Category: Uncategorized

God is good! Really! He is far better than we humans imagine or can adequately express, although Psalm 103 does as good a job as any words written anywhere. He is truly worthy of all the praise we can muster. In fact, we must expand the praise of the Lord to involve the invisible and innumerable mighty angels of heaven.

God’s character deserves great praise: He is full of kindness, mercy, compassion, grace, forgiveness, and faithful love. God’s deeds deserve great praise: He has forgiven our sins, healed our diseases, rescued us from death, granted abundant spiritual and material blessings, executed justice when we were weak and powerless, delivered us completely from the guilt and punishment of our sin, and even mitigated the consequences of sins.

God’s goodness and mercy, and His awesome love and forgiveness, have overcome and driven out our spiritual enemies: disease and death, sin and misery. My life is eternally and greatly blessed when my spiritual enemies are not constantly bugging and tormenting me. My only response is to thank and praise, serve and obey. He has given me eternity to praise, but I don’t want to waste a present minute not blessing the Lord. Soul, do it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the believer is suffering wasting disease and impending death, despairing loneliness, emotional turmoil, spiritual distress, and threatening enemies he turns to God in prayer begging to be heard and answered quickly.

Part of the appeal includes a description of his terrible condition, his gloating enemies and his mourning for sin. A part of that descriptive appeal includes the complaint that God his Creator is eternal, not subject to death or to change, and he is not eternal and about to die prematurely. His God is merciful and He will keep His promises to restore His people, so he prays that the Lord would restore him, too.

Part of the appeal is simply to the character of the Eternal God: He makes promises, He answers prayer, He hears the cries of the destitute and dying, He overcomes enemies, and He will create new people who will praise Him in future days. Let Him record for the next generation the salvation He brought today.

We don’t need to remind Him of our need and of His character, but we have the privilege of enjoying our faith relationship with an unseen but ever present Lord. We need the prayer response to His grace to remind ourselves.

The king sings of God’s judgment and mercy and vows that he will rule and live as an example of God’s character. He makes promises to conduct his life and his court according to high ethical and moral standards.

We also make promises, vows and resolutions to live rightly and avoid sin. When repenting before God or others we make such promises not to do it again. We will remove and avoid temptations to sin. Vows made as part of penitence are good things. The problem arises when we fail again and again to keep them; then we despair and don’t promise again so that we don’t fail again.

Failed vows and promises lead many addicts and just plain sinners to give up on God and fall away. But we must remain persistent in daily repentance and faith and forgiveness, and repeating the vows.

Sin is too big and bad an enemy, too terrible a force and so life-destroying, to just give in. We keep asking for forgiveness and we keep asking, seeking and knocking for help in overcoming: “Oh, when will you come to me?” God keeps His promises, and He can help us keep ours.

 

 

 

 

 

All God’s people and all the people on earth are called to come to Him with praise and thanks, with service and worship, with joy and gladness. Come with nothing and receive everything in His presence.

For the Lord (Jesus) is God and He is good; he is all good; he is only good; he is always good; he is forever good. To say, “God is good,” is to say that the Lord Jesus Christ is the source of all that makes life possible and worthwhile. Yes, I experience both good and evil, but my blessed life is dominated by “good” because it is dominated (lorded over) by God.

He created me out of nothing (I didn’t evolve, I’m not here by chance); he saved me and made me his own (I didn’t decide by myself, I didn’t earn favor); he takes care of me and provides every need (I can’t take care of myself, I don’t even know what I need); he delivers me from evil and drives away my enemies (I am too weak to fight and too dumb to know how). The only response I have to my Lord’s goodness is praise arising from a grateful and believing heart.

 

 

 

The Almighty God, the Lord, can only be praised by His created people for He is King, He is great and high above the people, He is awesome, but above all He is Holy. We, as created mortals, cannot think of God as being anything other than “Holy Other” or also “wholly other.” He is so unique in His holiness that he is so different and special  and so far above and beyond us as to be unapproachable. God can only be feared and worshiped but not known. We can’t relate.

But He loved people, so He took the initiative to come to us and reveal Himself in ways that made Him available. Moses and Aaron and Samuel, for example, were intercessors for us and the Lord heard their prsyers. He does this for us finally and continually through our great High Priest, Jesus Christ.

And through Him, in His Name, Holy God hears us. God forgives Moses, Aaron and Samuel, and us. Thus He can answer prayers. But note that this God also takes vengeance on, justly judges, their wrongdoings.

A Loving God forgives Sin; a Holy God judges it. In the Cross He did both. The Supreme Holy God deals with us through the Cross.

