Serenade for the King

On March 10, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 14: 6

I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Sometimes we really do not slow down enough to take account of all the Lord has done for us. When the world is swirling around you, it can be very difficult to notice all of the kindness your Father has shown on you. When you really do take account of your life and all that you have, you will see His fingerprints on many things. You will see many blessings and many times He has protected you. You weren’t just lucky, you were blessed. When you really stop and take notice of Him in your life, you will find plenty to sing about. You will find plenty to praise Him over. That praise and thanksgiving brings you closer to the Father and you will find more and more to praise Him over.

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Relief

On February 1, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 61: 3         NIV

. . . a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Recently I listened to a CD titled Revival in Belfast by Robin Mark. The first track on the album is Garments of Praise. The lyric says, “Put on the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness”. I have listened to this CD many, many times but this time the lyric struck me as never before. I wish to share with you the revelation that God gave me.

Isaiah 61 is Jesus’ commission; it is what God called him to do. This segment of Isaiah 61 is part of what God commissioned Jesus to do; to give us garments of praise in place of a spirit of despair. The New American Standard Bible reads, “a mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.” When we are in despair, Jesus’ commission kicks in to replace that despair with a garment of praise. God’s Word translation reads, “the oil of joy instead of tears of grief.” Jesus pours the oil of joy over us to replace our tears of grief. 

As I listened to the song Garments of Praise I realized that I could elect to put on the garment of praise instead of my sackcloth of despair. I can choose the oil of gladness instead of tears of grief. I am not saying that there are not times of grief in our lives. What I am saying is that Jesus has already provided a mantle of praise with which we can replace the spirit of fainting. I learned, however, that even though Jesus has already provided for this exchange, giving us the garment of praise in place of grief, it is I who must don the clothing which he has purchased for me. 

God is our strength, He is the joy and the lifter of our heads. However, we have to choose to put on the garment of praise. When we do, we find that the He lifts the grief. He will get you through the toughest times of life but you must use the tools He has given you. He has already given you the garment of praise for that day when despair encompasses you. I find that some people think God has let them down in their time of need but He is there saying, “Look, I have already provided. Put on your robe!!” It must cause Him great chagrin when people do not avail themselves of all of the gifts, weaponry and tools that He has provided. So, when you are sad, remember that God has already made a substitutionary allowance. Start to praise, begin to sing and worship, you will find your relief in the garment of praise.

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Praise in Place of Fear

On May 7, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Isaiah 9: 2 – 4

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. Thou shalt multiply the nation, thou shalt increase their gladness; they will be glad in Thy presence as with the gladness of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide spoil. For Thou shalt break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor as at the battle of Midian.

Many people look upon the last days as days of darkness and they are afraid. Well, in truth, there will be great darkness and even now that is the case but the light prevails. I have read the end of the book as have you. We know how the story ends. Although there is great darkness in the world the light is even greater. Where darkness touches the earth, the light shall increase and shall disperse the dark for there cannot be darkness in the light. Do not fear days of darkness. Jesus is the light and He reigns!

Think of Paul walking on the Damascus road. Now there was a fellow who walked in darkness but behold, a great light came upon him and he was saved. There will be glory and praise in the lands of darkness because when the light comes there is no greater joy experienced by mankind. 

These people are under a yoke of deception and oppression but Jesus came to set all people free. There is liberty in Jesus and he is going to break the yoke off of their shoulders. Even today, people are getting set free all over the world even in dark countries.

We have a part in this great prophecy. First, we must not fear the dark. We should glory in the light rather than fear the dark. It is all about where our eyes are trained. If we are in fear rather than faith it simply means that we are looking at the wrong thing. Take your eyes off of the darkness and put them on the Son of light. Then your gladness will increase as the noonday sun. Secondly, pray for all peoples in all lands. There is great deception at work but the Son is the light and the truth. Where he is there can be no darkness and he breaks off the chains of lies. Third, there is great cause for celebration and praise. Glory in the Father of light. Shout His name and sing His praises for He is good and He has caused truth and light to be revealed in this earth. Glory to the Father!

