Sing His Praise

Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth! Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness. (Psalms 96:1-13 ESV)

With this psalm, the psalmist is telling us to sing the Lord’s praises every where we go for He alone is worthy to be praised.

But the psalmist also tells us not to do this the same way we have always done it. The psalmist starts the dissertation with sing to the Lord a new song… Not the same old same old, but a new song! We are to not always do it the way we always have, but to do it a new way, led by the spirit to sing about His love, mercy and grace for all the world!

Are you in your right mind?

Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us, so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all,that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:11-17, ESV)

Have you ever heard the old saying that only left handed people are in their right mind? The right side of the brain supposedly controls the left side of the body and the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, so left handed people are controlled then by the right side of their brain. But is that what Paul is talking about here?

We know that left handed and right handed people are different, they do things differently and think about things differently. But so do many right handed people. We all seem to be controlled by something, so what is that?

Our intuition, or is it something else? Some people are more passionate and artsy, and creative it seems than others, but they are not all left handed. We are driven by our inner desires to achieve something, be that notoriety, or success. We are driven to be the best we can be, and these desires lead us to follow our intuition, but maybe our intuition is not what we should be following.

Paul tells the Corinthians if we are beside ourselves, then we are doing what we need to be doing. If we are outside of ourselves, and allowing someone else to have control over our life, then we will be doing what we need to be doing. If we are controlled by someone else, not our boss, or our friends, or our parents even, but controlled by God. Not a puppet on a sting, but a coworker with God in the kingdom. You see it is like this cartoon from Radio Free Babylon:

waste the day

You see Jesus is always there. We are not left alone, and we can only be in our correct place when we are controlled by Him and beside ourselves. If anything else controls us we are not following after Christ, and doing our own will. So be besides yourself and allow Him to have control.

Level it out..

20130529-195039.jpgAnd Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” (Luke 1:46-55 ESV)

This is a well known piece of scripture read every year by most people. It is the song Mary sings when she finds out she is pregnant and visits Elizabeth, or is it Elizabeth’s song… That is a blog for another time…

Today I saw brought the mighty down from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. God leveled the playing field in Jesus! Like it talks about in Corinthians 12 that all the parts of the body are equal, it is a lowering of the members we think are the most needed and a raising of the lower members so we are all on the same level. God has made us to be equal. No one is better than anyone else. We all have our part to play, that we need to play, but our part is not better than any other and we are all equal.

God made us and wants us to be on a level playing field.

Who is on your side…

20130528-185737.jpgIf it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth! We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped! Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. (Psalms 124:1-8 ESV)

Have you ever felt like something was just waiting in the wings, like this tiger crouched in the tall grass ready to bounce and pounce upon you?

Many things in our lives are just waiting in the tall grass to jump up and over take us. So why don’t they?

Our lives seem to take turns and go up and down, like a roller coaster. For instance our finances have not been the best since I have been on leave from call, and this past weekend I went to get a tire repaired and was met with, the tread is to low, we can’t repair it. The tires in question should have had 40,000 more miles of tread left. Of course they can’t warranty them. And new ties that would replace what we had would be $240… Our bank account hiccuped at even the thought of this. So I asked about lower tread life, and that was $170. My bank account still did not like that. So I left that place and went to another store, and here they had a lower tread life tire for $222 and 6 months Interest free on their credit card. And we just got $220 for mileage to an event we went to for our congregation. I also had to replace glasses for me and 2 of our daughters and that was $150.70. And I had just recently gotten $150 for being a supply pastor for a congregation. Many would say these are coincidences, but I say there are no coincidences, these are Godincidences.

You see we re not given over to the avenger, because we are not to be prey, when the Lord is on our side. So who is on your side?

Unity

20130527-130955.jpgBut grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:7-8, 11-16, ESV)

We have been given gifts to use for the better of the world around us. They gifts are for the building up of the body of Christ, but the gifts are also for the spreading of the message of mercy and grace to all of the world. We are each given a gift to us and no be can do what God has created us for.

We need to work through our gifts until we have obtained unity n faith and knowledge of Jesus, so until we are all one and agreed on everything about Jesus, then we have not obtained all maturity. How do we get to that point?

We have to learn to accept each other as we are and allow God to be he change agent. We can not make people agree with us, we can not make them act a certain way. God will change all,of us if we allow Him to work in our lives.

Remember we are all one tribe, we all came from Adam and Eve, and we are all made by the same maker. We have to be united.

Hope

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5 ESV)

We are justified by faith. Not by anything we have done or not done or anything we have tried to stop someone else from doing.

You see the faith by which we are justified is a gift from God and we have access to this through Jesus. Jesus is how we are justifies by grace. See Ephesians 2:8-10, make sure you don’t leave off verse 10. Even though we are justified by faith through grace so we can not boast by our works that does not mean that we do not do works.

And these works will lead us to suffer because these works of love will be things that the world will not like and they will persecute you for doing these works. But maintaining through this suffering will lead to you growing in endurance and this endurance will shape you and build your character in the way God wanted you to be. This character will give you hope. And it is this hope in the grace and the faith of Jesus to give us this gift.

So strive to live in the hope that God has given you. Live in the faith that nothing you have done will get you in to heaven or keep you out if you live in the grace and faith showing His love to everyone.

Glory…

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalms 8:1-9 ESV)

The glory of God is set above the heavens…

His strength is established and the enemy and the avenger has not place to stand.

Yet man is only a little lower than the heavenly beings. We are His creatures and He loves us and wants to protect us as a mother hen protects her chicks. We can hide in the shelter of His wings…

Man has been given dominion over the works of God’s hands, and therefore we should allow Him to have dominion over our lives…

Allow His glory to over shadow your life and live the life He has for you. Using His love to work His mercy throughout the world!

Differences in a photograph…

In these two photos there are 6 differences…

 

 

 

1. Changed the golden throne to a wooden chair …
Something more appropriate for
The disciple of a carpenter.

 

2. Did not want the gold-embroidered red stole,
Heir of the Roman Empire, nor the red cape…


3. Uses same old black shoes, not the classic red.


4. Uses a metal cross, not of rubies and diamonds.


5. His papal ring is silver, not gold.


6. Uses the same black pants under the cassock,

To remember that he is another priest.


Have you discovered the 7th?

Removed the red carpet …

He is not interested in fame and applause …

Every day we like
Pope Francis more!