singers – Praying Pint

4.h. Commitment, covenant, oath “to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age”

Nehemiah 10:28 “The rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who have separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding, join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his rules and his statutes. We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land or take their daughters for our sons. And if the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. And we will forego the crops of the seventh year and the exaction of every debt.

Deuteronomy 29:12-14    so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the LORD your God, which the LORD your God is making with you today,  that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.  It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant,

Psalms 119:106    I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules.

2 Kings 23:3  And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.

John 15:14    You are my friends if you do what I command you.

Titus 2:11-14   For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,  training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,  waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,  who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

It was common for people to enter into a covenant before God by an oath that was recorded. They also included a curse to be carried out against themselves should they abandon, disregard, forsake, or pay no attention to the oath. In this covenant oath, the people committed to walk in God’s Law and observe all of the commandments, rules, and statues. How many times does one generation make a covenant and another fall away? How many times does a parent make a covenant and their children fall away? What causes a person to come to a place of making a covenant? What happens in a person’s life that causes them, or allows them to disregard an oath/covenant with Jesus Christ? What is it that makes walking away from or giving no thought to the covenant bond with Jesus Christ? What happens in a person’s life that allows them to become lukewarm in their covenant walk with Jesus Christ? How does this all happen? How does the flame go out?

We could all give lists that would include, busyness, job and family responsibilities, church leader and member hypocrisy, health or financial or relational trials/troubles, and cultural and societal influences. These are not the root cause of the walking/sliding/turning away. The root cause is in our heart, mind, and soul. This is where commitment is made, followed, respected, held on to, submitted to, and cemented into every aspect of our life. It is a light that gives us a clear view of the decisions we are facing. It is a light that clarifies the path we should take. It is the light that exposes the wrong thoughts, actions, and words. God’s word is a bright light that illuminates Jesus Christ the light of the world.

When our heart, mind, and soul are given to something else we lose the influence of the light of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in our life. The light goes out and in this darkness, the covenant bond with Jesus Christ is slowly put aside and soon forgotten. In this darkness, new priorities arise that disregard the covenant bond with Jesus Christ. In this darkness, we confuse worldly with Godly, good and bad, right and wrong, truth and false, humility and pride, generosity and greed, forgiveness and resentment, humbleness and jealousy, and obedience and complacency. None of us are immune to these attacks from the influences of our sinful nature. This is the battle between the light of the world and the darkness of sin. Sometimes it is a battle we do not even know we are in because we confuse the darkness with light. It is a battle we can never win on our own. It is a battle within our heart, mind, and soul, that is won in and through Jesus Christ.

We will do well to take serious the faith oath covenant we made by faith in and through belief in, reliance on, and clinging to Jesus Christ. It is not too late. There is still hope to come back into the light of Jesus Christ. Confess, repent, and run to Him with a heart, mind, and soul commitment. Stay in His word. Desire and seek to be led by it. Continually hold fast to it and begin anew a life long journey of humble service, honoring, glorifying, following, and obeying Jesus Christ.

3.p. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night

Ezra 7:6 Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the Lord, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.

And there went up also to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers, and the temple servants. And Ezra came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king. For on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylonia, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, for the good hand of his God was on him. For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

This is a copy of the letter that King Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, a man learned in matters of the commandments of the Lord and his statutes for Israel: “Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the Law of the God of heaven. Peace. And now I make a decree that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of your God, which is in your hand,

1 Samuel 7:3     And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

Psalms 1:2    but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

Psalms 119:96-100     I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad. Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.  Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.  I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.  I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.

Matthew 5:19    Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 7:24   “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

2 Timothy 4:2    preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

Ezra set his heart to study, to do, and to teach the word of God. If we just set our heart to read God’s word but are not actively thinking about it and wanting to apply it into our life then it has a very limited chance of influencing how we think, what we say, and how we live. intentionally choosing to be influenced and led by God’s word will have an impact on our conduct, faith in action, prayer, and what we think about. Our thoughts will be on God. Our actions will be directed by His word. Our eyes and ears will be open to see and hear His whispers of leading, encouraging, strengthening, guiding, and giving us wisdom and knowledge to discern eternal from temporal, life-giving from life-taking, heavenly from earthly, holiness from sin, truth from false, refuge from abandonment, peace and rest from anxiousness, generosity from greed, humility from pride, heavenly service from self-serving, and faith from fear and worry. Studying God’s word is life-giving, life-changing, and eternity life benefitting. Our lives will be forever changed when it becomes the air and breath of our heart, mind, and soul.

1.r. What is the Glory of God?

2 Chronicles 5:13 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.

Exodus 40:35  And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

Isaiah 6:1-4    In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.  Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.  And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

Ezekiel 10:4  And the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the LORD.

