Thursday: Joy Comes in the Morning
Daily Lesson for Thursday 28th of March 2024
Read Psalms 5:3, Psalms 30:5, Psalms 49:14, Psalms 59:16, Psalms 92:2, Psalms 119:147, 2 Peter 1:19, and Revelation 22:16. What time of day is symbolically portrayed as the time of divine redemption and why?
In the Psalms, morning is typically the time when God’s redemption is anticipated. Morning reveals God’s favor, which ends the long night of despair and trouble (Psalms 130:5-6).
Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com
In Psalms 143:1-12, God’s deliverance will reverse the present darkness of death (Psalms 143:3) into the light of a new morning (Psalms 143:8), and from being in the pit (Psalms 143:7) into residing in “the land of uprightness” (Psalms 143:10).
Read Mark 16:1-8. What happened in the morning talked about here, and why is that so important to us?
The resurrection morning of Jesus Christ opened the way for the eternal morning of God’s salvation for all who believe in His name. Jesus’ disciples experienced the full strength of the promise in Psalms 30:5: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” when they met the resurrected Lord. It is only by God’s favor and unconditional love that our weeping is transformed to joy (Psalms 30:5,7).
As the morning star announces the birth of a new day, so faith heralds the new reality of eternal life in God’s children (2 Peter 1:19). Jesus is called the bright and morning star (Revelation 22:16), whom we eagerly await to establish His kingdom in which there will be no more night, evil, and death (Revelation 21:1-8,25). In the end, more than anything else, this is what we are waiting for when we talk about waiting on the Lord. And, surely, the wait is worth it.
“Over the rent sepulcher of Joseph, Christ had proclaimed in triumph, ‘I am the resurrection, and the life.’ These words could be spoken only by the Deity. All created beings live by the will and power of God. They are dependent recipients of the life of God. From the highest seraph to the humblest animate being, all are replenished from the Source of life. Only He who is one with God could say, I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again. In His divinity, Christ possessed the power to break the bonds of death.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 785.
Death, it has been said, has been etched in our cells at birth. Though true, at least for us fallen beings, what has the resurrection of Jesus promised us about the temporality of death? Why must we never forget just how temporal death is for us?
(16)
I am one of those people who usually wake up before sunrise. I guess it is a legacy of the dairy farm days when we had an early start to do the milking before breakfast. While I am quite glad that I don't have to milk the cows any more, I enjoy seeing the sunrise; from the first crimson rays sneaking across the sky, to the little cusps of golden copper on the clouds, to the final full blaze of sunlight at it sweeps the shadows out of the valleys. I will let you into a little secret. Colourful sunrises are much better than colourful sunsets.
The sunrise has been used as a metaphor for the resurrection countless times in both the Psalms and elsewhere. It represents a new beginning. Artists often represent the second coming as Jesus coming through what appears to be a spectacular golden sunrise.
I am reminded though that painting pictures and using metaphors does not capture the real sense of what it will be like. If we want to communicate that sense of morning to our secular friends we need to give them much more than pictures.
Jesus said:
Why must we never forget just how temporal death is for us?
(1 Thessalonians 4: 13 - 14)
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
In life it is either we go left or we go right. The drama of the great controversy is playing itself, we are the stage where this drama is taking place but we don't look at the stage we look at what is happening on the stage. What we must always remember is that when two bulls fight the grass suffered. The good thing is we know christ has conquered death and became the first born of the death.
As Paul's epistle was opened and read, great joy and consolation was brought to the church by the words revealing the true state of the dead. Paul showed that those living when Christ should come would not go to meet their Lord in advance of those who had fallen asleep in Jesus. . . . Now they rejoiced in the knowledge that their believing friends would be raised from the grave to live forever in the kingdom of God. The darkness that had enshrouded the resting place of the dead was dispelled. A new splendor crowned the Christian faith, and they saw a new glory in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.{AA 258, 259}
(John 11:26) And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Our part is to believe, many times Jesus had to deal with the issue of unbelief.
Life may take us to three different situations:
1) eternal life (in case we don't die);
2) death; and after this death, we may take two other ways: a) resurrection to eternal life or
b) resurrection to eternal death.
The way we live now is what counts for our future destiny. Jesus' death is the fact that forever consolidated humanity's freedom of choice. We did not choose to be born but can decide what's next and infinite.
I consider 2 Peter 1:19 and Rev.22:16 as a reflection of my personal experience after having ‘learned about God’s Truth’ from Scripture, believing it to be true as the 'morning star rose in my heart' in response to my faith.
Jesus declares Himself to be the ‘Morning Star’, which Peter states will ‘rise in our hearts’. Personally, I look at these two passages as a metaphor for 'being born again' - experiencing the Morning Star as He rises in our heart through the Holy Spirit.
My ‘joy comes in the morning’ as soon as I wake up and humbly thank Jesus for His loving faithfulness toward our heavenly Father; where would I be without Him? When I asked Jesus Christ to life in my heart, my life’s meaning and purpose became newly defined. Now 'I am/live/have my life in Jesus Christ' because He lives in me, and together we are in the presence of our heavenly Father - John 14:20.
At this culmination of a guide on the study of Psalms, it is appropriate that the resurection from death to life eternal is recognized. I would say that this resurection is the 3rd maybe 4th step in the plan, the plan of Salvation. What was and is the plan of salvation?
The plan of Salvation in a nut shell started with Adam and Eve sinning and falling short of the Glory of the Lord. God the Father and God the Son got together and formed a plan to save mankind from the wages of sin, which is death.
The Son of God was to give His life for our sins. If we ask for forgivness, repentence, for Him to renew a right spirit within us, and saring with others, we are part of the plan.
As expected with Our God, the plan has been executed perfectly. We are near the climax of God's plan of salvation, at least the steps on earth. God is still waiting because He sees the redeeming potential of mankind, in my humble opinion. Let's be apart of his plan, waiting and watching, drawing nearer to Him, and sharing our love for Him in living color.