Friday slowdown

To God be the glory . . . 

This is one of the first recordings by Andre Crouch of his song that millions would sing and sing again. Many of us have been blessed by these words. 

Make His praise glorious!

Praise and tell others

Here's our last section (verses 16-20) of Psalm 66:

Come and hear, all you who fear God;
    let me tell you what he has done for me.
17 I cried out to him with my mouth;
    his praise was on my tongue.
18 If I had cherished sin in my heart,
    the Lord would not have listened;
19 but God has surely listened
    and has heard my prayer.
20 Praise be to God,
    who has not rejected my prayer
    or withheld his love from me!

The songwriter has changed from addressing the nations and peoples of the world, to speaking to "all who fear God." He issues an invitation to all of us to come and hear as he tells us what God has done for his soul. 

Like many of us can attest to, when we cry to the Lord, He graciously answers. Those answers to prayer illustrate God's goodness - to us, and to those who we joyfully tell. Those answers confirm and strengthen our faith in Him. And when we tell other believers, as the psalmist did, it strengthens their faith, as well.

Right in the middle of this passage, the writer gives us an important principle for prayers that honor our Father God: "if I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened." 

Another translation says, "If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear." It doesn't matter if we can stand up in church and reduce people to tears with beautiful prayers and eloquent, well-chosen words. What matters is in our hearts. Hypocrites can offer prayers that impress human listeners. God looks on our heart. We can't play games with Him. 

But wait! Before you get the wrong idea, this doesn't mean that we must be perfect before we can pray. In that case, none of us would be able to approach Him in prayer! What it means is that we must truly reverence God and desire to be holy. It means that we see our sins as He does, and we confess to Him. Then, cleansed by Jesus' blood, we can bring our requests to the Father.

And He will hear.

Let's make His praise glorious by telling others what God has done for our souls!

Glorifying God - as individuals

 

Verses thirteen through twenty speak of our individual praise to God. The focus shifts from group worship and praise to the one-on-one of our bringing glory to Him.

I will come to your temple with burnt offerings
    and fulfill my vows to you—
14 vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke
    when I was in trouble.
15 I will sacrifice fat animals to you
    and an offering of rams;
    I will offer bulls and goats. (Psalm 66:13-15)

It's said that there are no atheists in foxholes. I guess a lot of people today raise their eyebrows at the word and say, "What's a foxhole?" Old codgers like me know that in infantry warfare, men need to seek cover from the bullets coming from the other side, so they learn to quickly dig a hole just big enough to shelter them: a foxhole. When a depression in the ground and the tiny pile of dirt in front of it are all that protects a soldier from the enemy, we can be sure that he is probably praying that he won't be hit.

In the same way, when trouble hits, many people can be heard to say, "Oh my God!" These are people who live their lives without a thought or a care regarding Almighty God, but when something huge or distressing happens, the words pop out.

Lastly, we humans are great negotiators, aren't we? How many times have people prayed and told God "if You please can just help me," and then laid out something that they think would satisfy God in return for His help?

Now, how many humans actually follow through on those prayers and vows?

When the psalmist was in dire straits, he vowed to offer sacrifices to God if He would deliver him. Now, he's been delivered by the mercy of God, so the psalmist is following through.

There were different types of offerings in the Law. Many times, thank offerings included a portion that was burned on the altar and a portion that could be shared by the worshiper and their family and friends. These were sacrifices that emphasized the exuberant joy of thankfulness and the happiness of shared fellowship, at the same time that they offered thanksgiving to God.

The sacrifices mentioned here are more focused on God. EVERYTHING would be consumed on the altar. Kinda makes us think of a total dedication to God. The kind of gratitude that you feel when a huge and serious burden or threat has been lifted. The kind of thankfulness for when we feel totally, deeply, in debt to our faithful Father. The totality and lavishness of these gifts underlines the point that the whole list of sacrifices in the Law would not do justice to the gratitude this individual was feeling.

To apply this to our own lives, let's look at this in New Testament terms. Jesus Christ is our God-ordained, acceptable sacrifice for our sin; that's what keeps us apart from our holy Creator God. Jesus's body on the cross is the once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins. He is the only way we can approach God, and we can only worship in spirit and truth after we have trusted in Christ's shed blood. 

