Tag: Abundance

Thankful Worship

“choose this day whom you will serve”

“But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD”

” Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

 

Psalms 5:7
But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.

Joshua 24:15
And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

Psalms 55:16
But I call to God, and the LORD will save me.

Psalms 130:4
But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.

Acts 9:31
So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

Hebrews 12:28
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

1 Peter 1:17
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

Psalms 132:7
 “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool!”

Hebrews 4:16
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Choose this day whom you will serve, worship, honor and glorify.  This was spoken by Joshua near the end of his life as another reminder to those he was leading.  David said I will call on the Lord who will save me. And because he knew this and believed it he said Lets go to His dwelling place and worship Him.  These are summed up by the writer of Hebrews in Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.  How hard is it to stay near God?  What is His grace and mercy like to you?  What does it mean to worship Him?  How do I know if I am worshiping Him?  We must recognize that we by nature want to be separated from God and we must choose to draw near and stay near to Him.  This is a choice all day, every day.    When we make this choice we find or see more and more blessings from the hand of God and we are able to acknowledge and thank/worship Him. It is hard to stay near to Him without being in His word.  It is hard to find someone you are not looking for.  It is hard to thank/worship one you do not acknowledge.

Out of Darkness

“Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man”

Judges 3:8
But when the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the people of Israel, who saved them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and he judged Israel. He went out to war, and the Lord gave Cushan- rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand. And his hand prevailed over Cushan- rishathaim. So the land had rest forty years. Then Othniel the son of Kenaz died.

1 Samuel 12:10
And they cried out to the Lord and said, ‘We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, that we may serve you.

Psalms 106:44
Nevertheless, he looked upon their distress,
when he heard their cry.
For their sake he remembered his covenant,
and relented according to the abundance of his steadfast love

Psalms 107:13
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death,
and burst their bonds apart.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
for his wondrous works to the children of man

 

These scriptures tell of His abundant steadfast love. Does God’s love change? Definitely not. We find ourselves in times of trouble and wonder how did we get there.  It seems we have a desire to serve things that please us.  If our heart desire is to find satisfaction outside of God and His purpose for our life, this path will lead us to false hope and illusions.  It is sad to see how easy it is to drift away from God into places of unrest for our soul. We can easily follow our sinful nature and the culture we live in but the fact remains that we were created by the one true triune God.  Doesn’t it seem strange that we choose to live apart from His love and purpose for our lives.  We are not immune to this.  I think this is why He has created a body of believers who help each other when trials and trouble comes our way.  We are to encourage each other with our faith, worship, and love.  We demonstrate this through our actions which point to God the purpose of our being.  Be an encouragement to someone today. Speak God into their life.

Over and Over

“Make them known to your children and your children’s children”

Judges 3:7
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asheroth

Deuteronomy 4:9
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—

Deuteronomy 32:18
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
and you forgot the God who gave you birth

Psalms 78:11
They forgot his works
and the wonders that he had shown them

Psalms 106:7
Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,
did not consider your wondrous works;
they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,
but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea

It seems like the theme this week has been the same over and over again – Unmindful – Forgetting God – Not Remembering – Following what they deemed best in their own eyes – Rebelling – Doing evil in the sight of God.      I keep thinking that it does not have to be this way.  We do have a choice in the matter of serving God.  However we seem to like to choose self over God.  Me, myself, I are always wanting to put self first.  Do I assume I know best?  Do I think I am able to find satisfaction away from God?  I have no idea why self keeps pushing to the forefront but I do know that I find life more fulfilling with God leading.  A  good start for every day would be for us to chose to  humbly serve God every day. Keep in mind that self wants to be first and we need to die to self every day.

One Person at a Time

Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart

Nehemiah 9:35
Even in their own kingdom, and amid your great goodness that you gave them, and in the large and rich land that you set before them, they did not serve you or turn from their wicked works

Deuteronomy 28:47
Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything

Does history repeat it’s self?  Think about the time of Israelites and how they reacted to God’s goodness.  In this time of abundance and goodness they chose not to serve God.  In fact they chose to actually turn away from.  Why????  It seems apparent that every time they are in great distress they sought out God and there was a time of re-commitment to serve and follow Him and His ways.  Yet in time of abundance it took less than one generation to fall away.  So how does a culture fall way from serving and following Him – ONE PERSON AT A TIME.   Think about it in our own life.  Are we accepting more and more of what the culture around us is doing to the point where we embrace it as being ok.  Do we speak up? Do we lead? Or do we just blindly follow?  There are a couple of reasons we fall away – we don’t spend time in His word and because of this we have no means of comparing the culture and what is accepted in it to what God clearly sets.  We have no excuse – God’s word is fully available to each one of us and as it only takes one person at a time to lead a culture away from God so it is also true that one person at a time leading a culture toward Him.