Gary Gleans

Dear Readers, over the next week I will be traveling to speak in a couple of churches in another state. I am not sure what kind of access I will have to the internet so my posts may be very sporadic next week.  Thanks for your prayers and your patience.

Crying out to the Lord in the face of distress and difficult circumstances is really the most logical course of action that we can take.  It is not that God is unaware of our plight so we need to inform Him; it is that when we cry out to God we acknowledge His sovereign control over us.  Crying out to the Lord puts us in the proper place before God.  We often seem to believe that God somehow needs our prayers in order to know something or act on something.  This is simply wrong thinking about God and wrong thinking about prayer.  God does not need anything and His omniscience as well as His omnipotence are very secure whether or not we pray.  We pray because we need to pray and because God commanded us to pray.  Praying honors God and brings great blessing to our lives because it places us humbly before the Lord. IN PRAYER WE RECOGNIZE OUR REALITY: When we pray we often find ourselves telling God about our situation.  God does not need us to tell Him about our circumstances, He al

Governments and authorities have a purpose.  God has established them with a specific role in mind and with a mandate from Him as to what He expects from them.  Authorities have a tendency to think that as leaders they are responsible to define direction for themselves and those that are under their leadership.  God has not given them the right to determine their purpose or direction.  God has clearly ordained them to accomplish what He has determined and not given them the freedom or authority to determine their own job description.  God holds all men accountable for doing what He has determined that they should do. LEADERS HAVE A JOB: God establishes human leaders to represent Him on the earth.  They are to be impartial representatives of God’s glory on earth.  They are to punish the wicked, protect those who are obedient and provide for the poor and needy.  This is what God has assigned as the responsibility of all human governments.  Unfortunately there are many human leaders

There are a few basic principles that the Lord expects of His people.  These are responsibilities that we are expected to fulfill if we are going to please the Lord with our lives.  Our walk with God is not a complicated one; it simply comes down to worship and obedience.  We were created to worship the Lord with our lives and we have been instructed to obey the commandments of Scripture.  Failure to do this is simply stubbornness and sinfulness.  There are great rewards and satisfaction associated with living our lives in worship and obedience. PRAISE THE WORKS OF THE LORD: The Lord had taken Israel from slavery in Egypt and set them free to prosper in a rich land that they were given by God.  They had been set free by God who had heard and answered their prayers and pleas for help.  Now it was their responsibility and joy to be able to lift their voices and play their instruments in songs of praise to the Lord.  God delights in the praise of His people.  Out tendency is to be mu

Prayer is the primary resource that we have when we are in difficult situations.  God may allow us to face hard times but He is also our greatest source of hope for being restored from the hard times.  Our natural tendency when under distress may be for us to turn from the Lord or become bitter against the Lord or blame the Lord; all of these responses are futile.  The proper response is to cry out to the Lord for help.  He knows our situation and He is capable of resolving it according to His will.  Prayer places us in a position of surrender to the will of God and forces us to acknowledge Him in the midst of our trials instead of blaming Him.  When a child has been disciplined by his parent, he desires to turn his back, stomp his feet, stick out his bottom lip and pout.  This attitude will only bring further discipline and more hardship for this child.  The best thing for this child to do is recognize his disobedience, love his father for correcting him and then running into his fat

God’s judgment on the nation of Israel left both God and Israel in a very uncomfortable position.  It made Israel uncomfortable for obvious reasons since they were taken captive and their soldiers were lying dead on the streets of Jerusalem.  It made God uncomfortable because these were His chosen people and His glory was irrevocably linked to the children of Israel.  A captive and defeated Israel was an embarrassment to the name of God.  Sin is like that; it complicates everything for everyone including God.  If God does not judge His children when they sin; He is permitting disobedience to the point of promoting it.  If God does judge them; His children are put to shame and the name of the Lord is criticized in the nations.  God may tolerate sin for a period of time, but that does not mean that He excuses it.  He is patient and merciful but sin must be judged.  He is far more concerned with the holiness of His people than He is about the opinions of others.  Israel made the critical

Remembering is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to us and it is one of the most important gifts that we exercise if we want to live our lives in a way that will please the Lord.  Of course there are some things that we should strive to forget like the sins of others against us and the impure thoughts that plague our memories.  However, we are to do all within our power to remember the commandments of God as well as the works of God on our behalf.  The consequences of failing to remember are almost always disobedience, ingratitude and eventually idolatry that leads to God’s judgment.  In this Psalm Asaph takes us through the history of Israel from the time God freed her from Egypt up until the time that David became king.  Unfortunately we see a constant theme repeating itself over and over again because Israel refused to remember. THEY REFUSED TO REMEMBER GOD’S PRECEPTS: When God set the children of Israel free from Egypt, the first thing He did was to give them the La