 

 

 

The Lord God has been faithful to His covenant love and kept His promises: he has won the victory over all his enemies and ours; his salvation has been clearly seen by all people everywhere; all unbelievers have seen his righteousness; his mercy and truth to his people has been remembered and fulfilled.

Therefore, this Victorious God and Warrior King will be praised with joyful noise as loudly and raucously as earth and its inhabitants can make it. Now this Very God who won the victory is coming to judge and rule over the earth and the people He conquered; and He will do it right: He will set right everything that went wrong.

This victorious king has come into our lives and taken over: everything wrong is now right; everything crooked is now straight; everything dead is now alive; everything rebellious is now subdued to worship. Jesus is Lord. The kingdom has come: repent and believe the Gospel.

True worship, heartfelt thanks and genuine praise comes from, and can only come from, a heart that believes the Gospel. Faith that receives grace and forgiveness responds with praise, and it can’t be imitated. Sing a new song for it’s a new day with new mercies and fresh joy.

 

 

 

 

 

God the Lord is the Supreme and only ruler of the universe and He reigns with righteousness and justice over all the earth. For this all the inhabitants of the earth will worship Him and praise His Name.

The Lord has defeated all His enemies and established Himself as sole authority over all gods, demons, and all other would-be rulers of any kind over anything. This means nothing and no one has a right to my life except the One God alone. When I praise Him I give Him the right to rule my life. Sin, Death and the Devil will lie and attempt to get me to surrender my soul and my life to them, which I have done, but my Lord has rescued me from their right to rule and placed under His authority, the safe place to be.

God’s presence may be either to bless or to judge. He blesses me and judges my sin. I learn to love the Lord and hate evil. He preserves my soul and delivers me from the evil. He sends light and gladness from His sweet presence causing me to rejoice and give thanks. I relax and rejoice when Jesus takes over.

 

 

 

Praise, honor, glory and songs cannot be given to the Lord long enough or loud enough to be sufficient for the King and Judge of earth and heaven. He is truly king of all Creation and God over all other gods.

The difference among gods is this: God makes humans and humans make idols; God made people in His image and people make idols in their image of God.

The whole world should be told and know that the Lord reigns as King, and this King will come to Judge with righteousness and truth. One message to take away from this fact is that the Lord is to be submitted to, worshiped and obeyed. The Good News is that this King to whom we submit is the very One who loves us so much He died for us.

The second take away message is that this Judge is coming into our lives and into our very souls to judge the Enemy there and render his power null and void. When we praise Him we invite Him to judge our sin and set us free to enjoy His God-created, God-blessed and God-beautified life. We sing a new song for He keeps doing new things.

 

 

 

The familiar Call to Worship, “Come into His Presence with jubilation, excitement and anticipation,” is meant to stir up a faith response to worship and believe the God who is Creator, Owner and Manager of all that is; in addition, this Almighty Creator is also the loving Shepherd who takes care of His people. So come and enjoy God. What’s not to love?

Ah, but wait! When you come to Me beware of that old Sin Enemy, Unbelief. Come with the faith attitude of sincere intent to obey. “Don’t test Me; trust Me!” I will make your heart willing to believe Me enough to simply do what I say, whether it seems good to you or not. Rebellion and self-centered decision making will be set aside for you to enjoy My presence and live in My Rest. Today, come to Me and enter my rest. Worship in My presence and do not err in your heart by not trusting my ways, my timing, my plans, my love.

When Jesus invites, “Come unto me,” He also gives the faith required to receive the forgiveness of sins, appropriate the promises, and enter His rest. When He says, “Trust Me,” He gives the faith to obey.

 

 

 

A sinful, selfish humanity must have just judges and rulers in order to live peaceably and securely in a civil society. However, justice will never be fully realized among human governments as long as the Enemy, the Devil, is the prince of the power of the air and as long as Sin reigns in human hearts. The cries of unfairness and calls for justice will never cease among all the various groups of human interaction.

Sinners and enemies you will always have with you, but you will also always have with you the Just Judge of the world. To Him His people may appeal for vengeance, justice, and putting things to rights. There is a system of built-in consequences that unerringly works, and it is up to the faithful King who judges justly to make sure it all works out.

He knows how to work out things out for good, how to  get justice for all, how to deliver and save the helpless, how to lovingly chastise, how to answer our prayers for mercy and justice, and how to be our defense and refuge. The Lord Jesus knows, cares, judges, delivers, overcomes enemies, and in general loves you to pieces.