Revelation 15:8    and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power,

Psalms 19:1   The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

How do you define “The Glory of God”?

Thesaurus – praise, worship, adoration, veneration, honor, reverence, exaltation, homage, thanksgiving, thanks.

Dictionary – high renown or honor won by notable achievements, magnificence or great beauty, wonder, beauty, delight, marvel, phenomenon; sight, spectacle

John Piper – Defining the glory of God is impossible, I say because it is more like the word beauty than the word basketball. So if somebody says they have never heard of a basketball, they don’t know what a basketball is and they say: Define a basketball. That would not be hard for you to do.

You can’t do that with the word beauty. There are some words in our vocabulary which we can communicate with not because we can say them, but because we see them. We can point. If we point at enough things and see enough things together and say, “That’s it, that’s it, that’s it,” we might be able to have a common sense of beauty. But you try to put the word beauty into words, it would be very, very difficult

The same thing with the word glory. So how shall I do it? You have got to try because we can’t just leave it for people to fill up on their own. So here is the way I am going to try to do it. I am going to take it and contrast it biblically with the word holy and ask, “What is the difference between the holiness of God and the glory of God.” In doing that, I think we get a little handle on the nature of this term, the glory of God. So that is the way I am going to try to do it.

The holiness of God is, I think, his being in a class by himself in his perfection and greatness and worth. His perfection and his greatness and his worth are of such a distinct and separate category—we have been taught that holy means separate—that he is in a class by himself. He has infinite perfections, infinite greatness, and infinite worth.

His holiness is what he is as God that nobody else is. It is his quality of perfection that can’t be improved upon, that can’t be imitated, that is incomparable, that determines all that he is and is determined by nothing from outside him. It signifies his infinite worth, his intrinsic, infinite worth, his intrinsic, infinite value.

Now when Isaiah 6:3 says that angels are crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty” — the next thing they say is this — “The whole earth is full of his” — and you might have expected him to say holiness. And he doesn’t say holiness. He says glory.

Intrinsically holy, intrinsically holy, and the whole earth is full of his glory from which I stab at a definition by saying the glory of God is the manifest beauty of His holiness. It is the going public of his holiness. It is the way he puts his holiness on display for people to apprehend. So the glory of God is the holiness of God made manifest.

Paul Trip – For any human being to think that they could capture the glory of God in a single artistic statement is delusional at best and vain at worst. To squeeze what is infinite into what is finite is vastly more impossible than trying to cram the entire body of the fully-developed elephant into a thimble. No matter how gifted you are or how hard you try, it just won’t happen!

No single drawing, painting, photograph, or verbal description could ever capture glory. Glory isn’t so much a thing as it is a description of a thing. Glory isn’t a part of God; it’s all that God is. Every aspect of who God is and every part of what God does is glorious. But even that’s not enough of a description.

People are glory-oriented creatures. Animals are not. People are attracted to glorious things, whether it’s an exciting drama or sports game, an enthralling piece of music or the best meal ever. Animals live by instinct and exist to survive. We live with a glory hardwiring and chase bigger and better things.

God built this glory orientation into us; it’s not sinful or against God’s will to be attracted to glorious things. Because of this glory orientation, our lives will always be shaped by the pursuit of some kind of glory. You and I will always be chasing something to satisfy the glory hunger that God designed for us to live with.

God intentionally placed us in a world jam-packed with glory. From trees to flowers to mountains; from mashed potatoes to steak to lemonade; from thunderstorms to sunsets to snowfalls – all of these things were designed by God to tingle our glory sensors. But, it’s important to understand that every created glory is meant by God to function as a spiritual GPS that points us to the only glory that will ever satisfy our hearts, the glory of God.

Imagine taking a family vacation to Disney World, and 30 miles out, you spot a sign on the side of the road with the logo and name of the resort. It would be silly to stop at the sign and have your family vacation on the side of the road! So it is with the glory of God in creation – it’s only a sign, directing you to the source. Don’t stop at the sign.

If there exists within each of us a hunger for glory, then one could argue that everything we think, desire, say and do is done out of a quest for glory. We all want what is glorious in our lives – whether that’s the fleeting glorious pleasure of a meal, the glory of recognition by peers or supervisors, or participating in the glorious work of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

Where we chase after glory can vary, but one thing is for certain: this hunger for glory will never ever be satisfied by created things. Even if you could experience the most glorious situations, locations, relationships, experiences, achievements or possessions in this life, your heart still would not be satisfied. Creation has no capacity whatsoever to bring contentment to your heart. Only God can satiate our hunger, and in satiating our hunger, give peace and rest to our hearts.