But there is another way that we can make His praise glorious. We should come into God's presence totally dedicated to Him.

Paul describes it this way:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. (Romans 12:1)

In other words, God's great mercy toward us should move us to be totally dedicated to Him. We will present our bodies, our minds, our spirits to Him as a worship and praise sacrifice. Paul goes on in Romans to say that this means we will not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. 

True worship, true praise flows out of our giving ourselves totally to God. 

Verses that inspire

 

The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail. (Isaiah 58:11)

This verse inspired me recently and I wanted to share it with everyone.

The book of Isaiah is written first to the people of Israel; it takes them on the long journey of God's plan of redemption. Their nation is called (and we are, too) to repent their sins and return to the Lord. They are reminded in many verses that a Messiah is coming. The prophet told them of the impending judgments that would befall them, but also comforts them with renewed promises of deliverance and restoration.

The truths of God's faithfulness are just as important and just as comforting for us today. He will satisfy our hunger and thirst for righteousness. He will guide us and teach us, and one day will welcome us to a home in heaven with Him.

We are held securely in His hand, and our parched souls have been revived by the Living Water. He is with us in the dry and weary land, and He will guide us through all of the scorched, burning places for a purpose: to draw us closer into His outstretched arms of fatherly love. He will give us a deeper understanding of Who He truly is, until we can say like Job that we know Him now in a way we never knew Him before.

Lord, give us grace to listen to You; be merciful to us when we whine and complain; comfort us with the knowledge that You will guide us and sustain us. Amen.

Praise Him for the trials?

In our passage for today, the writer of Psalm 66 tells us to praise God together when we see His providential goodness -- in using trials for our ultimate good.

Oh, wow.

That's one of those things that we'd rather not talk about, right? I mean, trials are not fun. In fact, they're downright painful. Let's read these verses carefully:

Praise our God, all peoples,
    let the sound of his praise be heard;

he has preserved our lives
    and kept our feet from slipping.
 For you, God, tested us;
    you refined us like silver.
 You brought us into prison
    and laid burdens on our backs.
 You let people ride over our heads;
    we went through fire and water,
    but you brought us to a place of abundance. (vs. 8-12)

These verses are like the psalmist was making us a sandwich. Right now, I hear you saying, "WHAT???" 

Yes, a sandwich. Nice, soft, delicious bread. It may be a "filling" that's not one of our favorites. In fact, it's one we don't like at all. Then another piece of soft bread.

It's a technique that we've had to use in business meetings. Nice to know it's actually an ancient practice!

So first, something good. Something that sounds nice. Then, the not-so-pleasant. The stuff we really need to think about. Lastly, another "good" sounding verse; one that makes us relax and thank the Lord.

Ready?

In verse eight, the songwriter invites all the people of the world to "bless our God" and praise Him. He says it is because He keeps us in life and does not allow our feet to slip. He brings up a mental image of our carefully placing each foot on a steep path, and reaching for the hands that will steady us. Those hands will catch us if we lose our balance, or if a stone rolls under our feet. God will not allow our feet to slip. The world can see that God keeps us; it's easy to see that He preserves us -- it's not that we are so strong and sure-footed! We can praise God for the fact that we're alive and that we've not fallen away from Him......that's due to His grace!

Now for the sandwich filling. The not-so-pleasant stuff like . . . I don't know. Maybe stinky cheese or meat that we don't like. 

The psalmist lists the ways that God has "tried" and "refined" His people, in much the same way that precious metals are refined.

• He brought them into a net. 
• He laid a burden upon them. 
• He made men ride over their heads.
• He made them go through fire, and then through water.

Some of those refer to their being in captivity, which is a "everyone is in the same boat" kind of thing. The fire and water can refer to that, or it can refer to individual trials and testing. 

BUT!!

The end of these terrible tests is in the last part of verse twelve: "But you brought us to a place of abundance."

The word translated "abundance" is only used ONE other time in the Old Testament. Want to guess where? In Psalm 23:5, where David says, "My cup overflows."  Filled to the rim. Flowing over the edge. Blessings in abundance.

Did you notice that the songwriter told us that God brought these trials to His people? He says several times that "You" meaning God, made things happen. These experiences didn't happen by accident. It wasn't because of bad luck, or that they lost their lucky rabbits' feet. 