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Thanksgiving

On November 27, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 95: 2

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I pray your day will be full of joy. Do you know the easiest way to insure that it will be full of joy? The answer is to inject it with thanksgiving and praise. When we enter God’s presence with thanksgiving, our hearts immediately fill with joy. Sometimes we are so busy that we don’t acknowledge all of the blessing that is ours every day. That is what makes Thanksgiving Day so special. It is a day when we stop and regard our lives and in so doing take notice of all of the faithfulness that God, our Father, fills our days with.

My encouragement to you today, then, is to not only come before God with your offering of thanksgiving but also to be loud about the multitude of blessing that He provides for you daily. Sing psalms and shout because He is worthy of our praise and because when you fill your heart and mouth with praise you minister to your own soul. Make a joyful noise to the Lord for He is good and so worthy to be praised. 

Have a great day!

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Incense Offering

On November 18, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Revelation 5: 8

And when He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

Today is a visual day. I want you to look with me at the golden bowls which each of the elders holds. Did you notice that they are full of a substance which gives off a sweet smelling aroma? That substance is the prayers of the saints. Can you see the aroma wafting up from the bowls and filling the throne room? The vapors reach the Father and He inhales deeply of them. Think about when you walk into a kitchen where someone is baking. Don’t you stop in your tracks and take in a deep breath savoring the pleasant smell? Or I think about when I drive by someone mowing their lawn. I take deep breaths letting the scent fill me until I can no longer smell it. 

Those pleasant aromas arrest our attention. You may be in conversation but you immediately take that deep breath so you can enjoy the scent. This is the way our prayers are to our Father. They constantly fill His nostrils with the most pleasant fragrance of all. I like the idea that there is something we can do which brings pleasure to our Father. It is no coincidence that all twenty-four elders hold a harp and a golden bowl. These are the things which please God; musical praise and prayer.

As I read this verse today I found that I immediately wanted to pray and put a prayer in the bowl which would smell exceedingly wonderful as it is offered. Not surprisingly, the prayer was much more about how great our Father is than what I needed Him to do for me. I will confess that I found the prayer very fun and even gratifying for me.

Picture, if you will, an altar in the throne room where we give our offerings to the Lord. Rather than the meat of goats and lambs, we offer up music and prayer. We give to the Lord not something that is external like a sheep but rather that which comes from within us; our praise and our song. 

I wonder sometimes if our Father is tone deaf because I have noticed that He enjoys us singing to Him no matter how cacophonic the sound. You don’t have to have a good voice, just a heart of love for Him. He hears sweet music when you sing and He smells sweet incense when you pray. You cannot sing wrong or pray wrong when you give your offering from your heart.

It is amazing that the God who created Mt. Everest, the Amazon River and every star and heavenly body in the universe can be pleased with something as simple as our prayers. It sure makes one rethink one’s theology. It also reveals so much about our Father. It is delightful to realize that we can give Him joy. Even better, it is really easy for us to do so. We do not have to create a masterpiece. We have only to appreciate that which is. So, let’s fill up those golden bowls and flood the throne room with a sweet aroma.

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The Sacrifice of the Heart

On July 2, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 50: 14

 “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving.”

 Psalm 51: 15 – 17

O Lord, open my lips, that my mouth may declare Your praise. For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Psalm 50 and 51 might best be understood when read together for they shine light upon each other. In Psalm 50 God is speaking and when you read the psalm in its entirety you see that God says the he owns all of the cattle, knows every bird and so on. He does not require Israel, or us, to sacrifice goats, sheep or cattle so that He can feed Himself. It was not the sacrifice of animals that He wanted. He said to offer Him a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

David responds to God in Psalm 51. He first prays that the Lord will give him a mouth full of praise then he goes on to explain that he understands that the sacrifice the Lord wants is the sacrifice of praise. He tells God that he would gladly give sacrifices of burnt offerings if that is what the Lord wanted but that he knows that is not what the Lord seeks. In truth, I would say that the burnt offerings were necessary because people would not give the Lord what He sought; hearts devoted to Him and mouths which offered praise and thanksgiving. David reveals to us that what God really wants are our hearts.

