Monday, 14 November 2022
PRAISE YOUR WAY THROUGH!
EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!
MONDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2022.
SUBJECT : PRAISE YOUR WAY THROUGH!
Memory verse: "But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel" (Psalm 22 vs 3).
Read: Psalm 67 vs 3 - 7; 145 vs 3 - 7 & 10:
67:3: Let the people praise You, O God; let all the peoples praise You.
67:4: Oh let the nations be glad and sing for joy! For You shall judge the people righteously, and govern the nations on earth.
67:5: Let the people praise You, O God; let all the people praise You.
67:6: Then the earth shall yield her increase; God, that our own God, shall bless us.
67:7: God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.
145:3: Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; And His greatness is unsearchable. 145:4: One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.
145:5: I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and of Your wondrous works.
145:6: Men shall speak of the might of Your awesome acts, and I will declare Your greatness.
145:7: They shall utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness.
145:10: All Your works shall praise You O Lord, and Your saints shall bless You.
INTIMATION:
Praise is to be ascribed to God, in respect of His glory (the exhibition of His character and operations). Praise is the expression to God of our admiration, appreciation, thanks, approval, and understanding of what He does—His creation, His blessings, His forgiveness. It is also to give great honor to God for each aspect of God's divine nature—loving, just, faithful, forgiving, patient, and the revelation of Himself to us. In praise, we outwardly express our inward attitude toward God. When we praise God we help ourselves by expanding our awareness of who He is.
Praise is vocal, it is uttered and should be offered in proportion to God's own Person. He is great—great in wisdom, great in power, great in His creative works, great in His redemptive acts and great in His dealings with us. Everything that God does is great and therefore should be greatly praised. Considering all that God has done and does for us, what could be more natural than outbursts of heartfelt praise?
Praise stimulates God into action. Acknowledging Him for who He is and what He does stimulates Him to take over our battles, and come through to us in our petitions to Him. Because it’s one thing God cannot do for Himself, He is very pleased when we offer our sincere praise to Him. Offering praise to the Lord draws His attention to us. Praise engenders the manifestation of God’s greatness, and the outpouring of His blessings on our lives. Praise brings God down in His Might to attend personally to our situation.
In our memory verse, we observe that God is "enthroned in the praises of Israel." The nation of Israel (the descendants of Jacob) was special to God because to its people God brought His laws, and through its people He sent His Son, Jesus Christ. Now any individual who follows God is just as special to Him. In fact, the Bible says that the nation of Israel is not a specific people or geographic place but the community of all who believe in and obey God; "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3 vs 28 - 29).
God's enthronement on the praises of His people was showcased when Paul and Silas were in jail in Philippi, where the jailor thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight they prayed, and sang praises to God. The Great God showed up in His Might, in response to the praises of His children; "And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands were loosed." (Acts 16 vs 23 - 26.)
Praise should be continuously offered to God as a sacrifice. In so doing you will realize that you won't take His blessings for granted. Praise God first in your prayer, then you will be prepared to present your needs to Him. Songs of praise focus our attention on God, give us an outlet for spiritual celebration, and reminds us of God’s faithfulness and character. Prophet Hosea said that in prayer and praise our iniquities are taking away; “Take words with you, and return to the Lord, say to Him, “Take away all iniquity; receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips” (Hosea 14 vs 2).
In our worship to God, praise does the following:-
(1) Praise first puts us in the right frame of mind to tell about our needs.
(2) Praise takes our minds off our problems and shortcomings to focus on God.
(3) Praise leads us from individual meditation to corporate worship.
(4) Praise causes us to consider and appreciate God's character.
(5) Praise lifts our perspective from the earthly to the heavenly.
(6) Praise prepares our hearts to receive God's love and power of His Holy Spirit.
(7) Praise brings God down in His Might to attend personally to our situation. Therefore, praise Him now and always, then He will come through to you.
Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that I may praise You all the days of my life for who You are, and all You do, and it shall be counted to me as righteousness, and Your blessings poured out on me, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.
PRAISE THE LORD!
The Marvel of Creation
Someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each of the seeds its own body. (1 Corinthians 15:35–38)
I have been picking up little things in Scripture that show God’s intimate involvement in creation.
For example, here in 1 Corinthians 15:38, Paul is comparing how a seed is planted in one form and comes forth in another form with a “body” different from all other bodies. He says, “God gives it a body just as he wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own” (my translation — the original does not say he gives to each “kind” of seed a body, but to each and every seed its own body!).
This is a remarkable statement of God’s intimate involvement in the way God designs each seed to bring forth its own unique plant (not just species but each individual seed!).
Paul is not teaching about evolution here, but he is showing how he takes God’s intimate involvement with creation for granted. Evidently, Paul cannot imagine that any natural process should be conceived of without God’s doing it.
Again in Psalm 94:9, it says, “He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?” The psalmist assumes that God was the designer of the eye and that he designed the way the ear is planted in the head to do its hearing work.
So, when we marvel at the wonders of the human eye and the remarkable structure of the ear, we are not to marvel at the processes of chance, but at the mind and the creativity and the power of God.
Similarly in Psalm 95:5, “The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.” The involvement of God in making land and sea is such that the present sea is his.
It is not as though in some impersonal way he set it all in motion a billion years ago. Rather, he is the one who owns it because he made it. It is today his handiwork and bears the marks of his Creator claim on it, like a piece of artwork belongs to the one who painted it until he sells it or gives it away.