There will be days that are troublesome to us.  There are times that we will feel like we cannot go forward and that there is no hope for the future.  It is during these times that we must learn to seek the Lord with all of our hearts and cry out to Him.  Both day and night we must call upon the Lord to help us and to transform our thinking.  Even though we seek the Lord during these difficult times, we must be prepared to feel as though God is distant and does not care.  There will be times when we will not find comfort immediately.  Every fiber of our being will simply tell us that trusting the Lord is useless.  Our souls will moan and our spirits will grow tired of waiting on the Lord.  We must not expect that our walk with the Lord will always be easily understood and comfortable. WE MAY FEEL ABANDONED BY THE LORD: During times that we are depressed or afflicted we are the most vulnerable to the feelings the Lord has somehow abandoned us or does not care.  We feel that we are

God is great!  There is nobody who can stand against Him in battle and nobody who can stand before Him in judgment.  All of His foes will be vanquished and all of mankind we bow before Him when He judges the earth.  These truths must be constantly reviewed by every one of us if we hope to live in such a way that is pleasing to Him.  It is easy for us to be fearful of the power of men and to forget the reality of His coming judgment.  However, this is a grave mistake.  We must never allow the fear of man to control our lives and we must never lose sight of the fact that all of us will give an account to the Lord for our deeds as well as our motives. GOD’S PROTECTION IS TO BE KNOWN: The works of the Lord should be loudly proclaimed for all to hear.  His protection and provision for His people should be broadcast to all of man-kind.  Israel was under constant attack by her enemies, but they were soundly defeated by the power of God.  God broke their arrows, removed their shield of pr

The judgment of God on the earth should be a motive of thanksgiving in our lives.  When we look back on what God has done in the past and we look forward to what God has promised to do in the future, our hearts should be filled with thanksgiving.  The fact that we can trust in the Lord and wait on the Lord to do what is right so that we do not need to take matters into our own hands should make us be thankful.  God’s ways are awesome and mighty; He deserves our praise and thanksgiving. GOD WILL JUDGE WHEN HE SEES FIT: The time of God’s judgment is according to His own determination.  That time has been set and God has appointed it unto Himself.  God holds the pillars of the earth in His hands.  The very foundations of the earth are set on Him.  He can do what He wants whenever He wants to do it.  This leaves all of mankind without any reason to boast and without any ability to be proud.  We are all to stand humbly before the Lord and to rest in His gracious care or fear His just j

God’s judgment does not always work in the way and at the time that we expect it to.  In our minds the wicked men who do not fear God and who blaspheme against God should be judged immediately.  We know that God is capable of doing that at any time so it is hard for us to understand why He would delay in taking this action.  In reality God will often use evil men and nations to discipline His own children in times of disobedience.  Israel often fell in battle to very perverse nations that had committed evils far greater than Israel’s disobedience.  However, God’s requirements for His children are greater than those of pagan nations.  God may choose to allow a wicked nation to take His children captive and destroy the house of the Lord as a means of disciplining His children and also as a means of judging the victorious nation when God decides to restore His children and rebuild the nation.  God is in control and does know what He is doing. GOD’S JUDGMENT MAY BE DELAYED: God’s disc

It is possible for good and godly men to become discouraged, overwhelmed by doubts and even question the validity of his faith.  This will not be a permanent condition but it can certainly be a temporary one.  We may find ourselves in situations where we take our eyes off of the Lord and His Word and become distracted by the difficulties that are surrounding us.  We live in a sin cursed world in the midst of sinful people who often seem to prosper in ways the often elude those who love and follow God.  When we recognize this fact and we and start comparing the lives of the sinful with the lives of the righteous we will begin to question the validity of obedience and even the justice of God.  The solution is to look to the Lord and understand that His judgments are always right and that there is LIFE beyond this life.  When we find ourselves wondering of the rewards of obedience are worth it we need to look beyond today. THE SINFUL SEEM TO PROSPER: It should not surprise us that si

We are called to pray for many things in the Scripture.  The Bible tells us to pray for the governing authorities that the Lord has established.  We are to pray for our children as well as the poor and needy.  God wants us to pray for the nations of the world to come and worship the Lord.  We are also instructed to pray for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ and His kingdom.  This Psalm seems to be a fulfillment of these instructions.  David is clearly praying for the king to experience the blessing of God as well as for him to have the mind of God.  It also appears that David is praying for his son, Solomon to be the recipient of theses blessings.  However, the description of the king seems to fit perfectly with the coming kingdom of Jesus, also known as the Son of David.  The nations of the earth clearly benefit from the answer to this prayer. A PRAYER FOR THE KING TO BE PRUDENT: It takes a great deal of prudence and wisdom to be able to judge a nation in righteousness.  Justic

Growing old is one of those things that is hard for us to do gracefully.  We don’t like to admit that we are old and, like every stage in our lives, we don’t have any previous personal experience from which we can draw.  In old age we face many unique fears.  We fear being alone while at the same time we fear being a burden on our children.  We fear illness and the unknown realities of death.  When we are old, all of the consequences of our failures seem to mount up and we can easily look back with regret on our lives and wish that we could do things differently.  However, the key to growing old gracefully is not to focus on our fears or the failures of the past but to focus on the Lord and to praise Him for His faithfulness throughout our lives.  David recognizes God’s protection and provision from his youth all the way through to the days when his hair turned grey. WE PRAISE GOD BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN OUR REFUGE: One of the glories of old age is having many memories.  These memorie