David spoke about the human heart which is acceptable to God in terms of being broken. He also speaks of a broken spirit. When you look up the word “broken” in Strong’s Concordance you find that it does describe something that is broken. It literally means to burst. Other synonyms found in Strong’s are crush, destroy, hurt quench. This was not what I expected to find when I looked up the word. I was thinking of a heart which is not proud or haughty, a humble heart and spirit so I was surprised that David used a word that truly does mean broken. There is one other term that Strong’s uses in defining this word which, I believe, reconciles both viewpoints. The word shabar (broken) means break down, in pieces, etc. but in it is the idea of rebirth. The Strong’s definition literally says “bring to birth.” This means that God wants to receive our hearts in such a condition that he can rebirth them in His glory.

We sometimes talk about people having to hit rock bottom before they can get their lives in order. Perhaps there is an element of that kind of contriteness in this verse. Remember that David has already prayed for God to create in him a clean, upright heart (v. 10). I believe what we learn from this is that which God wants from us is a heart which has been cleansed of the worldly mess and all of our preconceived notions so that He can write His truth upon it. God will create a new, glorified creature in each one of us but he needs that clean, white slate upon which to write. He is not going to argue doctrine with us. He is not going to battle with us over what the truth really is. He will give us all truth and wisdom freely but we must first give Him a clean slate upon which He can write. We must prepare our hearts in the sense that we must offer them to God with a willingness for Him to fill them with Himself and His words. We do not have to do any of the work to clean them other than pray and receive. Jesus has already provided the heart wash and stocked it with cleaning fluid. All we have to do is to decide to drive our hearts through it. That’s all but it is a critical piece of the process. We must first do our part and then Father, Son and Holy Spirit will take over from there.

 So this is the sacrifice that the Lord requires of us, our hearts. 

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Bless the Lord

On May 16, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 103: 1

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.

Let us stop and consider what this really means. What does it mean to you? Is this praise? I don’t think we ever can go wrong in offering praise and I believe that praise always blesses the Lord. However, I hear more in this entreaty than praise alone. The psalmist, David, sounds like he is pulling these lyrics and prayer up from his toes. He commands his own soul to bless the Lord and then He seems to rethink that statement. “Not only,” he might say, “do I demand that my soul bless the Lord but I want to bless Him with everything that is within me.”

This is one of those passages of scripture that is better felt than thought about. I say this because this is an emotional outcry from David and I do not believe we can connect with his sentiments or the words without tapping into something deeper in ourselves. This seems David’s course as well. He wanted His celebration of God to include every fiber of his being. He was reaching into his innermost being to express his great love for God. Have you ever felt that way?

I think when we desire to bless God we will tend to offer him praise and songs but I would wish that we would not overlook the full scope of opportunities to bless God. I wonder if there is any better way to bless Him than to simply say, “I love you Father. Thank you for being my Dad.” We can also bless Him by intentionally choosing courses of action that will please Him. I am thinking of the scenario wherein someone has caused hurt or offense in your life and you say to God, “You know what Father, I am going to choose to forgive that person because you want me to.” Surely He is blessed when His children behave in the ways He has directed us. I believe He is blessed when he watches us write our check to a ministry not because of anything we will get out of it but just because we want to be a blessing.

There are a number of ways we can bless our Lord and what David seems to express in this Psalm is a deep desire to avail himself of every single way he could think of to bless the Lord. His desire to bless the Lord may have even morphed into a deep need to be a blessing. Open that tender part of your heart today and try to connect with David’s heartfelt expression. Let everything within you reach towards the Lord and bless His holy name.

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