The Lord Inspires Praise

 

Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, "Stand up, take your mat, and go on home. because you are healed!" The man jumped up, took the mat, and pushed his way through the stunned onlookers. Then they all praised God. "We've never seen anything like this before!" they exclaimed. 

(Mark 2:11-12)(NLT)

The crowd's response to Jesus' miracle was immediate and spontaneous praise to God. "We've never seen anything like this before!" the people exclaimed as they recognized Jesus' unique power. We, too, should be moved to praise God, like these people, when we witness his great works. He alone wields absolute sovereignty over all things and deserves our worship.

MIGHTY GOD, we praise you for your greatness. We thank you for the wonderful deeds you have performed on our behalf. Move us to worship you in response to your magnificent deeds. Amen.

(from the Praise and Worship Study Bible - Tyndale House)

A Prayer of Worship for Christ, Our Mediator

 

O Lord, how great is the privilege of those who can look up with holy confidence to you. How blessed are they who have you for their friend, you who made heaven and earth and have all things under your government. We ask you to receive us into your favor, to adopt us into your family, and to make all things work together for our good. Amen.

Henry Thornton (1760-1815)

God Responds To Worship

 

And it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, "For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever," the house, the house of the LORD, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God. 

(2 Chron. 5:13-14)(ESV)

Scripture assures us that God notices and responds when we worship Him. That worship may be as formal and elaborate as the ceremony to dedicate the temple (2 Chr. 5:11-14), or it may be as simple and spontaneous as the worship of the early church, which often met in people's homes (Acts 2:42, 46-47). What matters most is not the setting or the program so much as the content of the worship and the heart attitude of the worshipers (Jn. 4:21-24).

It is interesting to compare the account of the temple's dedication in 2 Chr. 5-7 with the account in 1 Kg. 8. Second Chronicles provides less detail until it comes to the singers and trumpeters. Then it shows how the musicians' harmony in pitch and purpose brought the ceremony to its climax (2 Chr. 5:13), and how God responded by blessing the occasion and the temple itself with His glory and presence (2 Chr. 5:14).

The New Testament makes no mention of early Christians engaging in anything like the carefully scripted and rehearsed ritual that the Hebrews practiced. Nevertheless, God responded to the Christians' worship with similar assurances of His presence and power (for example, Acts 4:31).

So we are encouraged to worship the Lord in whatever ways are appropriate to the circumstance. He invites us to "come before His presence with singing" (Ps. 100:2)---whether that means painstakingly detailed ceremonies led by professional singers and musicians, or simple prayers and songs of heartfelt praise. Either way, He longs for us to "enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise" (Ps. 100:4).

(from the Word in Life Study Bible - Nelson Pub.)

The Revealing of the Wisdom of God

 

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 

(Eph. 3:8-10)(ESV)

The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians that "the world did not know God through wisdom"(1 Cor. 1:21)(CSB). The philosophy of the Greeks never revealed God, and the religions of men cannot find Him. Zophar, the friend of Job, asked him a question, "Can you fathom the depths of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?"(Job 11:7)(CSB). The obvious answer was "No". God has made foolish the wisdom of this world as men seek to discover Him through their knowledge and learning. (1 Cor. 1:20).

God's wisdom is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has been made unto us wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30); and in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden (Col. 2:3). However, the specific way in which God's wisdom is revealed is in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is God's way of dealing with the world's sin and making people fit for His presence.

To the Jew this is a stumbling block while to the educated Gentile it is foolishness (1 Cor. 1:18,23), but to those who are saved it is the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:18,24).

The true church is composed of all who have accepted the Lord Jesus as God's Son and their Savior. They have been baptized into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 1:22,23).

Through this body God is making known His wisdom to the angelic realm. The church is the intermediate agency. As angels watch the growth of the church they are learning about God's wisdom. Are they learning anything from you and me? This is a searching question.

