Today's Reading August 21

This morning is a little bit rough. Friday afternoon I was led to believe that I would be getting a job offer yesterday. Late in the afternoon I was contacted and told that the answer is NO. Yes, I'm everything and more that they said they wanted. But .... It seems that the plant manager of one of the plants that I would have been responsible for supporting, located in the greater Dallas area, is unhappy that I don't speak Spanish. It appears that a large portion of their hourly workforce is, ummmmm, ''undocumented'', meaning illegal aliens from Mexico, something that had been concealed from me during my visit there. So, once again, an American gets stuck because the leaders of the nation refuse either to obey or to enforce the law.
I hope you'll forgive me if I'm just a bit bitter.
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This morning's passage is Psalms 119, verses 1 through 48. This Psalm is the longest of all, the longest chapter in the Bible, I believe. We will be here a few days.
My primary study Bible here has this subtitled as ''Meditations on the Excellencies of the Word of God'' . This Psalm is broken up into sections each subtitled with one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Thus verses 1 through 8 are under aleph, 9 through 16 under beth, and so on. That serves a couple of purposes, and this is a VERY long section. (It's also a neat way to learn the Hebrew alphabet - we once had a lady wanting to know where she could see some of it in order to make a banner or something : we told her to go look up this Psalm and she would find all the characters in the sub-headings in her own Bible. She'd never noticed before.)
The Psalm lives up nicely to that subheading as you will see. Just start with the first few verses and the direction becomes clear, I think.

1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.
4 Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5 O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!
6 Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.
7 I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
8 I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.
9 Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

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This evening's passage is First Corinthians Chapter 3
There is - or was, a few years ago - in a small church in Lousiville, Ohio, where my brother was married a number of years ago, a banner hung across the front, with verse 11 from this passage,

11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

It's a good one, and one frequently forgotten. We were in a Methodist church for a few years - we left for a number of reasons, but one was because the foundation seemed to be John Wesley, not Jesus Christ. We have friends in some of the Presbyterian groups, but too often the foundation seemed to be John Calvin, not Jesus Christ. We have friends in the various Catholic churches, but foundations seems to be the writings of the popes and long-dead clerics, not Jesus Christ. I myself came out of the Mennonite tradition, and too often the foundation was Menno Simons, Conrad Grebel, Joseph Amman, and old-world traditions, and not on Jesus Christ. I am not looking to cause more inter-denominational fights, there are enough of them already. But sometimes the heritage and the traditions are too much the focus, and not the springboard. Watch the foundation.