Next, and this is an important point to remember: even though God does these things through evil people, He will judge them for their sin and He is not responsible for the evil. That's really important, especially when an agnostic or atheist wants to pin us down on this concept. 

To really explain this, let's look in the book of Job, OK?

Satan afflicted Job by wiping out his possessions, killing his children, and destroying his health. Job attributed everything to the Lord:

"The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away." (Job 1:12b)

In Job, we read that the Sabeans were used by Satan to slaughter Job's servants, steal his livestock and more. They were responsible for their terrible crimes. Job knew the truth - God was not responsible for any evil in the whole situation. But it's correct to say that He is the One Who did it.

In the same way, here in the Psalms, the writer is talking about when the Lord used a pagan army to ride "roughshod" over His people - for the purpose of refining them. The pagans were sinful. They were sinning when they did this, and they were to be judged for it. But God was without sin and used it for His own sovereign purpose.

That purpose? God brings difficult trials on us through sinful people for our good. His final purpose is to bring us into a place of abundance.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

It's important to submit to God's dealings with us. Hebrews 12 tells us that we should take this seriously and not faint when He reproves us. We must remember that He disciplines us for our good, because He loves us as a Father.

We can (through faith) make His praise glorious even in our trials, as we trust Him to accomplish the best for us.

Friday slowdown

Make His praise glorious!

Give Him glory because He redeemed us

Come and see what God has done,
    his awesome deeds for mankind!
6 He turned the sea into dry land,
    they passed through the waters on foot—
    come, let us rejoice in him.
7 He rules forever by his power,
    his eyes watch the nations—
    let not the rebellious rise up against him. (Psalm 66:5-7)

We can't help but praise Him and spread His glory to all, when we think of how He's redeemed us and how He rules our world!

One of our kiddos has always been entranced by the films and documentaries narrated by Sir David Attenborough. I must agree with her that his quiet words have kept my attention as he narrated the lives of tiny bugs and bacteria, and gargantuan animals and whales. The series that Attenborough wrote and narrated, "Life," was a showcase of spectacular photography of the beautiful world that we live in. (Personally, I just turn my head when one critter starts chomping on another, but the other stuff is lovely to see.) 

It always makes me wonder how anybody can watch a film like that, or just walk around on our planet, and think to themselves, "Gee, isn't it wonderful that all of this just happened by chance?" It's amazing, but they do think (and say) that.

That boggles my mind. To me, it should cause every single person to praise God for this amazing creation! But actually, very few people who watch a sunrise, admire the blooming plants, or enjoy the sights of the animals He lovingly created, will have that response. 
Why?

Because very few have bowed their hearts in submission to the loving, sovereign Lord of creation. They neglect the praise of God and blindly overlook the work of His hands. The psalmist in this song asks us to think of God's awesome power in parting the Red Sea (during the exodus from Egypt) and again forty years later in parting the Jordan River (when they passed into the Promised Land).

Perhaps these are such familiar stories to us that we treat them casually. We may take them for granted. But these were stupendous miracles! And all of the surrounding nations heard about them and talked about the strange situation of a nation whose God took a personal interest in them, and worked miracles in their behalf. 

We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed. (Joshua 2:10, NIV)

Rahab, though, was the only one who realized that their God was "the God of heaven and earth below" (Joshua 2:11). It was she who repented and humbled herself before the Lord. She hid the spies, and then asked them to promise before they went on their way, that she and her family would be safe in the coming siege.

There are other verses in the Old Testament that remind us of the exodus and God's mighty power in redeeming His people. The armies of the Pharaoh were not a problem for YAHWEH.

To apply this to our lives, our praise should also call attention to God's redemption of His people. We must tell others the message of the cross of Jesus Christ. Christ, the sinless Son of God, gave Himself to redeem us from our sins; He was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven. He will return in power and glory to the earth - He is our only hope of eternal life with God.

The psalmist also reminds us that even though it may seem that the nations and individual people are operating outside His control, that's not true. He says in verse seven:

He rules forever by his power,
    his eyes watch the nations—
    let not the rebellious rise up against him. (v. 7)

God is in control and is coming back to "judge the earth." (Psalm 98:9) He works all things out according to His purposes, and His Words accomplish what He desires.

so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

Let's remember His redeeming love and His sovereignty over all the world. Let's praise our God for His mighty love, and His grace to us!