(by Dr. R.H. Belton)

A Prayer For Guidance

 

O Almighty God, when our vision fails and our understanding is darkened, when the ways of life seem hard and brightness of life is gone, grant to us the wisdom that deepens faith and enlarges trust. And whenever the ways in nature or in the soul are hard to understand, then may our quiet confidence, our patient trust, our living faith in You be great...May we with a quiet mind at all times put our trust in You. Amen.

Harold Vincent Milligan

Why Seek A God Who is Beyond Understanding?

 

How great is God -- beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.          (Job 36:26)(NIV)

There are many things about God that we will never comprehend. What does it mean for God to be self-existent---to have no beginning and no end? Such a mystery is beyond understanding. But the fact that we can never comprehend God for all that He is does not mean that we cannot have a meaningful relationship with Him.

God has most fully revealed himself to us by sending his Son Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:1-3). Jesus said, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14: 9). By pursuing and cultivating a relationship with Jesus Christ, we come to know God through a being of flesh and blood. As Moses said to the people of Israel, The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever (Deut. 29:29).

(from the Quest Study Bible - Zondervan)

God's Word Endures

 

Now after the king had burned the scroll with the words that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah's dictation, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: "Take another scroll and write on it all the former words that were on the first scroll, which Jehoiakim the king of Juday has burned." 

(Jer. 36:27-28)(ESV)

The Lord specifically instructed Jeremiah to write out on a scroll a special message of judgment for the people of Judah. But the king of Judah did not like the message, so he cut the scroll in pieces and burned it in a fire. But this did not stop God's truth from coming to Judah, for the Lord simply instructed Jeremiah to rewrite the message on another scroll--with even more prophecies than the first scroll! God's Word will always endure, despite human attempts to destroy it. Let us praise God that his truth stands forever.

GOD OF ALL TRUTH, we thank you for giving us your Word. Help us stand firm upon your truth, for it cannot be shaken. By your Spirit cause us to understand your messages in Scripture. Amen.

(from the Praise and Worship Study Bible - Tyndale House)

A Prayer for Desiring God

 

O Lord our God, grant us grace to desire you with our whole heart, that so desiring, we may seek and find you; and so finding you, we may love you; and loving you, we may hate those sins from which you have redeemed us, for the sake of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033-1109)

No One to Turn to -- But God

 

The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among man...

But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. (Micah 7:2a,7)(ESV) 

Perhaps you sometimes feel that you have no one to turn to with your stresses and struggles. It is not just a matter of having someone to understand, but of finding someone you can trust.

Micah must have felt quite lonely as he faced the proud, powerful people of Jerusalem. Like Elijah (1 Kings 19:10), he probably felt as if he were the last faithful believer on the planet (Mic. 7:2). Wherever he turned he seemed to find people who were blood-thirsty, corrupted, treacherous, and deceitful. Even the members of his own family were not to be trusted (7:2-6).

Faced with such a world, Micah found reassurance in the fact that God remains in control and takes care of His faithful children, no matter what others may be up to (7:7). This truth can be a great hope for believers today, especially when we find ourselves in the minority, or even all alone among people who do not know or honor the Lord.

(from the The Word in Life Study Bible by Nelson Pub.)

The Lord Will Not Forsake Us

Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid of them! The Lord your God will go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor forsake you. (Deut. 31:6)

The Lord promised the Israelites that He would go before them into Canaan and would never forsake them. This must have been very reassuring since the gods of Israel's enemies were regarded as deities that could give the people only limited protection within their own territory. Imagine how the Israelites must have felt knowing that their all-powerful God was not bound by geography and would never leave them. We should be grateful today that we serve this same God who "never changes or casts shifting shadows" (Jms. 1:17). Praise the Lord that He is ever present and ever faithful to us.

FAITHFUL FATHER, you go before us in everything. We praise you for the promise of your presence with us. We thank you that you will neither fail us nor forsake us. Strengthen us to remain faithful to you in thanksgiving for your constant presence with us.

(from the Praise and Worship Study Bible by Tyndale House)