Sunday Psalm • Psalm 113

Hallelujah!

You who serve God, praise God!

Just to speak His name is praise!

Just to remember God is a blessing —

now and tomorrow and always.

From east to west, from dawn to dusk,

keep lifting all your praises to God!

God is higher than anything and anyone,

outshining everything you can see in the skies.

Who can compare with God, our God,

so majestically enthroned, 

surveying His magnificent heavens and earth?

He picks up the poor from out of the dirt,

rescues the wretched who've been thrown

out with the trash, seats them among the honored guests,

a place of honor among the brightest and best.

He gives childless couples a family,

gives them joy as the parents of children.

Hallelujah!

Counting on God's Rule to Prevail • Habakkuk 3

"God, I've heard what our ancestors say about You, 

and I'm stopped in my tracks, down on my knees."

 

Habakkuk 3:1

"Though the cherry trees don't blossom 

and the strawberries don't ripen, 

though the apple are worm-eaten 

and the wheat fields stunted, 

though the sheep pens are sheepless 

and the cattle barns empty, 

I'm singing joyful praise to God. 

I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God. 

Counting on God's Rule to prevail, 

I take heart and gain strength. 

I run like a deer. I feel like I'm king of the mountain!" 

 

Habakkuk 3:17-19

"But the person in right standing before God

through loyal and steady believing 

is fully alive, really alive." 

 

Habakkuk 2:4
•

All around is darkness,
no light can been seen,
no ray of hope comes
dripping into the shadows.

Crushing down,
the weight of it all seems
relentless, endless.

When will it end?

How?

Oh the effort it takes to turn!
Forcing memories to come,
putting pen to paper,
the list begins.

Remembering,
it starts to form,
deep in the cracks,
it begins, drop by drop.

Creeping up over the treetops,
the first rays of light
break into the night.

As the remembrance continues
shaky legs strengthen,
faith bubbles up
and arms begin to raise.

You are the same all powerful One
who spoke the world into being,
who destroyed it all in the great waters
and restored it to life once more.

You are still the God who makes lakes into highways,
turns rocks into water pitchers and shepherds into kings.

Before You my heart sings and my mouth shouts praise!
You are the One and Only God!

When I choose to remember Who You are and
All that You have done,
Light bursts forth and the darkness flees.
Living water gushes forth and brings new life.

Afternoon Praise • Psalm 138

Thank You!

Everything in me says "Thank You!"

I kneel in worship facing Your holy temple 

and say it again: "Thank You!"

Thank You for Your love, thank You for Your faithfulness;

Most holy is Your name, most holy is Your Word.

The moment I called out, You stepped in;

You made my life large with strength.

When they hear what You have to say, God, 

all earth's kings will say

"Thank You." 

They'll sing of what You've done:

"How great the glory of God!"

And here's why: 

God, high above, sees far below;

no matter the distance, 

He knows everything about us.

When I walk into the thick of trouble,

keep me alive in the angry turmoil.

With one hand strike my foes,

with the other hand save me.

Finish what You started in me, God.

Your love is eternal —

don't quit on me now.

~ Psalm 138 ~

Knowing the Meaning of Grace and Peace • Galatians 1

 

"So I greet you with the great words, 

grace and peace! 

We know the meaning of those words because 

Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we're in 

by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. 

God's plan is that we all experience that rescue. 

Glory to God forever! Oh, yes!"

 

Galatians 1:3-5

Their response was to recognize 

and worship God because of me! 

 

Galatians 1:24

•

Unmerited favor is mine.

Unmerited.

Nothing I have done, do or will ever do
can earn Your favor.

Nothing.

All is well. Calm has come.

Sweet peace is mine.

Because of You.

Only by You and only through You
can I have grace and peace.

Full rescue – unmerited favor and peace is for all.

Freedom has come for all.

Can they see as they look at me
the grace and peace
You came to give to all?

Do they recognize You in me?

Please, help me to fully accept Your
grace and peace – to live in them so completely
that anyone who looks at me will see You and
worship You.

Singing Myself into His Presence

Psalm 100 

On your feet now—applaud God! Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.

Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn't make him.
We're his people, his well-tended sheep.

Enter with the password: "Thank you!"
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.

For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever. 

•

I just wasn't feeling it this morning.

I wanted to have my usual meeting with You

over a cup of coffee and a side of toast.

But the night had been long.

Sleep still beckoned to my eyes, to my head.

The Words I read at first just laid there

on the crisp page. 

The dullness settled. 

Oh how it tugs at my very core.

Calling me to burrow down, 

to cover myself all up in 

the tang of sadness –

the melancholy wants me

to stay, to dive deeper.

•

A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek;
   I want to drink God,
      deep draughts of God.
   I'm thirsty for God-alive.
   I wonder, "Will I ever make it—
      arrive and drink in God's presence?" 

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?
      Why are you crying the blues?
   Fix my eyes on God—
      soon I'll be praising again.
   He puts a smile on my face.
      He's my God.  

Psalm 42:1-3, 5

•

Give me your lantern and compass,
      give me a map,
   So I can find my way to the sacred mountain,
      to the place of your presence,
   To enter the place of worship,
      meet my exuberant God,
   Sing my thanks with a harp,
      magnificent God, my God.

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?
      Why are you crying the blues?
   Fix my eyes on God—
      soon I'll be praising again.
   He puts a smile on my face.
      He's my God. 

Psalm 43:3-5

•

Turning from that bitter-sweet sadness

can be so hard.

Why?

Why does is my heart drawn to sadness?

Why does my heart want to sing the blues?

I choose You, Lord.

You teach my heart to sing.

You lift my head and help me see the beauty – 

the sunshine, the green leaves waving in the breeze,

the sleepy smiles of my kids as they crawl from bed...

You are with me. 

You hear my cry.

I will enter Your gates with thanksgiving,

I will enter Your courts with praise.

I will sing myself into Your presence.

Simply and Honestly Myself • John 4

"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God.

Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.

That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for:

those who are simply and honestly themselves before Him in worship.

God is sheer being itself — Spirit.

Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being,

their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."

  John 4:23-24

"Come see a man who knew all about

the things I did, who knows me inside and out."

John 4:29
 

•

Somehow in my life I have had a misunderstanding

that the Lord has been clearing up for me in the last few years. 

I knew that He made each one of us uniquely and special

in His sight, as it says in Psalm 139, and I, of course,

grasped that each one of us is different and have different gifts.

But somehow, I did not get that it is good and right

that we discover who we are and live out who we are fully.

  I kept seeing other people's strengths and gifts

and what they enjoyed doing and thought 

that I was supposed to be those things.

As I read Jesus' words here, I am coming away with that 

we are worshipping Him when we are pursuing truth and walking in it.

As I live my life in truth - discovering how He made me

(my strengths, my weaknesses, what fills my cup)

and then walking in my strengths and letting Him work

through my weaknesses -  I find my life becoming an act of worship.

I need to be who God made me to be. 

Not someone else! 

That brings glory to Him and is worship.