I point out these things not to solve all the problems surrounding the issues of origins, but to call you to be utterly God-conscious and God-exalting and God-saturated in all your observation and admiration of the wonders of the world.
Sunday, 13 November 2022
THE SIN OF IDOLATRY!
EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 13, 2022.
SUBJECT : THE SIN OF IDOLATRY!
Memory verse: "Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10 vs 23.)
READ: Job 31 vs 24 - 28:
31:24: If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence;
31:25: If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much;
31:26: If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;
31:27: And my heart has been secretly enticed, or my mouth has kissed my hand:
31:28: This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above.
INTIMATION:
Idolatry is excessive admiration or adoration of someone or something. It’s someone or something which is highly revered, and becomes a deity other than God. Such deity or thing is known as an idol. Therefore, an idol is primarily an idea, fancy, or an image that represents a false God. It’s anything that substitutes for the true faith, anything that denies Christ’s full deity and humanity, and any loyalty that replaces God at the center of our life. It is also any human idea that claims to be more authoritative than the Bible,
The corresponding Hebrew word of idol denotes vanity (things of nought). The apostle Paul called it, “nothing in the world” (First Corinthians 8 vs 4). And an idolater is one who adores or idolizes someone or something, and is a slave to the depraved ideas his idols represent.
Idolatry is sin against God because it denies the supremacy of God and is a direct violation of the first and second of the Ten Commandments of God (Exodus 20 vs 2 - 3). It’s a sin of the mind against God that denotes lack of acknowledgement of God and of gratitude to Him. Many things can take God’s place in our lives. And such things becomes idols in our lives.
Idolatry begins when people reject what they know about God. Instead of looking to Him as the Creator and Sustainer of life, they see themselves as the center of the universe. They soon invent “gods” that are convenient projections of their own selfish ideas. These gods may be wooden figures, or they may also be goals or things we pursue, such as money, power, or possessions. They may even be misrepresentations of God Himself—making God in our own image, instead of the reverse. The common denominator here is that idolaters worship things God made rather than God Himself.
When God is not first in your life, you are an idolater. Something then must be first in your life. Now, check yourself; Is there anything you feel you can’t live without? Is there any priority greater than God? Do you have a dream you would sacrifice everything to realize? After haven checked yourself, do you worship God or idols of your own making?
Idolatry is making anything more important than God, and our lives are full of that temptation. Money, looks, success, reputation, security; these are today’s idols. Many “gods” entice us to turn away from God. Material possessions, dreams for the future, approval of others, emotional reactions, and vocational goals compete for our total commitment. Striving after these at the expense of our commitment to God puts our heart on created idols which is the sin of idolatry. They put away worshiping the Creator in order to worship the creation.
We are just as guilty when God no longer holds first place in our lives. When we think more about wealth, pleasure, prestige, or material possessions than about God, we are actually worshiping them as gods. Discipline awaits all those who continually put earthly desires above spiritual priorities.
It was for this reason that Jesus said it was very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God because the rich, having their basic physical needs met, often become self-reliant. When they feel empty, they buy something new to try to fill the void that only God can fill. Their abundance and self-sufficiency become their deficiency. The person who has everything on earth is not a sign of faith or partiality on God’s part, but rather a strong temptation to idolatry.
Job affirmed that depending on wealth for happiness is idolatry and denies the God of heaven. We excuse our society’s obsession with money and possessions as a necessary evil or”the way it works” in the modern world. But every society in every age has valued the power and prestige that money brings. True believers must purge themselves of the deep-seated desire for more power, prestige, and possessions. They must also not withhold their resources from neighbors near and far who have disparate physical needs.
To all believers the apostle Paul says, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry:” (Colossians 3 vs 5.) “For this you know, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Ephesians 5 vs 5.) The obsession of these aforementioned evil tendencies the apostle Paul says is idolatry.
Prayer: Abba Father, remove from me obsessions with created things, the works of man, and evil tendencies, and empower, me by Your Spirit, to live for You in righteousness and holiness without which it is impossible to see You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.
PRAISE THE LORD!
Do Not Harden Your Heart
To whom did [God] swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. (Hebrews 3:18–19)
Even though the people of Israel saw the waters of the Red Sea divide and walked through the Sea on dry ground, the moment they got thirsty, their hearts were hard against God and they did not trust him to take care of them. They cried out against him and said that life in Egypt was better.
That is what the book of Hebrews was written to prevent. Oh, how many professing Christians make a start with God. They hear that their sins can be forgiven and that they can escape hell and go to heaven. And they say: “What have I got to lose? I’ll believe.”
But then in a week or a month or a year or ten years, the test comes — a season of no water in the wilderness. A weariness with manna. And subtly a growing craving for the fleeting pleasures of Egypt, as Numbers 11:5–6 says, “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
This is a terrifying condition to be in — to find yourself no longer interested in Christ and his word and prayer and worship and missions and living for the glory of God. And to find all the fleeting pleasures of this world more attractive than the things of the Spirit.
If that is your situation, I plead with you to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in this text. “They were unable to enter because of unbelief!” Give heed to the word of God. Do not harden your heart. Wake up to the deceitfulness of sin. Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our great confession, and hold fast to your confidence and hope in him.
And if you have never even made a start with God, then put your hope in him. Turn from sin and from self-reliance and put your confidence in a great Savior. These things are written that you might believe and endure, and live.
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