Waiting is one of the hardest things for us to do, especially when we are in some sort of trouble.  However, God’s timing often seems to be askew from that which we expect or desire.  It always seems that we are in a bigger hurry for God to take action than He is in to take action.  This Psalm begins and ends with repeated pleas for God to hasten His help without delay.  We all know what it feels like to be waiting of the Lord.  In fact what usually happens is that while we think we are waiting for God to take action our problems are resolved and it seems to us that God never took action at all.  God rarely acts in the way and timing that we expect. GOD IS OUR DELIVERER: God truly is our only reliable source of hope.  Other people may be the instruments of help in our lives, but they are always held in the hands of our Lord.  He is the true source of our deliverance.  Even though God may seem like He is not in a hurry or the His help is somehow delayed, He is often working in ways

There will be times that we will become overwhelmed with the circumstances of our lives and the trials that we may have to face because of the sinfulness of men.  When this happens, we really only have one thing that we can do; which is to call out to the Lord to save us.  He is our only true source of hope.  There are those who are evil and hate the Lord as well as the servants of the Lord.  The suffering that they cause to those who love and fear the Lord may be very great, but we must not despair.  Instead, we must learn to call out to the Lord, wait for the Lord, trust Him to do what is right and then praise Him for His gracious provision. WE MUST CALL ON THE LORD: It is of utmost importance that we remember and recognize that we are not sufficient in and of ourselves to live our lives on the earth.  We do not have what is necessary to overcome the trials that we may be called to face in life.  However, we do have a great and gracious God who is more than capable of handling w

God is to be exalted and praise because of who He is as well as what He does.  He has demonstrated His greatness throughout the history of the World and He continues to do so even today.  Those who love Him, follow Him and trust Him will experience a true and lasting joy that can only be found in Him.  This joy produces praise and worship of the Lord.  However, not all men love the Lord.  There are many who hate God and stubbornly refuse to recognize His greatness.  They resent the Lord and will not submit to Him.  These wicked men demonstrate their hatred of God by attacking those who love and fear the Lord.  This is the reality in which we live.  We are constantly in the sights and under the attack of godless men.  But we are also constantly under the care of our glorious Lord who floods our hearts with joy and fills our mouths with praise. WE PRAISE GOD FOR HIS PROTECTION: There are many enemies of God who always end up being the enemies of God’s people.  This reality can easil

Blessed to be a blessing; this is the theme of the children of God in all generations.  God blesses us so that we might be a blessing to the nations so that they might experience the joy of praising and worshipping the Lord.   Missions is the overflow of God’s blessing on us so that others might be blessed through us in order that God might be blessed by all of us.  This becomes a vicious circle of blessing and praise to the Lord.  Unfortunately, the children of God have historically been hoarders of God’s blessings; in that they gladly receive and earnestly pray for God’s blessing but they have been very reluctant to use those blessings in order to bless the nations.  Instead, they use the blessings of God to inflate their own egos and thumb their noses at the surrounding nations.  This is a recipe for disaster that will only bring about sadness and sorrow.  God’s way is the way of gladness and glory. LET THE PEOPLE PRAISE GOD: God’s graciousness to His children is His greatest g

Our lives are to be a constant anthem of praise to the Lord.  We are called to shout for joy to Him and to praise His holy name in all the nations of the world.  His deeds on the earth are awesome and the glory of His name is to be praised by all inhabitants of the earth.  We are to worship God with every breath that we have and our mouths are to be full of songs of praise to Him.  We are to invite people to observe the things that the Lord has done and then join us in praising Him for His wonderful work in the world. COME AND SEE GOD’S POWER: God has demonstrated His power over and over again through the lives of His children.  He opened to Red Sea so that they could escape from Egypt and then He opened the Jordan River so that they might enter the Promised Land.  This observation is cause for great rejoicing and praise.  God is able to set us free from the chains of sin and He is able to keep us free in the land of liberty that He provides through Christ.  Even though there may

God is worth of our praise and our worship because of the abundant blessings that He grants to His children.  We should gladly obey Him and fulfill all of our promises to Him because He is faithful to us through every step of the way.  We respond to His goodness, grace and generosity with gratitude.  We do not deserve His abundant provision; but He certainly deserves our adoration and praise.  David gives us three very good reasons to praise the Lord. GOD SAVES US FROM OUR SIN: Certainly our greatest need and by far the most important reason for us to praise the Lord is that He saves us from our sin.  We can be forgiven of all our sin and iniquity by God’s glorious grace.  God hears our prayers and is able to answer them.  He atones for our sin so that we can be free of guilt.  God chooses us and draws us close to Himself.  We can find full and complete satisfaction in the presence of God.  The very least that we can do is allow our hearts to overflow with gratitude and our mouths