these attributes are needed; all make up the church’s nature. Individual churches may emphasize different aspects at different times (just like God seems to display certain attributes in certain actions), but the whole Church, in its diversity, always holds all the attributes of the body of Christ.